Gili T (Indonesia)

Our next adventure was more along the “backpacker” route, Gili Trawangan, or “Gili T” as travelers call it. There are three sets of islands just off the coast of Lombok, east of Bali. I have no idea how they became such a tourist attraction, they are teenie, but they are now chockablock full of resorts. Gili Trawangan is the most touristy of the three, catering largely to the younger backpacker crowd. We woke up early in Ubud to get our bus transfer to the dock, and hopped in a small, jam packed boat. The trip itself was pretty easy. We landed in Gili Trawangan after about an hour. We had arranged accommodation, but the second we got off the boat, swarms of locations approached advertising different hostels and hotel. We were able to fend them off, and walked along the dirt road through mostly restaurants, bars and hostels, and weaved our way through small streets, until we came to our hotel. We weren’t actually able to book the accommodation online, but called earlier that morning and were verbally told we could rent a triple room for super cheap. When we arrived there, however, the man at the front desk told us, that price was for their other hotel location, and someone would walk us there. We were paying about $12 total for the room, so when we had to change locations, we were pretty sure we were headed from a nice looking hotel, to a bug infested, dirty, disgusting shack. After the short walk though, we were pleasantly surprised! The hotel was clean, spacious, with wifi, a private patio, and breakfast included! The problem came when we tried to pay. The woman with whom we were dealing, stating there was no such price for a triple room, at which point we showed her the actual hotel website, listing said price. She called her manager and the whole thing seemed to be settled. The next day, however, we received a phone call from the manager directly, telling us we would not be able to stay under the previously stated price and would have to pay retrospectively. Jared spoke to him mostly, until I could tell he was caving in, at which point I took the call. There was no way in hell we were going to pay retrospectively, and when you advertise a specific price online, I will be paying that specific price. Anyway, in the end, I told him to speak to his web developer and have him pay the difference, because it wasn’t happening from us. Satisfied, we unpacked and set out to explore. The island was quite small, and seemed to entirely revolve around tourism. There were small side streets, and one main road the circled the island, along which were all the shops and restaurants. No cars were allowed on the streets, so it was mostly bicycles and horse drawn carts. The clientele did seem to be more diverse than we expected with dive bars and cheap restaurants mixed in with five-star resort style beach lounges and spa hotels. After a few hours of roaming, we went back to the hostel to get ready for the night. We had decided on “Gili T” specifically to have some backpacker fun, so after showering and beautifying we headed out for a 6pm happy hour we had seen, with liter beer for less than $3 and free tapas. The boys had eaten at a questionable eater in amongst the side streets, but I had held out, so deciding on the free tapas was a no-brainer. As we sat and drank our cheap beers, we noticed a food market being set up all around us. Score! Once we had our fill of beer for a bit, we meandered through all the stalls at the food market, and grabbed a more substantial meal, and people watched. The whole place was packed with backpackers squeezing through aisles, smoke churning up from stalls and music heard from bars surrounding the market.

Our next stop was a hookah joint just down the main road that started their happy hour at 9pm. The lounge area was actually on the sand, and covered by plush pillows and wickers mats with tables setup side by side. We ordered a hookah and drinks and hung out chatting to other travelers for a bit, until everyone decided to change locations. We followed the bunch down the same road to a club on the beach that was overflowing with young 20 somethings, beer pong tables and all. We played a round or two of beer pong, drank and danced with everyone, until we were all tuckered out and we stumbled back to the hotel.
I was surprisingly unhungover the next morning. I think I had made a conscious effort to watch how much I was drinking. I absolutely hate being hungover while traveling, I feel like it is such a waste of my time. I do enjoy partying with people, but I just can’t handle the hangover like I used to; I also have a much lower tolerance than I once did, so that helps with finances. Bernard unfortunately did not have such an easy time, but did not sit in bed all day, which would have been my plan of action. Instead, we ate breakfast at the hotel, and walked around a bit to find some bicycles to rent. We spent a couple hours biking around the island and discovered the completely secluded areas. The other side of the island was pretty underdeveloped, but did have some fantastic looking resorts and small hotels. Almost nothing in the way of restaurants, but for a few dotted along the main road. The path followed the outskirts of the island, and we got to see some beautiful beaches before ending back in the main area at the surfing beach. We had hoped to rent some surf boards that day, but by the time we arrived at the beach, there were almost no waves. After spending a bit of time lounging at the beach, we got back on the bikes and rode to the hotel to get ready for another fun night! We followed the exact same plan of action that evening, and actually ran into some of the people from Sanur and Ubud while at the hookah bar. We all made our way over to the beach club, which abruptly closed at 11pm! The entire lot of people flooded out into the streets, choosing either right or left to find another place to play, but it turned out there was some sort of holiday, so everything was closed. We did find some impromptu jam fest happening in the street, but the whole scene was slightly too “dreadlock” for my style, so we went back to the hotel earlier.
In the end, it was a good thing that we hadn’t gotten too drunk the night before, because the next morning was a travel day. We were a bit slow, but not in pain, so we lazily packed up our bags and made our way out to the docks on the main road. We hopped on a motor boat destined for Lombok, our next big Indonesian island.
Gili T is fun, really fun. But it will suck your soul and wallet dry if you let it. People have been said to end up staying for weeks, and abandoning other travel plans to enjoy the truly worry-free, relaxed, and social environment. Not us though! Always on to hopefully bigger and better.