The Gilis, aka Paradise

We travelled from Ubud down to the West Coast of Bali to spend a night at Padang Bai before heading over to Lombok and the Gili Islands. We had a wonderful driver who acted like a tourguide/historian for us the whole trip. Cruising on tiny streets packed with scooters, trucks and men herding ducks, we weaved our way down from central Bali to the coast.

Herding Ducks, easier than hearding cats?

Padang Bai is a small resort town that gets its revenue from tourists heading to Lombok and the Gilis. The touts were aggressive when we pulled into town, and we were approached repeatedly by people who all wanted to sell us tickets on the fastest boat to the Gilis. Of course they all had tickets for different boats across to the Gilis and there was a lack of agreement as to which boat actually was the fastest!

Yet another of Dale's animal friends

Gili T is definately NOT a one horse town

We found a hotel for the night, and booked a ride on one of the many “fastest” boats over to Gili Trawangan for the next morning. Then we walked over to a little cove off the main beach and laid down in some white sand. Unfortunately there were more touts and ladies selling bracelets and massages there, so it wasn’t exactly peaceful, but the water was nice and the sand white. Paul went for a snorkel and got his toenail bit off by a trigger fish, but because it wasn’t bleeding he decided to stay in the water. Several minutes later a swarm of cone jellies drifted in and started stinging him in the most unpleasant ways. Taking this as a sign he retreated to the beach and spent some time reading and playing Frisbee with Kristen and the Rieus.

Sweet outrigger boats

 The evening was really calm in Padang Bai. It was the off season, and the village had an empty feeling. We played crib in the evening after eating a lazy dinner. Upon waking the next morning however, we couldn’t help but give out a sigh.


Australians. Europeans. Tanned, blonde, buxom wave chasers. Boozed up rugby fans wearing flower necklaces and drinking beers at 9:30 in the morning. Older jetsetters. A few families. Even though we had tried to avoid them previously, we were now moving into the main stream of tourists.
The ride over was great. Kristen managed the crossing without any complaints, and Paul held onto his gorge with the help of an anti-nauseant. Volcanoes towered above us as our speedboat followed the Southern coast for several hours. Eventually we turned out to see and left the lateen rigged fishermen’s vessels behind us. The water whipped up into some fierce waves as we made our way out into the Strait of Lombok. Those who had gone to sit up on the roof on the crossing began screaming, first with laughter and then with despair as waves splashed up and over the vessel. This being Indonesia, the crew took a long time before making a move to bring them down, but luckily everybody managed to hold on! The worst part of it for most unfortunates who were sitting up top was the cost of their water logged cellphones, Ipods, books, magazines, and of course their $1000 cameras.

Can I stay for dinner? Can I stay forever?

Awesome beaches

There was a turtle hachery! They were so CUTE!

The guys at our hotel made Kristen a cake and sang her Happy Birthday, they were awesome!

P90X Corona Ad

Amazing storm on a tropical island

 There are three Gili Islands. The islands extend in a string off the North coast of Lombok and are the most visited and most lucrative of the resorts in Lombok. Gili Air is the closest to shore, while Gili Meno and Gili Trawangan are a little further out into the strait. The word Gili just means “little island” in the local dialect, so “the gilli islands” actually means “the little island islands”.

We stayed on Gili T’ the largest of the three islands with the most accommodation choice. Even though it is low season, a fair number of tourists congregate in the “central” village, so we hired a little oxcart to take us and our bags a few kilometres up to the north coast. The north was secluded and calm, and it was exactly the right place to sit with a book and your toes in some white sand.
The weather was bad offshore, and our tour company decided that 4metre high waves in the strait was a little unsafe, and they cancelled our sailing tour to Komodo. Actually for a few days, all boat traffic in the area stopped and we (along with countless others) were “trapped” on the Gili Islands with no way back to Bali and only a few boats racing back and forth with Lombok.


 If you have to be trapped somewhere, I can recommend the Gili’s. Not the nicest beaches I have ever seen, but they are white, sandy and at times blissfully uncrowded. We walked around the island, ate at fabulous restaurants and little shacks, played cards, read books, suntanned and generally lazed about. We also took a snorkel tour and saw turtles (Kristen’s favourites) beautiful coral and a wrecked ship/boat. Dale, Tracey and Paul also got up early to go fishing and brought home a big barracuda that Dale reeled in. Who knew barracuda was so tasty?

Tracy's audition for TSN Wide World of Fish

OOOoooooo Barracuda

Its like as big as your leg!