Sunrise, sunset, the days melt away on Gili Air
Friday, June 26th, 2009
We went snorkeling again in the morning but since the waves have picked up again the visibility wasn’t that great and the current is getting stronger. It was still fun though!
Photo taken with For lunch we went to (you guessed it,) Munchies again where I got Urap-urap with tofu. I am really going to miss this tasty food.
We did some more reading and bumming around for the rest of the day before watching another beautiful sunset and hitting up Munchies for dinner.
Saturday, June 27th, 2009
We skipped snorkeling today because the visibility was so bad yesterday. After watching sunrise and bumming around we spent most of the afternoon shooting the shit with our buddy Rouling at Munchies. He’s a 19 year old surfer kid, born on Lombok and now living on Gili Air trying to make enough money to get by. Like most people here he works from 8am till closing at around 10pm and only gets 2 days off a month. He’s a good kid, just living life and hoping he someday finds true love.
In the evening I bought a fresh mango for 10,000 to eat for lunch tomorrow, then we watched the sunset and went to Munchies for dinner. Wash, rinse, repeat… this is the life!
Sunday, June 28th, 2009
After breakfast I bought a pack of peanuts from Ozzy’s store for 5,000 and inside was a 1,000 bill taped inside one of the peanut shells! Later I learned that it was part of a marketing contest, apparently I was the lucky winner of approximately 10 cents!
We spent the afternoon chilling at Munchies again. There is a momma cat and her 3 kittens that live there so we played with them and talked with Rouling for a while. In the middle of the day it was super hot so Ryan and I had an impromptu water fight to cool off to the delight of the Munchies crew who thought it was a riot. I borrowed Rouling’s bike to go buy our Perama boat tickets back to Ubud which cost us 335,000 each after the 15,000 discount we got for being repeat customers. We’re leaving on June 30th, but we really don’t want to…. On the way back from buying the tickets I rode through some of the village on the interior of the island. I wish I had more time to explore this place!
At night we went back to our favorite place for dinner and beers with Rouling.
Monday, June 29th, 2009
Today is my unofficial birthday because we are traveling all day tomorrow, June 30th, which is my real birthday. We had breakfast brought to our room where we ate and watched the sunrise before heading into the ocean for some snorkeling. The visibility was much better today but the current is getting super strong! It’s fun to just get in in front of our hotel and be able to float along the the sea wall in the current.
Photo taken with 
Photo taken with We went to Munchies for lunch where I got iced coffee for 6,000, large Bintangs for 25,000 and a mixed lassy for 10,000. We chilled there for a while and took pictures with the Munchies crew.
Later we watched the sunset and then I got a half hour massage by the beach for 50,000, it was lovely. We also gave one of our flashlights to the lady we bought necklaces from a few days ago as a gift. We gave her the manual recharging one so she won’t have to buy batteries. It’s interesting the things people have asked us for here; so far people want our flashlights, extra clothes, and Ryan’s sunglasses.
We headed to Munchies again for our last dinner and beers on this amazing island. I got my all time favorite Indonesian dish, Gado-gado for 13,000, and of course, Bintangs. We stayed until they closed and then asked Rouling to walk back to our hotel with us. We talked along the way and then gave him some money as a gift. It was a small amount for us but we really hope it will be a help to him. We promised him that when we come back we will all climb Mount Rinjani on Lombok together because it’s something we really wanted to do but didn’t have time for, and it is a dream of his to make the trek. Rinjani is considered a sacred mountain to Lombok’s people and making the 3 day trek to the summit is important to them.
We’re not ready to leave this beautiful island, but we are nearing the end of the trip and we must get back to Bali to fly home.
Goodbye Gili Air, you are by far the coolest place I have ever been, now back to Ubud, Bali!
gili air is currently my favorite place on earth, it’ll be tough to beat it