It's our first time ever to visit Lombok, so we decided to have a short visit to Gili Trawangan. We wanted to visit Gile Meno and Gili Air, but as it was raining, so we decided to only visit Gili Trawangan.
We left our hotel The Puncak Lombok at about 7 am, and we were heading to the Bangsal (that's how the harbour called) which was about 1 hour from our hotel in Senggigi area. On the way to the Bangsal, we could see the Gili, the Senggigi bay, very beautiful.
We were guided by our friend Daniel Yosua Ramlan by blackberry messanger:p Daniel is our friend who is currently working in Lombok. He kept telling us not to stop at the first parking place, just go straight, and find a parking place near the harbour. If we stop at the first parking place, we will be forced to take cidomo (horse carriage) and will cost us quiet expensive. So when the guy in uniform told us to stop, we didn't stop and just go straigth. Thanks to Daniel:) We stopped at the parking place, just few meters from the harbour.
Than we went to the ticket booth, the Bangsal ticket booth is very traditional (the wooden house in the picture below, the modern one is the ticket booth in Gili Trawangan). Be careful with tourist scam at Bangsal. They are people telling you that the boat is not operate. Don't listen to them, just go straight to the ticket booth.
We bought a public boat ticket from Bangsal to Gili Trawangan which cost IDR 10,000 per peson. There are different colors of the ticket. We were confused of what to do after we got the ticket, until there was an announcement that passanger with pink ticket shall board to the boat. The boat is packed with people taking fruits and vegetables to the island. We saw also bed at bangsal to be taken to the island. So interesting to see how people move stuff to Gili Trawangan from Bangsal.
And finally after a 40 minutes boat ride, we arrived at Gili Trawangan for the first time ever :)
We rented a bike, we thought that we could explore the whole island with the bicycle, hmmm I am telling you never thing about it! :p We did, and we regret it so much. The stone road is only until the end of the road with many hotels and cafe, after that there were only sandy road, and we couldn't use our bike!
The good thing was, we could stop at a very quiet beach and enjoying the beautiful view :)
After enjoying the beach for a while, we continue pushing our bike until we found a stone road again, which lead us to the main road. Alhamdulillah :)
Before leaving the island, we tried their street food which look really yummy.
At about 11.30 am, the wheather was really cloudy, so we decided to go back to our hotel. It was only a short visit to Gili Trawangan, wasn't that impressive because of the bike problems:p But yes the beach is fantastic. Next time, I and rene will try to spend a night here to explore the Gilis more.
written on January 4, 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment