The Gili's

The Gili Islands (3) are north west of Lombok, east of Bali, and delightfully free of cars and motorcycles, one just has to navigate around the dangerously driven pony carts!!! :) There are three islands Gili Trawangan, Gili Meno and Gili Air. The latter two are the quieter islands, Gili Trawangan is the dive spot but also the party island. And as two divers in search of some scuba action, we naturally headed to Gili Trawangan instead of the more romantic Gili options..


The night we arrived was the night of their full moon party - we weren't interested, both Natalie and myself were exhausted (truth be known: too many Bali sorties) and wanted nothing other than an early dinner and an early night. We booked ourselves into our bungalows and awoke refreshed the next day looking forward to a dive.



I have to say, we had a great time on this island but was I being a little naive to have expected an Atoll? The sea wasn't as turquoise as we had hoped for (having said, that it doesn't look too bad in the reflection of my sunglasses above) and the diving, well, the coral was completely dead as a result of both dynamite fishing and El Niño.

Tash, Nat, Ben (Jude Law) frm Manta Divers

Its a good area for marine life - we saw lots: turtles, Blue Spotted Sting Rays, black and white tip sharks, a sea snake surface and lots of Bump Head Parrot Fish. But have we been spoilt?

Outrigger

Loading the Dive Boat

The crew at Manta Divers were a great bunch and partying with them was fun.

Moi

We soon made some good new friends, and of course, we found the best eatery on the island and yes, we had a good and chilled time.

The Morning after for some of the Full Moon Revelers

Natalie says Hello!

Surprising considering the Muslim population but when the cat's away the mouse will play. There isn't a Police Station on any of the 3 islands....

A fellow passenger on ferry back to mainland

We left The Gili's on a Saturday and headed back to the island of Lombok where we jumped on a boat that would take us to Flores via Sumbawa and Komodo. We were heading off on an adventure and into Indonesia's remote eastern wilderness. This would be our last port of call with mobile and internet reception for a while!

....coming soon the rest of the adventure!!!