Our First Time In Bali – Gili Air (and the worst journey of our lives)
- Kelly McKenna
- Oct 21, 2017
- 6 min read
So to recap, we had five wonderful nights in Ubud and then three slightly more disappointing nights in Sanur before we headed off to the islands.
The Gili Islands are three tiny islands in Indonesia sitting between Bali and Lombok. They each have their own individual personalities – Gili Meno is the smallest of the three and is known as the quietest, whilst Gili Trawangan is the largest and the place where travellers generally go to party. Gili Air is kind of a halfway house between the two and seemed to be the best match for us.
By our last morning in Sanur, we were a little bit poorly. Rich had some kind of man-flu that was really irritating his sinuses and I was convinced I had heat exhaustion having somehow gotten sunburned in the shade the day before… We made quite the pathetic pair clutching our brown paper bag takeaway “breakfasts” that the hotel had given us for our bus journey to the coast.
I don’t remember much about our bus ride to the harbour, but my journal reads as follows: “Our journey to the fastboat was pretty horrendous. Our opinion of Balinese drivers only worsened during the experience.”
We took the Bluewater Express boat over to the islands and overall we would recommend them providing you don’t suffer from any kind of motion sickness. Our check-in was smooth and the boarding process seemed very easy. Being the wet season, the sea was a little bit rough and this was how I described the journey at the time: “After initial excitement, the boat seemed destined to make everyone on board want to vomit and more seriously Richards back injury from the previous week was really hurting him with every jolt of the boat. It didn’t help that James (Rs doctor brother) had advised us that if it was a serious fracture and it was knocked again it could cause paralysis and that we hadn’t been to a doctor to get it checked at the time.” Another classic chapter in ‘how not to travel’. Needless to say, we were very relieved, after brief stops at Gili T and Lombok, to arrive at the harbour on Gili Air.
Eeeeeek…
The Gili’s really are stunning and really very small, you can walk the whole way round the perimeter path of Gili Air in under an hour. As a result of this, they have no motorised vehicles and so we balanced our two huge overpacked suitcases and ourselves into the back of a horse and cart and set off down the mud, stone and fairly potholed roads to the middle of the island. I’m not sure if we enjoyed the experience, I’m fairly sure I spent most of the journey with my eyes closed convinced I was going to die. We arrived at the Manusia Dunia Green Lodge and immediately all of our woes from the previous few hours completely melted away.
The Lodge and Our Room
Welcome Drinks On Our Patio
The next couple of days were spent (mostly) in complete bliss; eating and drinking far too much, reading in hammocks and a few competitive games of chess when the power failed on the island – it happens quite frequently, cold showers are also something you get used to, but when it’s 80% humidity it really doesn’t seem to matter…
We witnessed some of the most intense rains we’ve seen on our trip during our time on Gili Air, fortunately we were mostly in beach bars or in our lodge for them. After lunch on our first day, we got caught up in a storm so huge that we were only about 200m from our hotel, but it took us about 10 minutes to get back from wading through mud and puddles and battling the rain coming at us sideways.
On our final night on the island, we went out for dinner at a restaurant called Scratch where we watched the sunset over the ocean whilst listening to their live band. We decided we weren’t yet spiritual enough to stay for the fire dance and we decided to walk back by moonlight (and the tiniest torch ever) to our lodge in the middle of the island. We hadn’t yet had our encounter with the snake (we’ll tell you all about it during our East Coast posts), so I wasn’t THAT scared, but looking back it was yet another example of just how unprepared we are when we travel…
The next morning, having given us two relatively nice days to explore the island, the rain was back with a vengeance. We piled ourselves and our (still huge) suitcases into the back of the horse and cart and took an even more terrifying journey back to the harbour. Alongside many other (much more prepared) travellers, we huddled in a tiny office and checked in for our boat and then proceeded to hang around in the pouring rain for approximately two hours. It was utter carnage at the harbour, about six boats were departing at the same time and no-one seemed to have a clue what was going on. Every now and then someone would shout the name of a boat and hundreds of people would shuffle forward, crashing into everyone else as they did so. Eventually we had made it far enough into the “queue” to be under a bit of shelter, not that it made much difference by that point, we were both drenched.
Finally, it was time to board the Eka Jaya boat and unlike the (much more expensive) fastboat we had arrived on, the service was much more basic. This included having to carry our own luggage down the “pier” where it was promptly placed on the roof of the boat to be continuously rained on for the two hour crossing. Once on board the fun continued, there didn’t seem to be enough seats for everyone so staff marched up and down the boat like maniacs, shouting things like “one ticket, one seat, no bags” until everyone was eventually seated and we could head onwards.
Considering the appalling weather, the crossing was relatively smooth and we both felt much better (and a fair bit drier) by the time we disembarked. The next fiasco came as we all stood on the dodgiest wooden jetty we’d ever been on, whilst we watched our sodden luggage make its way down from the roof and avoided what felt like every bloody taxi driver in Padang Bai. How the jetty didn’t collapse is still beyond me to this day.
Managing not to punch any taxi drivers, we located our pre-arranged mini bus and were advised it would take about two hours to get back to Seminyak. Over three hours later, we eventually reached our first drop off and we all breathed a sigh of relief that the journey was almost over… Our driver must have decided that we hadn’t had enough fun as he then proceeded to drive through every market place and back alley he could find all whilst yabbering away on his phone until finally there was just us and another family left. As we were all heading to Canggu, we negotiated a reasonable price with the driver and once again we were onwards…
Onwards into the worst traffic imaginable. By this point we had been on the bus for almost four hours, we both needed the toilet and tensions between everyone were getting pretty fraught. After more loud Balinese mobile phone talk, we suddenly pulled over and a lone female English traveller was bundled into our van from the minibus behind. Clearly shaken, we asked if she was okay to which she just replied that her driver was “f**king nuts”. I admire single female travellers immensely and I do believe that women should be able to travel freely, but I remember feeling a huge amount of gratitude that I have Rich alongside me on this adventure.
Anyways, about ten minutes later we dropped her off at her hostel and we were FINALLY back en-route to Canggu. We noticed a sign for ‘Finns’ which was great as we knew that was near our guesthouse when all of a sudden the driver stopped again. He climbed into the back of the bus saying we weren’t going to Canggu and demanded another 100k (about £5-6), before taking us any further. At this point we seriously considered just getting out in the middle of nowhere and walking, it really couldn’t be much further.
After clarifying that it was the other family who were off to who knows where and that we were a mere ten minutes from our accommodation the driver reluctantly went onwards, this time with Rich in the front seat with Google Maps open on his phone – we figured we’d worry about the roaming data charges another time…
Approximately ten hours after we’d left our lodge in Gili Air, we’d finally made it to Wayan’s Guesthouse for the final part of our Balinese adventures.
After 3 Wonderful Nights On Gili Air, We Were Treated To The Worst Journey Ever!
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