A Weekend in Gili Air

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.

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!

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”.

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!

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!

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!