Padang Bai (Bali), Gili Air (Lombok), Indonesia

Padang Bai and Gili Air 

Readers warning: This is a long blog, if you don't feel like reading just scroll and look at the pretty pictures 

This week we spent in Padang Bai and galavanting through out the island of Gili Air, Lombok. 

West Gili Air

Padang Bai is on the East Coast of Bali and is mainly used as a port for locals to get a ferry to Lombok (5 AUD) or tourists to get a fast boat to the Gili islands (upwards of 90 AUD one way). The Gili’s are made up of 3 islands 

• Gili Trawangan

• Gili Meno 

• Gill Air 

These are just off the coast of Lombok. But more about that later. For now let’s talk about our awesome experience in Padang Bai- well mine was definitely better than Luke’s…

Padang Bai

We had planned to stay in Padang Bai one night and ended up three. This was not due to us falling in love with the place (although we are fond) but more due to Luke’s regular bowel movements. As I am an over sharer this was every 20 minutes for 3 long nights and 3 long days. Thankfully we were staying at Serrangan inn II, 16 AUD per night, which had immaculate toilets. Following along the lines of over sharing Luke also had the pleasure of using a bidet.

Ahh well enough of this crap talk and more about Padang Bai. 


In between the dropping off of tourists from fast boats to-ing and fro-ing from the Gili’s,  it is a little sleepy seaside village. The main harbour/ beach would have been the most beautiful white sand beach before the bay was overcrowded with boats and plastic. On either side of the main town there are two beaches:

• Secret beach (which isn't a secret)

• Blue lagoon (one of the many blue lagoons found throughout Bali)

Both are within walking distance from where we stayed and had little eateries scattered along the foreshore. Each boasting relatively cheap food, coconuts and sun beds. If you don’t rent a sun bed for the day, 2.50 AUD, you feel like a bit of a pleb. So guess what?  I rented the bed, whilst Luke was stuck at home, I was living the life of luxury. 

View from top of hill looking down at Blue Lagoon

My preference was for Blue lagoon as the bay was more protected and the waves don’t dump on the shore like they were at secret beach. However one of my favourite things at secret beach was watching tourists getting taken out by waves on the shore line, yes I know I am a bad person. 


At Blue lagoon I spent my days reading, snorkelling, drinking coconuts, and eating nasi goreng (nasi=rice, goreng= fried). The highlights of snorkelling was seeing 2 blue spotted eagle rays, clown fish and many other fish that I cannot name, yet.  The low point was as the tide changed you had to swim through plastic to get back to shore.

On the third day there was was a reprieve for Luke. Reprieve enough for us to haggle with the fast boat Golden Queen, 70 AUD, for both of us return to Gilli Air.  As Luke was in no condition to take the cheaper ferry that would have made the journey ~ 8 hours instead of a mere 2 hours. 

View from our boat Golden Queen
as we dropped passengers at Gilli T

Gili Air

With Luke loaded up on gastro stop we were on our way to paradise! Gili Air was where we chose to go. You can get in-between the islands easy enough but we decided to spend four nights on Gili Air. Here we stayed at Tedi Bungalows. Which were actually bungalows!  They had thatched roofs, white walls and aqua blue trim, very quaint and for 16 AUD a night we were well an truly spoilt. 

Our balcony Tedi Bungalows

After the first day Luke was on the mend- Yay! The island has no scooters or cars and only has bikes for rent or you can take a horse and carriage. We chose to either walk or ride our bikes, 3 AUD pp.

Main street Gili Air

Our high expectations weren’t quite met straight away on the island. As we walked out onto the east of the island we were expecting (as all the blogs we read suggested) private white sand beaches and unbelievable coral reefs. Again like most of Bali over tourism takes away part of the natural beauty of the place. In saying that the water had the best visibility Luke and I had ever seen. As we were snorkelling (with many a turtle, fish and dead coral) we got to 10m deep which we could easily see to the bottom of. 

Stoked with life after our first swim

We rode our bikes to the west side of the island which is much less touristy. We found secluded beaches, however you can only really swim at high tide otherwise the water is to shallow.

West Gili Air

Bike riding through Gili Air

Shallow water West Gili Air

Let me run you through a typical day:

6.30am: Claire does yoga, Luke continues to sleep

8am: Breakfast consisting of banana pancakes and orange juice

8-11am: Reading on the beach, drinking coconuts, or snorkelling

12pm: Lunch 

1pm: Swimming, bike riding around the island and siestas

6pm: Sunsets on the North West of the Island

7pm: Dinner

8pm: Sleep and repeat

More of paradise

East Gili Air

Our first sunset

Once we settled in to the slower pace of life on Gili Air we really enjoyed ourselves. We were planning on doing our open water dive certificates here however I was lucky enough to get another ear infection! So it wasn't meant to be- we will just have to wait until another tropical island... such a shame..

We were somewhat annoyed we bought our return ticket back to Padang Bai as you can get a boat directly from Gili Air to Nusa Lembongan (our next destination) but as we had already paid for our return ticket we were destined to go the long way around to get there. You live and you learn right? Speak soon.

Love,

Claire and Luke (Luke was drinking coffee watching the surf next to me whilst I wrote this, so he counts as a co-author too right?)

Nusa Cenigans, Bali

Sunset Point Nusa Ceningans