Gili Air

So it’s my last 4 days in Asia and I choose to spend them on the Gili Islands – 3 little islands close to Lombok. It is an hour’s fast boat trip from Amed. The Lonely Planet guide book describes them like this, ‘Picture three miniscule desert islands, fringed by white-sand beaches and coconut palms, sitting in a tranquil turquoise sea’. There is no motorised transport on all 3 islands; only bicycles and small horse-and-carts. Trawangan is the biggest of the three and has a renowned party scene; then there is Gili Air, which the guide book says has ‘the strongest local character and a mellow atmosphere’ and lastly Gili Meno, which is the smallest. I decide to base myself on the Goldilocks island - not too big, not too mall, but just right.

Leaving Amed

The boat stops first at Trewangan to drop off some passengers and then we wait to pick up some others and then make the short crossing to Gili Air.

Boats on Gili Trawangan

I walk along the coast from the harbour via the sandy track that goes between beach front bars (advertising happy hours, cocktails and magic mushrooms!) to choose where I will stay. The path has hoof-print down the middle from the mall horses that pull the carts.

Path between the beach bars

Horse and cart

The island instantly has a different vibe about it from Bali – because it is Muslim, rather than Hindu there are no 'offerings' going on. Within an hour I have found a cheap bungalow, just back from the beach; been offered the opportunity to smoke dope on the beach twice and sex once! Yes, apparently even an old bird like me can get laid here. The local men are not averse to getting in on with an older tourist – maybe they think of it as charity work; or perhaps a possible investment in a better future, gigolo-style. Anyway I politely decline, ‘No thanks, I’m not looking for a man’. ‘She say that before,’ he says moodily, ‘but then in two days I see her kissing with my friend.’ Some of the Indonesian men are very cute, with smooth dark skin, dark eyes and beautiful white smiling teeth; but this one has unfortunately bad dentures!

My bungalow is very rustic, with a creaking plank floor and a hammock on the veranda.

My room

The island has a very intermittent electricity supply and it’s salt water in the shower, which is a rather unsatisfying experience, as you come out almost as sticky as you went in. While it rains gently I sit under-cover by the beach and read some more of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’. I’ve got as far as the third part and it seems appropriate to finish it, while I am still in Indonesia. I’m enjoying it very much and occasionally I laugh out loud. If you haven’t read it, I recommend it to you.

Once the rain stops I take a walk around the island, which only takes an hour to get all the way round. You set off, saying hello to other tourists walking the circuit in the other direction and before you know it you meet them again, ‘Oh, hello again, didn’t I just see you before?’ It’s a sandy track all the way, or you can walk directly on the beach. There are views across to Lombok and then later to Gili Trawangan.

Sandy track

Walking on the beach

Looking towards Lombok

Some parts of the beach are covered in drifts of dead coral, looking eerily like skulls and bones, which crack under your feet as you walk.

Driftwood and coral sculpture

I decide that I will have a go at diving while I am here. It seems a good opportunity while I have 3 spare days and a beautiful warm clear ocean. This is a challenge for me, as I have always had a fear of not being able to breathe under water, even though I am a good swimmer and love being in the water. I find myself inadvertently holding my breath and gasping for air when I watch something on the television or a film with a scene under water. I think ‘Journey to the bottom of the sea’ did it for me when I was a child – that old television series about a submarine and then I was never comfortable watching Jacques Cousteau – all that sound of breathing air in and bubbles coming out. Anyway, I overcame my fear of heights by learning to climb, so maybe it’s time to face this fear too. Also I have just met two separate people in the last few days who have just learned to dive here and raved about this being their new best thing. There are several dive schools on the island, so I go along and have a chat and before I know it I’ve signed up for an introductory session tomorrow and if I like it I can continue with a full course. My tutor is a little Mexican guy called Yanil. He is very reassuring.  I come back to my bungalow clutching a manual to read for homework.

The next day I go along and to begin with a have to watch 2 videos and complete some written question and answers. It’s quite complicated about pressure and equipment. Then it’s time to go into the pool. He shows me the equipment for real and how to attach this gauge to this pipe and check the air cylinder etc. Then the whole thing goes on my back and it’s incredibly heavy – even heavier than my fully-loaded rucksack. We get into the shallow end of the pool and I practice breathing underwater. It’s very strange to hear your breathing in your head; but it works! I have to do various exercises like take the regulator out of my mouth and replace it, how to clear my mask of water and how we can share air in an emergency.  Then we go down to the deep end of the pool and practice equalising the pressure in my ears and letting air in and out of my jacket to be able to swim under the water at the right depth. It is all very strange to only be able to communicate with signs, but he shows me what to do and I copy.

Then I take off my air tank and a girl called Charlie, from Tunbridge Wells teaches me some skin diving and snorkelling skills – how to duck dive and then clear my snorkel of water and how to breathe past some water in the snorkel.

After a lunch break it is time to go out into the ocean. Several other experienced divers join the group to do their own dive and we take a short boat ride out to the dive site.

Yanil my diving instructor

Boat trip to the dive site

Then I have to get into the water with all my kit on by doing that falling-backwards-off-the-boat thing that divers do. Yanil and Charlie are with me and we snorkel over to a buoy – the depth of the water is scary, it’s like a fear of heights, although we are only going to about 10m. We descend on a rope and spend about 20 minutes swimming around. The fish and coral are amazing, but I can’t really appreciate them because I am concentrating so hard on what I am doing. I’m quite glad when it’s time to resurface and the dive is over.

Me as a diver!

Yanil asks me if I enjoyed it. I reply that I don’t think I did, but I do feel a sense of achievement. Back on land I feel quite emotional and strangely disorientated. As I walk back along the track to my bungalow, I don’t quite recognise things, although I’m sure I have been to a place a bit like this before. While I have been underwater someone has dismantled Gili Air, lost the original plan and rebuilt it from memory, so that not everything is in quite the right place or order. I’m quite glad to get back to my room and find it is still there, but inside looks different too, even my own things don’t look quite as I left them. I take a rest in the hammock on the veranda and gradually everything normalises, as if things are coming back into focus. I don’t think I’m ready to do the full open water course yet; I need time to assimilate the experience. Maybe I’ll come back to it another time. Just now I need food and beer.