Gili Air

Our next destination was the small island of Gili Air, which belongs to the larger island of Lombok east of Bali, along with the other two "Gili" islands (Meno and Trawangan). We took a bus to the harbor in Bali and from there continued by boat to Gili Air, accompanied by good music, good weather, and good beer. Our accommodation was one of the most beautiful we had on our trip so far. The host Zakki has created a small wonderland on this already paradisiacal and relaxed island. He owns several bunnies, there are coconut palm trees, lime and cashew nut trees in the garden, and when they are in season, you can also harvest mangos. We felt immediately comfortable and spent many hours together with Zakki in his favorite restaurant - he is vegan himself - or enjoying his self-cooked curry in the accommodation, talking about religion, veganism, animals, and travel. Among other things, we asked him if there are animal rights in Indonesia. He smiled and said that there haven't even been human rights for very long. And then he said seriously that unfortunately there are no rights for animals, which we had already thought about during our trip through Indonesia. There are many horse-drawn carriages on Gili Air, as there are hardly any motorized vehicles on the island except for a few electric scooters. Most of the horses looked healthy, but they often stood in the sun and seemed desolate. But that's just a traditional part of Gili Air, which we really liked apart from that. Especially the fact that there are no gas stations and therefore no normal scooters or cars is cool. Everyone walks or rides bicycles through the small streets, without exhaust fumes and traffic jams. Zakki told us about his initial difficulties in getting his bungalows up to par because there is a lot of corruption in Indonesia, and some things are only done when a few bills change hands. But he doesn't want to support this system and waits longer, for example, for the internet connection. He told us that he used to be a real political activist. In general, we felt that he has a very strong personality and tries to stand up for his beliefs despite all obstacles, even if it often deviates from the opinions of others. We found him quite impressive and enjoyed the time with him and the hopping rabbits very much.

On the second day, we started our diving course, which we had booked at the diving school where Philip had already been 8 years ago. Our teacher was Yunus, who has been diving around the Gilis and Lombok for many years and has a total of over 15,000 dives under his belt. We felt super comfortable and safe with him, not least because we were lucky to be the only ones in his group. So we had a private teacher just for the two of us. In the morning, we always went to the pool to practice, where we first learned to breathe calmly and evenly under water and he taught us the hand signals. Additionally, we learned more skills from day to day, for example, how to clear the diving mask underwater, how to control the depth of the dive with our breathing, or how to share oxygen in an emergency. In the afternoons, we took the boat and went to various dive spots with other divers and practiced the same things in the sea. Especially Jana had some difficulties with breathing evenly because she often held her breath as soon as she saw something interesting and then floated upward due to buoyancy 😄. Yunus and Philip always looked around searching for her whereabouts and discovered her a few meters above. It was always accompanied by a smile and the command to descend again by exhaling and then the reproachful shaking of the head that you must not hold your breath (which can actually be dangerous when coming up due to the air in the lungs expanding with the height). Over time, we got better and better at breathing and maintaining balance at a certain depth, and from the beginning, we had a lot of fun. In between, we had to watch instructional videos and answer questionnaires, on the last day, we took our final exam and received our certification. Now we are allowed to dive up to 18 meters worldwide. Underwater, we saw turtles, unfortunately not many colorful corals but many colorful fish, and among other things, we made acquaintance with a triggerfish that tried to attack us, apparently to defend its eggs. This gave us quite a scare, and we clung to Yunus, who kept the menacing fish at bay with his fins. We also saw the poisonous puffer and lionfish, large clams, crabs, surgeonfish (like Dory from Finding Nemo), many Nemos (clownfish) in their anemones, and many other underwater creatures in all shapes and colors. Overall, diving is really impressive, you can breathe normally and explore the wonderful underwater world and observe the animals. We had so much fun that we decided to take the deep diving course as well, which is actually part of the advanced course and allows you to dive up to 30 meters afterwards. The diving school offered it as a one-day training course independent of that. After the really exhausting diving course, we relaxed for two days by walking around the island and snorkeling once with a giant turtle that let us get very close and fascinated us a lot. And then we put on our diving gear again and went 27.9 meters deep underwater. Normally, you should see reef sharks at this spot, but unfortunately, we were out of luck - or maybe that's why 😉 - and besides the usual fish, we "only" saw a large shipwreck with a huge moray eel. But the highlight was actually the depth, which we both had great respect for. In the end, it was super cool, and now we are really enthusiastic divers! After that, we enjoyed our last evening with a unique sunset on the beach.

We really liked the island of Gili Air, the atmosphere is super relaxed but there is still a lot to experience. The people are very peaceful, even if the power goes out for one or more hours, they just continue - during that time, you just don't get any fruit juices because the blender doesn't work 😁 We were both enthusiastic about diving, and we will often think back to our two great homes - Zakki's bungalows and the Oceans 5 diving school. Now we are heading to Nusa Penida, a small island east of Denpasar, which belongs to Bali.