Day 9 - Gili Islands

The day started from buying tickets to Sumatra. For about 70 euro we have got a flight from Lombok to Padang on Sumatra via Jakarta, saving one day on commuting by ferry.

After that we negotiated a boat to Gili Islands. As usual, the guy started high at 600 thousand for two islands, we offered 300 for three islands, and final deal was 400 for the full day and three islands. I am sure we could negotiate more, but still a good practice :)

Actually, all the islands around Lombok are calles Gilis - meaning small islands. Yet, when you here Gili Islands in books, they refer to three major ones near Senggigi - Gili Trawangan, Gili Meno and Gili Air. These islands are famous for snorkling, diving and white sand beaches.

Gili Trawangan was the first island that we visited. It was about 1.5 hours by boat from Senggigi. This island is known as party island, and is most packed with tourists, marihuana and things like that. Yet, it is not as busy, as Kuta on Bali.

The water is amazingly clean! We used Zoli's swimming glasses for snorkling and collected couple of corals for presents. Dima kept negotiating with local seller about pearls and means of checking their quality.

Next and the best out of three islands was Gili Meno. That is where everything was authentic and density of tourists was minimal.

We crossed the island on foot, meeting some locals (population is 300 people), looking at their small houses, throwing coconuts and climbing palm trees. It was so nice to be in the place, where people do their own stuff and don't care about tourists. We finally felt ourselves part of the whole thing, and not tourists.

On the opposite side of Gili Meno we had a swin in totally transparent water with clean white send! It was heaven, and I found an ideally heart-shaped piece of a coral for the memory.

After the second island Gili Air didn't seem impressive at all. We quickly came back to Senggigi and ended up in the cafe, where the waiter kept comparing me with spanish guitarist that he saw on TV the other day :)