Gili Trawangan Island

This is the final post of my Lombok Trip 😉

So far, I have written 4 posts on my Lombok Trip: The long ride to Lombok; Mount Rinjani Day 1 &2; To The Top; Going Down.

From the beginning, the plan was to go to the mountain and then to the beach of the famous island, Gili Trawangan. The three Gili is very famous among foreign tourist. It is so famous that I felt like a minority there, it was as if I were in an island outside Indonesia. Everywhere I look I saw white people (no racism intended) and few Indonesian (apart from the islanders). One of the people I traveled with even mentioned that when he came there before holiday, he hardly saw any Indonesian there. We went there on new year’s eve…so there were quite few domestic tourist like us.

We used a public boat. It was filled with about 20 people.

We reached the island around 10 am on December 31, 2014. The plan was to spent new year’s eve there. I was told that there is a small island near the three Gili (Gili Trawangan, Gili Menu, Gili Air) which specialized in all night party. I forgot the name of the island because I wasn’t interested at all.

I took time taking pictures of the islands around me.

Mt Agung in Bali seen from the beach

The beach we were about to leave to head to Gili Trawanagan

Mt Rinjani couldn’t be seen

When we reached there, I felt a bit disappointed because it was soooo crowded. I am not a beach person, I am a mountain person….seeing that many people made it even worst.

We didn’t rent any cottage or hotel room because the plan was to set our tents on the beach. I didn’t bring my tent at all because I wasn’t in the mood of setting the tent again. My friends and I were planning just to sleep on the beach with our sleeping bag.

Within an hour, I was already bored. The beach was actually really beautiful. I took a lot of pictures of the faraway land…but beach is just a beach! Once I had enough pictures, I felt bored already. I can’t quite explain but when I spent hours and days on the mountain I never felt bored but every time I went to a beach, I immediately lost interest.

So…when we were offered to do snorkeling, I immediately applied. The idea of doing nothing in the beach for the whole day terrified me. I had to do something to get rid of the boredom and since I have never done snorkeling, it was time to try it.

I walked around the island to get rid of the boredom and was amused with the sea turtle conservation. There were sea turtle babies there. I shared the photo on my turtle’s blog> here. I loved watching those little babies swim like a bird.

Time to do snorkeling 🙂

At first, I was sooooooooo scared. I can swim but I never swim on the water deeper than my height because I have a tendency to become panic….not only I am afraid of falling, I am also afraid of drowning. Even though I was using life jacket, I was still incredibly scared. I held on to the side of the boat for few minute, seeing that my feet were dangling so far from the bottom scared me. The current was also strong….BUT, I had to try overcoming my fright. I let go and finally able to overcome the fright.

I was so happy there because I like swimming…and the CORAL WAS BEAUTIFUL!!! Unfortunately I didn’t have underwater camera, all I could do was keeping all the beautiful image in my memory. Here’s a picture from googling.

Copyright Gili Fast Boat

After seeing the beautiful corals, we went to next spot to hunt the sea turtles, the adult version of the ones I saw in the conservation. Too bad we didn’t get to see them anywhere 😦 I really really really want to see them, I prayed while swimming that one of them would appear near me…but I was out of my luck 😦 . Here’s an image from googling.

Copyright: Tommy Schultz

The next spot was feeding the fish. I loved it!!! There were so many fishes around me. I smiled all the way to my ears. All the fishes were amazing.

Going to Gili wasn’t that bad after all…that was what I thought at that time 😉

We came back before 6 pm, in other world before dark.

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We waited till midnight by doing nothing!

Again…I felt bored! I felt asleep till rain fell down on me. It was a short rain. Near midnight, we finally had activity. The people who arranged this trip held a door prize event. It was a good way to spent the night. The event was stopped when the island was filled with firework. Around the island, across the island, every where I looked…fireworks!

The next morning, we were told to get ready before 10 am. I took some time to capture the beauty of Mt. Rinjani. I guess I am too much of a mountain person that even though I was in the beach the pictures I took were still mountains 😉

Sunrise behind Mt. Rinjani

Mt. Rinjani looked so big from here…big and scary. I couldn’t believe I had visited that mountain!

More pictures of the awesome mountain.

 

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Just before we left, the cloud began to cover the beautiful Mt. Rinjani.

Even though there were some things that I didn’t like from this trip but it was over all a memorable trip 🙂 … however, note to myself : Never join a trip with more than 50 people!! (this trip was joined by 100 people). Too much people made it less close to each other and too much waiting around.

I am glad I met new friends here.

However, I didn’t go home together with them. I decided to use plane. I couldn’t imagine to get stuck on the us again for the next three days.

This wraps up my Lombok trip posts 🙂

Next will be another story from another mountain…a mountain not too high but has so many unforgettable stories. I went to Mount Rakutak on January 30- February 2.