Gili Trawangan

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Gili Trawangan

June 2009

122

I knew that Pulau Weh would be a very laid-back place with not much in terms of entertainment or good food, so I decided to add a week in a more lively place. I had never been to the Gili islands off Lombok, but heard that diving is good there as well, and that they have a less laid-back reputation

Actually, there are three Gili islands with very different profiles; Gili Trawangan is the most lively and has the reputation of being a backpacker hangout. It also offers most choice in scuba diving. I booked diving and accomodation with Dream Divers , a German dive shop whose booth I had visited on a trade show in Düsseldorf, and whose staff at the show left me with a good impression of the shop.

Reaching the Gili islands from Pulau Weh takes a day and a minimum of two flights. I had to get up early to get the morning speedboat from Pulau Weh to the mainland (got up so early that the restaurants were still closed, and no one was in the dive shop!), bought a pack of Pulau Weh special kuih on the way to have something to eat, and then went to the airport. I had booked a flight with Garuda Indonesia via Medan to Jakarta - all domestic flights from Banda Aceh stop in Medan. It may be faster to fly via Kuala Lumpur or Penang, but I didn't check these options. The total flight time was about four hours, plus the stopover in Medan - you realise in these connections how big Indonesia actually is.

From Jakarta, I had another flight to Mataram on Lombok. This was only about two hours, but this still means you spend six hours in a plane to cross only half of Indonesia! At the airport at Mataram, I was picked up by a driver from the diveshop and brought to a speedboat port, from where I was ferried over to the island at about 10 in the night.

Another option is to fly to Denpasar on Bali; there is a speedboat service to the Gili islands from Bali as well. But it is a lot more hassle; the only benefit is that a lot more flights and airlines serve Denpasar than Mataram.

Gili Trawangan has a reputation as a party island, and every Monday, Wednesday and Friday (except during Ramadan), there is a big rave party somewhere on the islands. On Mondays, it is next to the dive shop. (Fortunately, they were playing rather good music later in the night.) But the island is heavily gentrified: not a backpacker haven - the audience is definitely young and there are plenty of cheap rooms, but along the seafront there are very nice cottages, even resort like places, and very good restaurants. Including a coffee shop selling coffee from all over Indonesia. There's Internet everywhere, cheap booze and all sorts of lazy relaxed places to eat and drink.

Diving on Trawangan was also much better than I expected. Only problem is that it attracts a young crowd, so there's always many beginners in the group (and the dive guides tend to keep divers on a tight leash)

Gili Trawangan

Air Wall [ 4 images ]	Bounty [ 20 images ]	Coral Fan Garden [ 7 images ]	Deep Turbo [ 4 images ]
Frogfish Point [ 8 images ]	Home Reef [ 20 images ]	Manta Point [ 8 images ]	Meno Reef [ 4 images ]
Meno Slope [ 8 images ]	Meno Wall [ 8 images ]	Mirkos Point [ 4 images ]	Segalu [ 4 images ]
Shark Point [ 12 images ]	Trawangan Slope [ 8 images ]

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