They call Gili Air the small island but after studying it on Google earth and seeing it close up I would say that it is in fact larger than Meno.

All the islands have a distinct atmosphere and personality and Air was definitely the most traditional and appeared the most influenced by Islam. It was more arid and barren than the other two islands and in retrospect the local people seemed poorer.

We got off the boat and were met by several local guest house owners who made various offers on types and prices of accommodation. We took our usual stance and went to a small warung and ordered coffee for us and juice for Tehya. The coffee was 3,000 Rp a cup which made a nice change as recently we had been paying anything from 10,000 to 14,000 for a cup on Meno and Trawangan. Gavin got chatting with two local men, one was the warung owner and the other a guest house owner (both of whom turned out to be very well educated and very knowledgeable about the human/tourist impact on the Gilli’s).

We headed off with the guest house owner as company, he took us via a small hotel that had some rooms available. It was pleasant to look at with a swimming pool and standard rooms with a fan for 150,000 they also included breakfast for three. Tehya and I waited to make a decision while Gavin went off with our new found friend to view his rooms, just to make sure we were not missing out on a good deal as they were only 60,000 a night. Gavin came back to say that the rooms were nice but smelly so we opted to go with the hotel. Unfortunately we were a little late in our decision making and the better of the two rooms was taken by another couple – leaving the three of us with a very small sweat pit. On the plus side the bed was clean and it didn’t smell.

Tehya and I opted for a morning by the swimming pool and Gavin went off to explore the island and check out some of the other accommodation. He came back a few hours later rather hot and sunburnt. He said that the island had little to offer that was better than we had already found – in fact mostly it was worn out, smelly, smaller, darker and much more expensive – the prices averaging 250,000 a night and no one was prepared to negotiate on a price. Which seemed crazy as many of the places had not one customer staying there. In some respects I can understand the need to make money when the chance is there but 250,000 is £15 which is a considerable amount of money for really horrid accommodation. It makes more sense to me to charge less and guarantee that you have guests or at least improve your chances of having tourists to stay.

We went off out to lunch and to check out some of the places Gavin had looked at earlier (just for interests sake). We stopped off at a cafe offering a reasonable choice of food – it was just after a place called the ‘chill out bar’ on the north west side of the island, looking on to Lombok (which was very impressive). The food turned out to be terrible and really disappointing. We carried on walking along the coast and saw restaurant after restaurant that had not one single customer – and really we saw very few tourists.

In the morning we moved to the larger of the two rooms – this was better!! The improvement in size meant that it was cooler and we felt as though we could move around more freely.

We ate at two more different restaurants and on both occasions the food was over priced and tasteless – in fact on one occasion we could not taste the food over the overwhelming flavour of cooking fuel – I was almost sick with the smell and taste. We met a German couple travelling with their 11 month old son and they said they had had a similar experince at a different cafe.

On our second night we sat on the beach until the sun had set behind the mountains of Lombok – which was really beautiful. The difference in perspective in comparison to the other islands was stunning as we were so much closer to Lombok – this meant we could really appreciate the colour change against the mountains and forests on the mainland.

The next morning Gavin got up at 5.30am as we had both had a very restless night – he walked the beaches to watch the sunrise. When he returned Tehya was sleeping peacefully and snug looking like an angel. We seemed to feel the same way instinctively and both said at the same time ‘so what do you fancy doing?’ Should we go back to Trawangan or Meno again? The answer was no! So I made a quick call to the BlueWater Express Boat Company who agreed that they could see no reason why we could not sail back two days earlier than originally planned. So we packed, ate a rushed and very early breakfast and left to meet the early Island Hopper back to Trawangan then onto the 11.00 am fast boat back to Bali.

We talked on our return and are happy we visited the Gili’s – they are beautiful islands with much to offer in regards to snorkelling and diving. Our favourite by far was Meno it seemed to us the most relaxed and the prettiest of the three.

Map of Gili Air, Lombok, Indonesia

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