Gili Air

The Gili islands are three small islands off of the coast of Lombok. As the speedboat pulled in to Gili Trawangan it felt like a scene from Shipwrecked, however upon seeing the Bintang singlets we knew something was up; it seemed Gili T began where Kuta left off. We decided to try one more Gili and if it were the same we’d leave for Lombok.


Although only a 30 minute boat ride away, Gili Air was worlds away; it was like walking onto a paradise island. We stayed in an incredible bungalow (£8 per night including breakfast) which deserved a place in the Sunday Times travel magazine. The sea was tranquil, the island was beautifully quiet as there are no motorised vehicles on the Gili’s, and there was absolutely no hassle from touts. Also the fresh fish and juice were delicious. We spent our days diving, cycling around the island, chatting with the locals and eating long slow meals whilst watching the sea. The only drawback was the weather. If it had been hot we would probably have stayed until our visas ran out but unfortunately it was very stormy, so much so that we could not go to our next destination, Flores. So instead after a great week, during which we became advanced, Nitrox enriched air PADI divers, and developed an addiction to some penguin-like biscuits called Tim-Tams, we gave in to the weather and made our way back to Bali to catch our next flight.


We arrived at Denpasar airport not knowing where we wanted to go next, all we knew was that we wanted to leave that day so we went to the flight operator booths, reduced our options to a short list of two, Sulawesi and Kalimantan, neither of which we knew a lot about so with about an hour before both flights left, we flipped a coin, tails it was and Kalimantan was to be our next destination.