A paradise found: The Gili islands between Bali and Lombok
A paradise found: The Gili islands between Bali and Lombok
By Soenke Krueger
PEMENANG, Lombok (DPA): Every backpacker in Indonesia knows them, and now the Gili islands are described in better-quality travel guides too. Yet the local people, when asked about the tiny islands off-shore, just shrug.
After all gili in their language simply means "island" - and Indonesia has more than 13,000 of those.
The map is more helpful. The three islands are called Gili Air, Gili Meno and Gili Trawangan, but the lack of an indigenous name for the group did not put off the first globetrotter who arrived in the early 1980s.
They simply took the word gili from the individual island names and made them the Gili Islands. This invented name eventually found its way into the first Indonesian travel guides, and so they remain today.
The islands are no secret any more. Word has spread that the beaches are more beautiful and more empty than nearby Bali's, and that the often basic accommodation is cheaper.
The islands are particularly popular among Europeans, which means that high season coincides with the European summer holidays. In July and August it can be difficult to get a room.
In addition to the white-sand, palm-fringed beaches, all three islands offer snorkelers and divers marvelous opportunities, although some of the coral reefs nearer the beaches have been badly damaged by dynamite blasting.
There are still plenty of exciting underwater areas where, with luck, a small shark or a turtle may glide past your goggles.
The lack of roads is another plus. None of the islands has cars or motorbikes. Cidomos are the main transport medium, small carts drawn by a pony, or single-axle wagons traveling along dirt roads through the coconut plantations. As with any taxi ride in Indonesia, it is best to negotiate a price beforehand, to avoid any unpleasant surprises.
The range of accommodation is similar on all three islands, mostly bamboo huts on stilts under the palm trees, equipped with mosquito nets and a veranda. Instead of a shower or bathtub, they have the typical Indonesian mandi - a large, tiled area with a small bucket. The idea is to fill it with water and douse your body with the contents - very refreshing in tropical temperatures.
Gili Air, which is about 100 hectares in size, is about a 20- minute boat ride from Bangsal harbor, near Pemenang on Lombok, Bali's neighbor.
The ride to the central island Gili Meno takes about 40 minutes. Gili Trawangan, the largest of the three at around 300 hectares, involves about one hour's travel.
The sampans plying between the islands have room for up to 15 passengers. There is no timetable, the boats set off as soon as they are full. Those in a hurry can charter a boat.
As soon as a sampan ties up at one of the islands, the locals surround the newcomers, vying with each other to offer accommodation and transport. The islanders call this "picking white coconuts" - it is more lucrative than the hard work in the coconut plantations.
The most dense palm plantations are on Gili Air, where hotels and huts are dotted along the beach all round the island. Because of the coral, only the beaches on the southern coast are good for bathing. Gili Air has a large population of middle-aged Indonesian men who call themselves "beach boys".
Floating on a cloud thanks to the beguiling local "magic mushrooms", and singing reggae songs, they like nothing better than to chat up lone women travelers - and tell them that they have been waiting for them all their lives.
Gili Meno is the quietest of the three islands - its attractions are "sunrise, sunset and sunburn", as one hotel owner put it.
Accommodation here is more comfortable and a little more expensive than on the neighboring islands, but still very cheap at around $14 a night. A salt lake in the interior of the island provides the islanders with salt and the mosquitoes with a breeding ground - don't forget your malaria tablets.
Gili Trawangan is also known as a party island - a beach party takes place somewhere every night on the east coast, where the guesthouses line the sand. It is mainly the backpacking crowd who meet here, and the locals seem to have grown accustomed to them.
But tourists who bathe without their bikini tops or lie naked on the sand are very offensive to them, because most islanders are Muslim.
Gili Trawangan is the best of the three for snorkeling and diving, equipment is even available for hire. For those who take their pleasures differently, a glass-bottomed boat is available, or they can watch the fishermen returning with a load of freshly caught sea food, and selling it direct to local housewives and hotel cooks.
There are no package holidays to the Gili Islands, they are still the preserve of the independent traveller.
From Bali there are flights to Lombok (20 minutes), or speed boats (two and a half hours), or a car ferry (four hours).
Tourist buses link the ferry port and airport with Bangsal on the north coast of Lombok, where wooden boats cast off for the Gilis.
Anyone expecting to find smog from the recent Indonesian fire catastrophe on arriving in the Gilis, had better take a look at the atlas.
Fires are still smoldering in Borneo and Sumatra, thousands of kilometers away. Bali, Lombok and the Gili Islands have not had a whiff of smoke. This is easily explained: tropical rainforest hardly exists any more in this region.