Gili Air, Indonesia

Gili Air is one of three Gili Islands, located off Lombak and a 2 hour or so ferry from Bali. We choose Gili Air, because it sounded like it had a medium level of infrastructure, where as Gili T was known for parties and Gili M was known for high end romantic resorts. 

We really think we picked correctly!

Gili Air was such a cool place, with beautiful water and a hippie vibe. There really wasn't much to do but relax and snorkel. We were there for the better part of two days, and one full day. I could have enjoyed another full day of just relaxing on the beach, but Josh liked more exploring. The island is pretty small, so we covered it all rather quickly. 

The simpleness here was awesome - no big infrastructure. No cars. Transportation was either walking, a horse and carriage or bikes. 

We pulled up on the fast boat, and were dropped right on the beach. We took a horse & carriage are our mode of transportation to get us to our hotel. The beach front is lined with restaurants and lounge chairs. Across the road (path) there are small hotels - really compounds of little huts. 

We rented bikes and rode around the islands circumstance. Although most of it was walking the bikes because the sand was too deep. Only the south portion and inland is really rideable. 

We stopped for lunch at Mowie's, where I had a really good tuna burger. The place was cool - right on the beach with bean bag chairs for seating. The bean bags are awesome and used everywhere.(I want them in my future outdoor patio area.) 

We went snorkeling off the coast from our hotel. We saw a moray eel and so many fish. I also unfortunately got a bad coral rash which was very painful and itchy. 

We ate dinner at Scallywags - an awesome bbq restaurant where we had butterfish kebabs. So delicious! 

Early the next morning we went on a dive to Hellick. We saw about 6 turtles, an eel and two sharks hiding under the coral. There were so many little fish - very pretty and it felt like we were in a fish tank. 

In the afternoon, we hung out at the beach, and I read my book. 

We had lunch at a local buffet, Warung Padang, which was cheap and very awesome 

The rest of the afternoon was spent lazing around until sunset, when we went wading in the low tide pools. And I stopped for a drink at a bar on the beach. 

We had dinner at the night market - which was really a few stands in a field. It was OK, but not completely delicious. 

We went to a bar on the north end of the island, Pura Vida, where there was a really good Regaee band. We enjoyed the music and spent the evening watching and laughing at some super drunk French guys. 

There were definitely some cool bars there, but not a lot of people congregated at them - maybe not a busy time on the island. There's many that offer Magic Mushrooms!

The next morning I chilled out on the beach before leaving. 

We stayed at Hotel Youpy. We paid $71 for 2 nights - again, so much value! The restaurant and lounge area was on the beach. The huts were just across the path. The huts were one room and an outdoor bathroom. It was unique!