The spell of Gili Trawangan: sincere or a sham?
As soon as I said I was going to Bali, it seemed like everyone told me to go to Gili Trawangan. More fun, more beautiful, more laid-back: the island was everything that Bali used to be.
There is a slightly faded charm to biggest of the group of three isles, located a three-hour fast boat ride from Padang Bai in Bali and just 10 minutes from Lombok. No cars or dogs are allowed; horse carts and stray cats are instead the island’s distinguishing features. The roads are unsealed, with the beachfront main drag littered with bars, hotels and dive centers catering to the insistent tourist crowd.
There is a lone hammock swaying in the breeze on a sandy beach; a collection of thatched huts and a small outdoor bar to serve up Bintangs for those rainbow-hued sunsets. A surf break curves over a reef, crowded with Indonesian and Australian guys sporting baggy board shorts and dreadlocks, proving the universality of surfer culture.
A mosque undergoes construction just meters from the beach; the call to prayer seems to go on all day, echoing through every corner of the island. Sunburnt girls cycle down the main drag in bikinis, snorkel masks and fins thrown in their basket: oblivious to the women with head coverings suspiciously eyeing their bare flesh.
Chalkboards advertise sexy magical take-you-to-the-moon magic mushroom shakes, happy hour specials, cheap beers, homemade gelato, Mexican fajitas, rooms with Wifi and air-conditioning and fresh-water showers.
From dawn til after dusk, longboats fill with neoprene-clad divers and wide-eyed snorkelers. Dynamite fishing was practiced in the area, stacking the beaches and ocean floors with brittle and broken dead coral. Even so, there are plants teeming with Nemo families, turtles stretching as long as me, neon-striped tropical fish and furtive reef shark curving around the bend.
I completed my open-water certification course at Villa Ombak Diving Academy on Gili, spending my days in the water until it seemed like fingers would never return from their prune-like state. I skipped the parties that stretched until dawn, well aware of the added intensity a hangover would take 12 meters down.
As is the case with many islands in Southeast Asia, it seems as if the authenticity has been stripped in the desperate search for dollars. Surely it’s the result of tourists ourselves: we want our sins on a picturesque backdrop of sand and surf. The charm of the deserted island has shifted into a pay-as-you-go buffet of psychadelic pleasures on the shore, deep-water delights in the sea.
Is it worth a visit? My mind swirls with memories of striking up a conversation on the picnic benches that pop up inside a circle of food carts once dark falls, trading travel horror stories over $1.50 bowls of delicious nasi goreng. Watching the sky spin into deeper and deeper shades of pink and purple at dusk. Stretching into a sun salutation with the call to prayer echoing, the horse carts jangling, the bass from the beach bars thumping.
Yes, I suppose it is. It’s going the same direction as Bali: crowded with drunk Aussie tourists, a mess of Bintang singlets and bikini tops. But just one sunset on a deserted beach in a hammock and the questioning fades away: this is paradise, pure and simple.
