Things to do in Gili islands

Gili islands located in Lombok is known as “Party Islands” for many years, specially Gili Trawangan, but its not the only thing the island has to offer, and that is not the reason why we in Balinest love this islands. So here is things to do in Gili Islands

Gili Trawangan street view

#1 Diving (scuba diving or freediving) / snorkeling

Gili islands has clear sea water, the visibility is around 20m and warm, most beach around Gili islands is shallow around 5 meter deep, then if you swim out for 20 meter it will drop from 5 to 30 meter deep.  With this condition there is diving spot all around Gili Trawangan, Gili Meno and Gili Air, with vary dept and condition, some area may best for scuba diving, some for freediving or snorkeling.

The best time to dive is from May to September, when the wet season ends.

Diving Freediving and Snorkeling in Gili islands, lombok

#2 Relaxing spa

After diving or snorkeling, or after a long bike ride around the island, or just tired because of hot temperature, there many reason to enjoy spa time. There many place you could try, but the one we would recommend is the one in Aston Hotel, the price is affordable, nice place, friendly therapist, good massage, relaxing spa treatment.

#3 Bike ride around the island

You might already know that there is automobile and motorized traffic is prohibited on the islands, the only method of transportation is walking, bicycle or horse cart. There are amazing view of blue sky, and turquoise beach around the island, sunset view and sunrise view everywhere; a real vision of heaven. Rent a bike and ride it along the sandy road around the island and experience all those amazing view, bring also your snorkel and fins just in case you feel like snorkeling in some spot.

If you in Gili Trawangan, start in the morning when the water is still a little cold and fresh, right after breakfast; you could also bring your lunch box, that way you don’t need to bring your wallet, just for safety reason, ride your bike and start pedaling. Riding bike, snorkeling in several spot, lunch at the beach, and back to where you start, all will take around 8 hours. But if you in Gili Meno or Gili Air, bike ride around will take less time, because the island is smaller then Gili Trawangan.

(remember to take lot of water, to prevent dehydration and don’t litter)

Bike around Gili islands, or use cidomo instead

Bike around Gili islands, or use cidomo instead

#4 Meditation / yoga

Yoga is a spiritual, mental and physical discipline, while meditation more focus on the mental and spiritual. Both yoga and meditation could practiced daily, but to get more result and faster progress, yoga and meditation need to be practiced in a long and continues time, that’s why most serious yoga and meditation practitioner would go on a retreat.

You could found many place to learn yoga and meditation in Gili Trawangan, Meno or even Gili Air, the service vary from beginner class to expert, even to serious retreat. Checkout GiliYoga…

(in north Bali, Brahmavihara Arama at Singaraja provide many meditation retreat through the year, in many discipline)

#5 Enjoy beach vibe

Maybe it’s the day you don’t want to do anything, you just want to have a moment with yourself, with someone important, or any reason; walking, reading, sun bath, enjoying peaceful beach vibe. Bring your towel and water, there is quite beach everywhere, some in walking distance, some need extra effort (depend on where you stay), but most nice and quite beach is in north of Gili Trawangan, if you in Gili Meno then its everywhere (this is the least popular island, second largest), if you in Gili Air then most quite beach is at west of the island.

enjoy holiday in Gili island, lombok with balinest

#6 Water activity

Its literally beach everywhere in Gili Island, other then diving, freediving and snorkeling you still can enjoy other water activity such as surfing, SUP boarding, canoeing, kayaking, and have fun with subwing. All of those activity can be easily found specially near the harbor, except for subwing, there is only one place that provide subwing service, here…

The subwing board is build from two separate board wings which are connected with rotatable swivel. By holding on the front edge of each wing with one hand, it can be easily be controlled in all direction. To make subwing fun, you will be towed, start from 2 knots to allow you get familiar with the board, after you give ok signal you will be pulled a bit faster, maximum speed is 4 knots.

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Plan trip Jakarta to Gili Trawangan

Gili Trawangan is the largest island of Lombok’s Gili islands. Gili islands consist of 3 island, and Gili Trawangan is one of them, the other is Gili Air and Gili Meno. The name Trawangan originates from Indonesian word Trowongan mean tunnel, due to the presence of a cave tunnel build during Japanese occupation in world war 2, war of the Gilis. Gili Trawangan is famous among tourist who enjoy diving, snorkeling, nature and beach.

For scuba diver, diving around Gili islands is rather nice but nothing compared to other places like Komodo island or Bunaken. However it is a very good place for beginner divers as the conditions are usually good. The current is generally very gentle and the visibility good around 20m; that’s why Freediving is also big in Gili (this is the reason we go to Gili) there are Freedive Gili, Freedive Air, Freedive Blue Marine and Freedive Flow; this is several freedive center we can choose.

Gili islands located

To go to Gili Trawangan, we need to get to Bangsal Harbour in Lombok island, located in northwest of the island. The main access to Lombok is Lombok International Airport (LOP) or if you from Bali there is speedboat from Padang Bai harbor (located at east Bali). If you from the airport, there is several way to get to Bangsal Harbour, first by shuttle car (sharing or private) we try using lombokcartransport.com from internet; we contact them through whatsapp, and got replay quickly and book our car. Second option is to rent car, this will cost more but give more comfort along the road. The third option is to use official airport transportation which is a taxi directly to Bangsal harbour or take bus to Mataram city then take a taxi to Bangsal harbor.

Bangsal Harbour and Lombok airport

Then from Bangsal harbor crossing to Gili Trawangan have 2 option with regular wooden boat or with fast boat. Regular wooden boat will take approximately 45 minute, while fast boat will take 7 minute to arrive at Gili Trawangan. We can bought the ticket right at the harbor (we choose regular wooden boat).

So, roughly the transportation to Gili Trawangan and back home is clear. Now for the hotel, my friend recommend me to stay near the harbor, it would be more convenient if we want to go to the other Gilis / islands. 

Below is what we plan for our Gili Trawangan trip :

#first day – we arrive and take a rest, having a relaxing dinner and then a good night sleep. (because the road is long, from an early flight - 2 hour by car - then a boat - and last one is going to the hotel). And please note that there is no motor powered ride on the island, so the option is bicycle or horse cart.

#second day – we planning on biking around the island, swim on beach,spa at the hotel and have a dinner with old friends from Bali. (Its our first time to Gili, so we think we need to explore the island)

#third day – having a snorkeling trip around the Gili’s islands, then having a relaxing dinner (we decide to take the 5 hour trip which include snorkling spot at Gili Trawangan, Gili Meno and Gili Air)

#fourth day – we want to take a good rest in the morning, get ready to go back home (same reason with the first day, we need to get energized for a long road trip back to Jakarta)

For the hotel, in the whole Gili’s area there many option for place to stay, with vary price from 200.000 IDR to more then 5.000.000 IDR. But the main difference we found is that place with beach will cost more then the one without, the price range for place in front of the beach more then 800.000 IDR, while the one without beach will cost less then that. As you can see on our plan above, me and Endah will have a swim, beach walk, snorkeling and freediving, so we choose hotel with beach access. We end up choose Aston – Gili Trawangan because it has beach in front of it, and we familiar with the service standard. Flight, car, boat, hotel, and itinerary is clear, ready to gooooo….

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3 Thing to Consider to choose a mask

For any divers, mask needs to fit our specific face, therefore between all other diving equipment we can rent, but its better to have our own mask. Before we buy our own mask, first we need to know what is it for?

1. The difference between diving mask and snorkling or swimming mask is that diving mask have strong tempered glass that can withstand the pressures of diving, while snorkling / swimming mask dont necessary have.

2. Next, after we know the difference we then need to know about the mask's skirt. A transparent skirt will allow for more light, and give wider sight and openness feeling, but it has tendency to cast images or reflection in the inside of the lens causing distraction and glares.

A dark skirt will reduce light and glares, give more focus feeling but also could give "claustrophobic" feeling to some people.

Me personally will prefer clear silicon mask for recreational dive and silicon mask for more serious dive.

3. The last consideration is the volume of the mask, is it high volume or low volume mask. The air volume of mask is important on freediving but not as important on scuba diving; as a diver descends, water pressures creates an effect that pushes the mask against the divers face where a diver must equalize. To equalize the mask, a diver needs to exhale from the nose into the mask.

With a low volume mask, a freediver requires less air to equalize, and able to save more air for longer dive. But for a scuba divers, equalizing mask isnt really a problem, because they have a lot of air on their tank to use.

I have use a high volume mask and low volume mask, and i would always suggest low volume for comfort reason. It also feel so light and free

After considering this 3 things, i hope would help to narrow down the options and find the right mask that :) happy diving...

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Equalize air space in our body

Our middle ears are dead air space, connected to the outer world only by the Eustachian tubes running to the back of our throat. On dive, the underwater pressure will squeeze our eardrums and causes painful middle-ear, this is the most common pressure-related ears injury. Therefore, we need to equalize so the pressure in our outer and inner ears match.

This is one of the basic skill that every diver need to practice, so we can dive safely. Another part that will needed to be equalized is our mask, because it contain air. The deeper we go, we will feel our mask squeeze and even cause pain. To equalize it we can blow a little air from our nose, enough to reduce the pressure.

If you dive without equalizing your middle ears, you can experience painful and damaging middle-ear barotrauma. Step by step here is what happened :
1. At one foot below the surface, you feel pressure on your ears.
2. At four feet, your ear drums bulge into your middle ears. Mucus begin to fill your Eustachian tubes, making it deficult to equalize your ears if you try. You start to feel pain.
3. At six feet, ear drums continue to bulge even further and tissue begin to tear causing inflammation that will last for 1 week. If small blood vessels in your eardrums breaks, this will last for up to 3 weeks. Your Eustachian tube are now locked shut by pressure, making equalization is imposibble.
4. At eight feet, if you are lucky, blood and mucus is sucked from surrounding tissues and begin to fill you middle ears. This is called middle-ears barotrauma. Fluid, not air, is now equalizes pressure on your eardrums.
5. At 10 feet, Eardrums may break. Water will flood your middle ear. The suddent sensation against your balance mechanism, your vestibular canals, may cause vertigo, especially if only one eardrum is breaks. Temporary or permanent hearing lost may result.

There is several ways to equalize, all methods for equalizing your ears are simply ways to open the lower ends of your Eustachian tubes, so air can enter.
-> Valsalva Maneuver, this method is the most common method. Pinch your nostrils and blow through your nose. The resulting overpressure in your throat usually force air up to Eustachian tube. But this methods do not activate muscles which open the Eustachian tubes, so it may not work if the tubes are already locked by a pressure differential.
-> Toynbee Technique, with your nostrils pinched or blocked against your mask skirt, swallow. Swallowing pulls open your Eustachian tubes while the movement of your tongue, with your nose closed compressed air against them.
-> Lowry Technique, this is a combination of Vasalva and Toynbee. While closing your nostrils, blow and swallow at the same time.
-> Edmonds Technique, while tensing the soft palate and throat muscles and pushing the jaw forward and down, do a Valsalva maneuver.
-> Frenzel Maneuver, close your nostrils and close the back of your throat as if straining to lift a weight, then make the sound of “K”. This will force the back of your tongue upward, compressing air against the openings of your Eustachian tubes.
-> Voluntary Tubal Opening, tens the muscles of the soft palate and the throat while pushing the jaw forward and down as if starting to yawn. These muscles pull the Eustachian tubes open.

When to equalize? Sooner and more often then you think. 

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What can you do if you got stung by jellyfish?

There are a lot of sea creatures that are harmful to humans, one of them is jellyfish. Jellyfish is a sea creature that is gelatinous; they have a gelatinous umbrella shaped body with trailing tentacles. Jellyfish are not a good swimmer; they are drifted by the sea current.

Some jellyfish have season. Their number increases during a certain time. In Indonesia jellyfish season usually happen in September during seasonal change from dry season to rainy season.

Not all jellyfish are stinging, many are harmless to humans. There are some species of jellyfish that are deadly to humans such as the box jellyfish, Portuguese man of war also known as the blue bottle, so it is best to avoid touching if you see one. Jellyfish sting usually happen accidentally, people accidentally touch the jellyfish because they didn’t see it, because their body is transparent. We can avoid the jellyfish sting by wearing protective clothing (wet suit, dive skin and gloves).

What can you do if you got stung by jellyfish?

1. Get out of the water immediately, as calmly as possible.

2. Pour some warm saltwater over the affected area. (Do not use fresh water. Fresh water will cause the venom cells to release their toxin )

3. Remove the tentacles carefully. You can use a credit card to lift and scrape the tentacles from the skin.

4. Once the tentacles have been removed you can use ice to numb the sores skin or take a recommended dose of painkillers.
5. Get to hospital if the pain is very strong.

Symptoms :

1. Burning, stinging pain

2. Red, brown or purple tracks on the skin

3. Itching, tingling pain

4.Swelling, numbness

5.In several dangerous case, is hard to breath

Note: The English popular name Jellyfish has been in use since 1769. It has traditionally also been applied to other animals sharing a superficial resemblance. As Jellyfish are not true fish, the word Jellyfish is considered by some to be a misnomer. Public aquariums may use the terms Jellies or Sea Jellies.

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