Diving in Gili Trawangan

So after Ubud I decided I would visit one more place in Indonesia before moving on; there's many more things I wanted to see, like the Komodo dragons in Flores, the trekking slopes in Lombok, or the Mount Rinjani volcano, but I've spent enough time in Indonesia and have to move on sooner or later. I thought the Gili Islands would be a nice way to round off my trip in here and so off I went. The Gili Islands are three islands grouped together, Gili Air, Gili Meno, and Gili Trawangan, all known for scenic beaches and party atmosphere. I'd be going to Trawangan, the largest of the three; I'd heard about scuba diving there which is what I wanted to do, if I wanted beaches I'd have just gone back to Seminyak or Kuta in Bali.

Getting to Gili Trawangan took a little while; there's a ferry to reach the islands which takes seven hours, or you can take a speedboat that takes a little over an hour. I did the long travel thing when I took the overnight bus to Seminyak; not my thing really, so I ponied up the cash for the speedboat. First it was a trip to Padangbai, a small town in itself which serves as a springboard to the Gili Islands. Padangbai has nice beaches too but no one cares, Gili is where it's at.

The fleet awaits the signal to begin the invasion.

Looking out the window.

And here we are: Gili Trawangan, the island paradise.

I like it here; whereas most places in Indonesia were all hectic and crazy with cars and traffic everywhere, in Trawangan there are no cars. Just horse rides if you want them, or you can rent bicycles to get around. That's not really necessary, everything's in walking distance anyway.

View of Gili Meno from Trawangan.

Trawangan had no shortage of fancy restaurants and cafes, all serving upscale stuff, but I liked the night market best. Every night local vendors set up in tents, and you can walk around to pick what you want for dinner. Good stuff, and cheap too.

Catch of the day. You could get your fill of squid, red snapper, other fish I don't know. They grill it for you and make it into a local indonesian dish.

Indonesian workers arriving themselves for another day's work. The Gili's being islands, everything has to be imported so on the whole everything tends to cost more but definitely not expensive.

For the most part, I like Gili Trawangan; it's mostly young people drinking and hooking up left and right. Beaches are sunny, food tastes good, people are friendly, the Gili's have everything you could want out of an island paradise. And I? I wanted to go scuba diving. I've got no pictures unfortunately since water just doesn't agree with my camera, but I went to Trawangan dive to do my Open water certification. I tried scuba gear in the pool, practiced all the scuba hand signals and tricks, and off I went to do my scuba diving. I saw lots of cool things under the sea; rainbow colored fish, sharks, octopus, sea turtles, all that stuff. There was even this huge fish, must have been over a meter long, really big; it was a grouper, some fish I never heard of before but still cool.

The Open Water certification was fun, but you know what? I wanted more. So I stuck around for a few more days, signed up for the Advanced Diving course. The Open Water course certifies you to dive to 18 meters, and the Advanced Diving course would be a lot more technical; deeper dives, more skills and techniques to learn. I had a blast doing it; the expert instructors at Trawangan Dive where I went diving are all super fun. Diving is not for everyone, but as long as you relax and keep calm underwater there's nothing to worry about(though I did have a major emergency once, but I didn't care, I still had fun). I wish I could have stayed longer and done more diving, perhaps do the Rescue Diving certification, but I didn't have much time left in Indonesia and had to leave. So sad; maybe I'll come back one day and do the rest of the scuba diving certifications. For now, it's on to my next destination, Hanoi in Vietnam.