Lombok and the Gillis

At school, one of the major scare-stories that went around in my first year or two was how someone got piles. According to the older boys, the two main means of contracting them were either sitting on a hot radiator or sitting on cold concrete. The older boys let us know this, of course, before forcing us to sit on both for hours to try and prove their theories. A much worse punishment, however, would have been to send us to Indonesia and undertake the Padangbai to Lembar, Lombok ferry service provided by J.M. Ferries.

After four hours of sitting on a particularly uncomfortable wooden bench on the ferry, we walked off, like John Wayne, to meet our connecting bus to take us to the ‘hot-spot’ of Lombok, Sengiggi. After an hour or so on the bus, we arrived and set about trying to find some accommodation for the night before deciding what to do for the next few days. After forty minutes or so without much luck, the new tactic of dropping Lauren off at a bar with a cold drink, and proceeding alone, but with a strict list of criteria, was employed.

Accommodation sorted, I went and joined Lauren and our new German girl-chum, Silkë, in the bar for a much needed beer. Lo and behold, in the same bar, was someone who’d been staying in the same hostel as us in the Cook Islands. We had a good few beers and a chat about what we’d all been up to in the last few months. A few hours later, we had finalised our plan for the next few days, which was to head to the Gilli’s, a small set of three islands just off the Lombok coast.

The next morning, we were awoken at around five by the mosque which was situated right behind our hotel (there’s nothing about mosques on the list of criteria for selecting a place to stay). Our transport to Bangsal (where we’d later catch a boat to the Gilli’s) was on time at 09.00, and we were on our way. We made it to about 2km’s from Bangsal, when it became apparent that our little bus thing was not allowed to go any further, so we had to get off, bags and all, and get on a horse and cart for the rest of the journey! After another twenty minutes on horse and cart, we made it to the port, where we boarded the public boat to Gilli Trawangen, along with a lot of rice and quite a number of locals.

Half an hour later, we arrived on Gilli Trawangen, and we again set about finding somewhere to stay. After twenty minutes, Lauren and Silkë were dropped off in the shade and I proceeded alone. Within a few minutes wondering along a dusty back road, I had managed to find the brilliantly named Alex Homestay, and checked us all in at once.

The homestay had three rooms, and shortly after us three had arrived, a chap called Mark turned up and took the third room. The rest of the day was spent relaxing on the beach and wondering around the Island before heading off to the local bars where, in happy hour, jugs of rum and coke set you back 50,000 rupiah (about £3).

We ended up staying for almost a week in the Gillis, and had a great time. The islands have no motorised transport whatsoever, so everything is carried around by horse and cart!

The electricity supply was also patchy indeed meaning a lot of power cuts - fine during the day, but it was quite difficult at night trying to navigate around by paraffin lamp, and sleeping without a functioning fan in the room was pretty miserable at times!

On the third day (having spent most of the second day relaxing and trying to shake off the results of £3 jugs of rum) we went on a five hour snorkelling trip around the neighboring islands, Gilli Air and Gilli Meno.

On Thursday we decided to spend the morning walking around the island. We set off under a reasonable layer of cloud cover but, true to form, the cloud dispersed as soon as we were on our way, which resulted in a rather uncomfortable two and a half hours’ walking. That evening, after heading up a massive hill to watch the sunset become obscured by clouds.

We all had a good night out on the town sampling some of the fantastic seafood as well as some other local specialities.

The remaining couple of days were spent relaxing on the beach, reading and being eaten alive by mosquitoes at the local cinema - an outdoor affair which cost nothing as long as you bought a drink from the bar! On our final day in the Gillis we went snorkelling again, and we at last managed to find a sea turtle! It was quite a lot bigger than I’d imagined, and it seemed to do nothing but eat the coral, but it was quite friendly and didn’t seem to mind us swimming around it! I tried to teach the boy from our homestay how to play football for a while, but he was far more interested in goggles!

Next on the list is a four day four night boat journey to Flores, via Komodo to see the Komodo Dragons! Four days and four nights on a boat - as long as J.M. Ferries weren’t involved, everything should be fine…