More of Gili Air

We booked onto a snorkelling trip which consisted of four spots around the Gili Islands. Forgetting their names, the first spot was a deep reef. Not too much here but we did spot more sea turtles. The second spot was the Gili Meno statues, an underwater sculpture of 48 humans arranged in a circle made from casts of real people apparently. We knew this was best visited early morning but we hit peak time annoyingly. Nevertheless it was incredible to see even amongst the snorkelling crowd. The next spot was absolutely full of sea turtles in the shallow waters eating sea grass just off the shore. We swam up close but the turtles didn’t seem at all bothered by humans nearby and happily continued swimming and eating. Someone did say to us, if you don’t see turtles when diving or snorkelling, you’re diving blind. They were certainly right. The turtles really were just the most beautiful creatures. Afterwards we stopped for lunch on Gili Meno and looking into the clear blue water we spotted the shadows of at least another 20 turtles nearby offshore. The last stop was another shallow reef although this one had many small jellyfish only visible a few inches in front of your face. The stings didn’t really hurt although one sting on Jess’ leg did catch her by surprise. Dan managed to avoid them all mind you.

Gili Air is a quiet island so has been the perfect spot to relax a little more. We say quiet for most of the time, as in the middle of the island there was a mosque which played prayers very loudly. These can be heard by the entire island at various intervals of the day including during early hours of the morning. Luckily we have ear plugs! A quirky place and you just have to experience it to really understand it. The people have been really friendly with so many locals cheerily saying hello to us as we’ve walked past. Despite the friendly reception from everyone, standard of living is clearly much lower here compared to other places in Indonesia like Bali, with many homes looking like shacks made from corrugated metal.Read more