Easter weekend was the perfect time to add another location
to our tour around Indonesia. What with Good Friday giving us a long weekend,
taking off the Monday as well allowed us to take a well deserved few days on
the beach. Actually, our four day weekend ended up as five days. In an error we
ultimately ended up grateful for, Soma forgot that Good Friday was a holiday
and booked flights heading out on Saturday returning Tuesday instead. So,
before we took a step away from home, we celebrated an even longer weekend with
our first family barbecue of the year.
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| Gili Air- our latest destination. In the background the mountains of Lombok |
The fact that this year’s rainy season has been a bit, well,
rainy is already established fact- we even ended up with footage of our flooded
city on the BBC after all! However, after those horrendous few days in January,
it seemed as if the rainy season was on its way out. “It’ll all be over by
Chinese New Year” was the confident refrain of a bunch of people who must have
spent a past life predicting the duration of World War 1. Chinese New Year was
done and dusted in February, but the rains kept coming. Easter weekend in late
March was dry enough but writing in mid April, the rolls of thunder and the
pouring rain outside means that rainy season is still here.
Not to worry though. Good Friday was our small family
barbecue- the chance for me to refresh my skills and ensure that at least one
naïve Brit doesn’t get laughed into humiliation by his over confident Aussie
and South African mates. For the first time, I tried a South African
contraption which enables a barbecue to be lit without the lighter fuel which
in this part of the world is as rare as hens’ teeth. All you need is some paper
(or some of Kieran’s old homework) and you’re up and running!
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| A Chubb family portrait- taken in front of our home for the weekend |
Anyway, barbecue done, skills refreshed and we fast forward
to Saturday. Now, this particular trip was one the boys had been looking
forward to very much- after all, which small boy doesn’t like the beach!
Unfortunately for the purposes of writing a blog, there isn’t much to write
about. There are no major temples in the Gilis, no long back story, just a lot
of peace and quiet and some very pleasant beaches.
Many people refer to the islands as the “Gili Islands”. This
is a mistake a little like saying the “Sahara Desert”. In the same way that
“sahara” means “desert” in Arabic, “gili” means “island in the local language,
sasak. We therefore call them the “Gilis”.
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| Sunrise over Lombok- taken from Gili Air |
There are three islands, all located close to the western
coast of Lombok. Ours was the middle sized of the three, Gili Air. To get there
from Jakarta, you take a short internal flight to Mataram, drive a couple of
hours to the west coast of Lombok, then take a 20 minute speedboat ride to your
island. If you are Rohan, you also take up the opportunity when offered to
pilot the boat- a terrifying ordeal for the rest of us with a seven year old
tentatively in control of a very fast boat!
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| Rohan in full control of a very fast speedboat |
Gili Air is a true paradise. The peace and quiet is assured
by the fact that there are absolutely no motorized vehicles on the island. Once
you step off your very powerful motor boat, the only means of transportation is
either on foot, by horse and cart or by bicycle. We started off on the first,
had a brief change of hotels using the second but spent most of the time on the
third- all of us with the exception of Rohan who, once again hit the jackpot by
finding out there were no small bikes to be found and consequently spending his
holiday being driven around by a long suffering father!
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| Two Chubbs cycling... plus a passenger enjoying the ride |
In short we spend four very happy days enjoying warm, calm
seas, looking at the impressive backdrop of the volcanic island of Lombok, with
swimming punctuated only by shaded bike rides through the jungle. All pretty
idyllic really. Once again we returned, feeling so very lucky to live in a country
where you can live in a major city but be on a tranquil tropical island within
hours!
