We left Nusa Dua early morning, to get the first morning ferry to Padangbai. Sun was just rising up, and surprisingly, outside was still a little bit chilly. We’ve spent 30 nervous minutes in front of our hotel waiting for the driver. In the night we arranged everything with a local ‘travel agent’ communicating only via WhatsApp and we weren’t 100% sure if it’s gonna work out. Finally the driver showed up, driving a big van; it needed to be a hit somewhere in the 90’s! We’ve been circulating the city few times to pick up all passengers. After couple of hours drive (or maybe even more), finally we got to the harbour. We’ve found our ‘guide’, picked up the tickets, and so we’ve been already waiting in the queque on the pier. Everyone got a sticker with the place of its destination. We were market as “Lombok”. I didn’t know why but I felt a little bit jealous seeing all these people marked as “Gili T”. I didn’t know much about Gili Islands yet , but my intuition was telling me that this is a place to be…

Our water trip wasn’t very long, around 1,5 hour if I remember well. We’ve been seating squeezed in tiny seats, probably perfect for short indonesians but definitely not for us, overgrown europeans! The boat was rocking on the waves and I could feel nice, refreshing breeze touching my face…

Straight after arriving to Bangsal we started looking for someone who could drive us to Kuta, located in the south part of the island. I was hoping that many desperate local drivers will be more than happy to drive us for half free. I couldn’t be more wrong… Drivers knew very well that in the area of the harbour we won’t find any other transport so they didn’t wanted to drop down the price. Simply, we didn’t have a choice.

The way to Kuta was fascinating. I mean – the views. Flora was completely different than in Bali. Most of the plants and trees I’ve seen for the first time in my life! Our driver was really kind and agreed to tell us a bit about local fruits, climate, weather and generally their culture.

So here we are. Kuta. We’ve looked at each other having the same thoughts. Where the hell did we ended up?! Kuta in Lombok is a typical small village, not really developed but still focused on tourists because of good surfing conditions. Two streets, few local restaurant and bars, everything very poor and dirty. Everywhere clouds of children trying to sell you their goods. Not a dream place to be, at all. Well okay, I made some friendships with few of them…

Anyway, Kuta wasn’t the destination itself. I’ve made a research before and found out that in this area you can find the most beautiful beaches! I swear, it wasn’t a lie. Again we’ve organised a guy who took us to 3 top beaches: S e l o n g  B l a n a k,  M a w u n  B e a c h and T a n j u n g  A a n.

I saw empty, completely white, wide beach, perfectly blue water and colourful boats at the shore… And I didn’t want to go anywhere else. Selong Blanak was a dream. I knew that Mawun and Tanjung Aan  are not gonna beat that view, although they were also beautiful and completely different from my number one. Important tip: you can climb a rock in Tanjung Aan and enjoy a breathtaking view over two bays and beaches, ahh, must-see!

Our stay in Kuta was short and quick and we haven’t even realised when we’ve been seating again in the car driving back to north Lombok.

We had a one night in Sengiggi to spoil ourself in beautiful Kebun Villas Resort (can highly recommend it!), swam in the longest infinity pool in the island and get ready for the best part of our travel! Gili Islands, were in our heads and on our mouth since long, long time, and finally came a time to make this dream happen…

How did I get there?

Just to get you an idea how traveling in these areas looks like. Before coming to Gili Trawangan (called also Gili T) as I’ve mentioned before we stayed 1 night in Sengiggi in Lombok. Not a big village situated close to Bangsal, we’ve basically picked it just to catched a morning l o c a l  f e r r y. Drive from Sengiggi to Bangsal took us around 40 minutes and costed 150 IDR. We’ve called a taxi from our hotel but we’ve also checked the prices before in the city so they wouldn’t scam us. In Bangsal the driver dropped us more or less 500 m away from the harbour. They do it cause they want you to make a horse-cart which doesn’t cost much (maybe 10 000-15 000 IDR), but for those few minutes you really do not need that, so move your ass and go! We bought the tickets directly at the harbour just to make sure we gonna get the fair price (15 000 IDR), they always add a tax on it, so don’t be surprised, as it’s common. The boat goes once is full, luckily we didn’t have to wait longer than half an hour. Half of the space in the boat was taken by goods, this is the only one way for local people to transport them,  so I was actually seating having a huge bag of rice under my feet and eggs on my knees… But, who cares ;). The last ferry departing to Gili T is around 4.30 pm, but just check the time schedule as it might be changing!

Obviously if you wanna travel in a more luxury way you can ge a  s p e e d b o a t but I believe traveling in a local way is much more fun! The funny thing is that usually you’re not getting on the boat from the pier (naive – I was expecting that, ended up with completely wet new trainers…), but you need to jump on it from the water, it was always a challenge for me cause climbing from  the knee-deep with a big backpack was quite hard! After a while, you’re becoming an expert, so no worries princesses 😉

Be aware planning your transport, because the distance between the places never seems far, but the travel always takes longer than expected . It’s mostly because of the tiny roads and traffic. We’ve been traveling only by taxis (usually grabbing drivers straight from the streets – remember to negotiate the price, always!), as we always had our luggage with us, but if you’re staying in a one place few days you can also get a scooter, which is super cheap option (be careful of crazy drivers, they do not follow any rules!)…

So, are you getting curious about Gili? Read my next post! Coming soon…