I arrived to Indonesia in mid-October to the island of Bali and didn’t really have a plan of what I was going to do. Diving, surfing, trekking and just overall exploring were all on my to-do list, so I had to figure out my days accordingly. I ended up only spending about three days on Bali before heading east to an island called Gili Trawangan with a girl I met at my hostel, Tracey. I’m doing more exploring in Bali toward the end of my time in Indonesia, so I’ll wait to do a post about the island when I do some more exploring!
Gili Trawangan (or Gili T) is the largest of three islands off the coast of Lombok, the next big island east of Bali. “Gili” means “small island”, so actually many of the islands in Indonesia have “Gili” in their name. Gili T has a reputation for being a big party island, so Tracey and I decided that we’d still check it out and could always move to the quieter island of Gili Air next door if we didn’t like it. Thankfully we were pleasantly surprised when we arrived and ended up really loving the island. I’m sure coming during low season helped with the crazy crowds.
To get to Gili T, we took an hour bus ride to the east coast of Bali and hopped on a ferry that took us straight to the island. This was supposed to only take four hours total, but in typical Southeast Asian fashion, we arrived about six hours later. We had booked two nights at a hostel called Beach Camp right off the main road, so once we got off the ferry we walked right over.
The nice thing about Gili T is that there are no cars or motorbikes allowed, only bicycles. Very refreshing after dealing with crazy driving in all of Southeast Asia. However, everything is too good to be true, right? They of course have a different mode of transportation to terrorize the streets with- cimodos. Basically a cart and horse, this mode of transportation is unique to the Gili Islands and Lombok. Each driver has a horn (basically a clown horn) that they squeak nonstop when they are riding down the road so people move out of the way. While it was entertaining at first, I really didn’t like seeing them on the roads as the horses looked so overworked and skinny.
First things first for me when I head to a place with coral reefs is to check out the dive shops. Luckily, Tracey and I met a girl at our hostel, Sarita, who had a friend that was a Dive Master and had come to do some diving on the island. We met up with her at at a dive shop called Gili Divers and she sold me on booking some fun dives with them the following day. I signed up for a morning dive at a site called Shark Point, which I was REALLY excited about because I still hadn’t ever seen a shark while diving. Welp, of course we didn’t see any sharks and I was bummed. We did however dive around a shipwreck, which was cool! Additionally, I signed up for an afternoon dive at Halik Reef to check out the coral and maybe have a second chance at a shark. Nope, didn’t happen. Nice diving nonetheless!
After my morning dive, I met up with Tracey and Sarita on the beach and did some snorkeling. So many turtles! I think after all the snorkeling we did during the week we must have seen at least 20 turtles. We even spotted a baby turtle swimming next to us!
The sunsets on Gili T are amazing. While most of the restaurants and hostels are on the eastern side of the island, it is really easy to bike and even walk to the other side. The hardest part is picking which beach bar you want to sit at, sip on some Bintang and watch the sky.
Apart from diving and snorkeling, it is really nice to rent a bike and ride around the island. Tracey, Sarita and I did this one day and ended up riding to watch the sunset. The island is really small and can also be walked in roughly three hours.
Holding true to its party reputation, each night a different bar has a big party, so everyone always ends up there as the evening goes on. We listened to some great live music at Sama Sama Bar multiple nights and enjoyed walking up and down the streets to visit different bars.
As the days went on I was deciding what my next move would be. I either wanted to climb Mount Rinjani, a volcano on the island of Lombok, or make my way to the island of Flores to do diving around the Komodo Islands. After practically pulling my hair out figuring out which trip I would do, I ended up deciding to do a five day scuba diving boat trip that sailed to Flores and I’m glad I did! I’ll have a whole post dedicated to my experience, but I absolutely recommend this trip to all divers. Even if you don’t dive, there are trips that only do snorkeling. Sarita ended up doing that trip and she said she loved it!
While Bali is the most well known island in Indonesia, there are SO many other places to explore. I definitely recommend making a trip to the Gili Islands to spend time snorkeling/diving, relaxing, and enjoying some paradise!