Living so close to Southeast Asia gives us the proximity to beautiful beaches. The Gili islands were highly recommended by a few of my co-workers and I am glad we took their suggestions. The Gili islands are a small chain of three islands about 1.5 to 2 hours from Bali by fast boat. Lombok is a larger island only a 15 minute boat ride from Gili Air. Of the Gillis there is Gili Trawagan, Gili Menos, and Gili Air.

All of the Gili islands have no motorized vehicles only horse and carts if you need a ride. The way the Gili’s were described to us was Gili T is where to go when you want to party, Gili Menos is where the honeymooners are because it is fairly undeveloped and secluded, and Gili Air is a good balance of the two. We chose Gili Air and Lombok for our time away from Bali. Our now outdated and old SE Asia travel guide had a website suggestion when booking a vacation to these islands (insert linked website name). I highly recommend it! They were very attentive to the type of trip we were looking for and how much we wanted to spend. We ended up going to Lombok for one night and staying on Gili Air for two nights.

The fast boat is similar to the Victoria Clipper (PNW reference): quick, bumpy, with a high potential for seasickness. We were told by a local that it was the least bumpy ride he had been on. They stop at each of the three Gili islands and Lombok before returning to Bali. It was a full boat with no seats to spare. We were in the back of the boat next to a talkative Australian couple. They were on their first vacation in years without their kids and proceeded to drink a half a dozen beers. It was impressive that they were not sick, but apparently there is an Australian stereotype about being able to hold liquor, so the husband was living up to the stereotype. He was friendly and we had a pleasant conversation. There was also a nice local who was visiting home during his winter break from studying in Berlin. We ended up sharing a taxi with the local once we got to Lombok.

Lombok is a large island with many natural features, but we were only staying one night at the first “major city” outside the port, Senggigi. At some point we would like to go back and hike as there are so many pretty areas, waterfalls, beaches, etc.. that we did not have the time to visit. Calling Senggigi the first major city is somewhat of a misnomer because you can walk through the town in about 10 minutes. The city was also still recovering from an earthquake. In (insert date here) there was a large earthquake and many buildings were badly damaged. The were areas along the road where it is clear that there used to be a hotel-shop-restaurant there, but it either could not recover from the earthquake and was abandoned or was in the slow process of being rebuilt. It was interesting to see all the piles of concrete or badly damaged buildings along side these perfectly functioning ones.

The travel company had booked us a room at a place called Puri Mas. I did not think much of it, nor did I do any research until we got there and I realized that visiting off-season allows you to book amazing swanky hotels for cheap. Our room had it’s own private outdoor patio and wading pool. The bathroom was almost as big as the room itself with a giant soaking tub and separate shower. At first glance, I thought maybe there was a mistake, because we did not request this kind of luxury.

The hotel grounds were beautifully manicured full of interesting cultural artifacts and flowers. It turns out that the owner of the hotel had originally started to build it as his house, but due to Indonesian law since he was a foreigner, in order to build it he needed to have a business, so the hotel was born. He was a world ballroom dance champion in his younger years and gives back to the community by offering dance classes to the local youth at the ballroom on the hotel grounds.

Upon arrival we went to town to eat a late lunch. The taxi driver recommended a place called Blue Ocean or Ocean Blue I am not sure. It was right on the beach. We got a chance to pick our fish from the tanks they had and they cooked up a tasty curried fish and stir fried veggies. After eating we walked back to town which was about 20 minutes as the restaurant was on the outskirts. That was when we saw the varied response to the earthquake damage.

Back at the hotel, we wanted to go for a swim and watch the sunset before dinner, which we decided to have at the hotel restaurant. The sunset from the infinity pool was a beautiful moment that we shared with the bartender. There were some other guests at the hotel, but it was pretty quite, so when we went to swim and watch the sunset we had the pool to ourselves. The sunset will never get old, especially with the ocean in the background… what can I say other than I am my Mother’s daughter and I have an familial instilled love of the ocean.

Dinner was delicious along with the included breakfast the following morning. We had a leisurely morning at the hotel before regretting our only one night stay and headed back to the port for our next island adventure. It was a 15 minute ride from Lombok to Gili and then we took a step back in time before the invention of motorized vehicles… but I will leave that adventure for the next post ;).