We woke up around 6am and packed up our stuff as we had a coffee. We went for breakfast at around 7:30am. I think we were the only two guests left in this incredible hotel (10/10 would recommend Blue Monkey Retreat in Areguling). We sat at a table right at the front of the common area to have our breakfast. Jives had fried rice and I had scrambled egg and toast with coffee. We talked to the guy who runs the hotel all about how they almost closed during covid. The guy was super friendly and we gave him a business card. We told him we’d send people his way, so please stay at Blue Monkey Retreat in Areguling and tell them Bumbling Tourist sent you! He called a driver for us and we made the two hour drive to Bansal port in the North of Lombok.

The drive cost $500,000 rupea or about $50 Canadian, but for a two hour drive in the mountains, that seemed super fair! We drove by monkeys in the hills and I saw a sign for “Kantukee Fried Chicken”.

We arrived at Bangsal port around 12:30. The driver drove all the way to the water and directed us to the window to buy local tickets to Gili Air. There are three Gili Islands in total, Gili T, Gili Air and Gili Meno (Gili just means island, so “Gili island” is a bit redundant). If you are going to Gili T or Gili Meno you buy tickets on the other side of the big blue building. It cost 16,000 rupea each to get to Gili Air. 18,000 for Gili Meno and 20,000 for Gili T. We were people #24 and #25 (they depart when there are 40 people). Our boat departed with less than 40 people… but this was not a good thing. Instead of people or boat was filled with sheet metal and building supplies which left no space to put your feet and no way of walking to the other end of the boat so everyone crammed up close to the driver. The 27 people on board barely fit.

I sat with my knees under my chin and my backpack and shoes balanced on a sharp edge of sheet metal. My toes fell asleep before we reached Gili Air just 10 minutes away. Thankfully Gili Air is the closest island of the three. You need to walk through water to board the boat, so don’t wear running shoes and socks like we did.

The waves from the fast boats got the public ferry rocking pretty hard, so if you don’t do well on boats, try and take a really early ferry as the fast boats don’t depart that early. We were also just barely out chasing a pretty severe looking storm… We disembarked ten minutes later at Gili Air and started the walk to our accommodation “The Bambu Huts”.

It took about 18 minutes to walk, and we arrived at about 1pm. A very kind man checked us in and showed us our room.