indonesia
When I started my 3 months travel I had a few gaps, the week after Borneo but before the Rugby World Cup was one of those gaps. Lucky for me a good friend decided to head to Gili Air in Indonesia that exact week so I decided to meet up with her for a few days of snorkelling and lying on the beach. At the last minute the Pilot’s schedule changed and he was also able to come and spend a couple of days with me before I met my friend.
We didn’t want to be in the busier areas of Bali as we were keen for a quieter chilled break, so we settled on Balian Beach. A few hours drive from Denpasar, it’s a sleepy surfer spot and was just what we were after. Our accom was a sweet villa, with a lovely pool, views of the ocean, and plenty of good eating spots within a short walk. We only had 2 full days and ended up spending them on nice slow mornings with swims and great breakfasts, then heading out each day on the scooter to explore inland, and finishing the day with more swims, great dinners and a massage. Riding around inland was super fun, the roads were quiet for the most part and took us through jungly trees, small villages, temples and rice paddies with plenty of epic views. The highlight was a stunning rice paddy where we had lunch with a view, as well as a small hike we did to a couple of waterfalls. Balian beach itself wasn’t the best for swimming as it was a bit stony and had a big undertow, it was clearly a good spot for surfers though as we saw people out in the surf morning and night and enjoyed watching them battle the currents. Sadly our few days came quickly to an end before we said farewell and I headed off to meet my friend.
After a couple of hours being driven through the terrible Bali traffic I was deposited at the ferry terminal, where I then crammed myself into the sweaty belly of a ferry for an unpleasant few hours across to Gili Air. It was early evening when I arrived and I instantly dove into the clear blue water to rinse off the journey. I’ve been to Gili Air once before but probably more than 10 years ago. I didn’t have the highest hopes considering everything you hear about tourism in Indonesia, I was kind of expecting it to have lost some of it’s charm or become overrun. I was pleasantly surprised to see it was still fairly clean, not too busy (apart from the very very middle of town), and still chilled, cheap, and cheerful with lots of friendly locals.
We didn’t get up to much in the few days we were there, lots of great food, reading on loungers, watching sunsets and wandering around the island. We also made the most of the clear water, the first morning we jumped in with snorkels and found 2 turtles to swim with, all to ourselves! One day we did a snorkel tour out on a boat, there were way too many people on the boat but once we got under the water it was cool to see more turtles, lots of fish and some nice coral. One of the best parts was weirdly the lunch stop, as rather than sitting at the restaurant theye’d parked the boat beside, we walked 5mins down the beach and found the sweetest spot right on the water with really good, cheap food. We got lucky with accomodation too, one of the places we stayed on Gili Air was a cheap-as-chips ($20 NZ per night) spot, built in a traditional-looking style, super comfy and clean, with aircon, and the BEST giant souffle pancakes for breakfast, an absolute find.
On our way back to the airport we once again crammed ourselves into the bowels of a ferry, battled the Bali traffic (and some weird car-mates) as we made our way to Seminyak for the night. Our accom for the night was accidentally very luxurious, with a pool and swim-up-bar … that we immediately swam up to on arrival to wash away the journey. Both Balian and Gili Air were so nice and relaxing, but my gosh getting around in Bali is insane, it makes me want to carefully consider how I approach future trips there!
