One shit ferry ride away from the Indonesian island of Bali are the three Gili Islands: Gili Trawangan ("T"), Gili Air and Gili Meno.
Each island is about 5 km² and is less populated than the first. The Gili islands are all supposedly controlled by the mafia, but only Gili T is visibly so. Gili T is just an extension of Bali, so we jumped over to Gili Air which was billed as a more "in-touch" experience.
We finally found our paradise to lay back and relax for the 5 days at the end of our trip.
Our only bad experience was our first. We made a reservation at an eco-lodge that was absolute garbage. I couldn't turn the lights on at night so I ended up bathing in the swimming pool. Check out our lovely realtor tour:
On our first night, we met some local Aussie at the first bar and he was leading a bunch of folks around on a bar crawl. We joined in, met some mates, and partied at an outdoor club. It was all around decent night!
The next morning, we decided we needed to detox so we went to the local yoga studio and opened our third eye. It turned out our yogi was an American chick I was hanging out with the last night!
Alex was itching to get a tattoo for a while now and Gili Air happened to have one of the best tattoo artists in the country there! He's a third generation tattoo artist and did a couple residencies in the US. Alex was stoked for the opportunity to work with him.
So Alex pulled the trigger!
Long story short, we just kept up with the island life... we hung out, did more yoga, went snorkeling, and went to some parties! I wish I got some photos of the reef there... but underwater cameras I do not have. If you end up going to Indonesia, make sure you go snorkeling or diving. The reef diversity is the best in the world.
We ended up doing a cooking class and getting manicures right before we left. The manicures were great but the cooking class was a bit too much on auto-pilot for mine and Alex's liking... they did all the prep and were a bit too hands on. Oh well!
We waited until the last minute to leave Gili Air. We had no interest in being in Bali any longer then we had to so we got on the boat back to the island and went straight to the airport to head back to our homes.
