Setting Down at Gili Air

Gili Air, August 15th 2010

We arrived at Bangsal too late for the last public boat to Gili Air. The last boat leaves at 1:00 PM, as far as I remember I was told. Our only choice was to take a private boat. It cost us 50.000 rupiahs each whilst by a public boat it would only cost 8.000 rupiahs per pax.

At Gili Air Port we were greeted by "cidomos". "Cidomo" is a horse coach. I asked our boatman where Sunrise Hotel is. He pointed to the right and said it was still quite far and we should take a cidomo. The cidomo coachman requested for 25.000 rupiahs per person. No way, I said in an instant. I didn't truly believe the boatman. I thought he was helping his friends so that they would get passengers by telling me that our hotel is still far away.

Stupid thing, I never considered on dragging my travel bag on sand. It really wasn't easy. And now I began to worry that who knows we are actually walking to the opposite direction. Who knows the boatman misheard me when I said "Sunrise Hotel". I decided to stop by at PADI's shop (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) and ask where Sunrise Hotel is.

A Western guy was inside. I thought he was a customer. But he turned his head to us and asked, "Can I help you?"

"Do you know where Sunrise Hotel is?" I asked.

"It's not far from here, but... " he paused and looked at us, "with what you are carrying now, it might take 5 to 10 minutes walk.

That means we are already walking to the right direction. I looked at my watch before we continued to walk.

"It has been 5 minutes already," I said to Frank.

"Yeah..." and suddenly, "Look!"

There stood in front of us the sign "Sunrise Hotel".  Wow! So we had walked exactly according to that Western guy's standard in PADI Shop just now. Congratulations to us!

Sunrise Hotel is more like a resort. It's unique. Frank liked it very much, but I did not really. I like the environment of the resort very much, though. The next morning I spent some time on the balcony enjoying the morning sunshine and chirps of birds between the trees. I love balconies.

However, to be specific, these are what I don't like:

1. No air conditioning.
2. I don't like sleeping under a mosquito net.
3. We have a private bathroom, but the bathroom is downstairs and the bed room is upstairs joined by a steep wooden staircase. It's not practical at all if I have to use the bathroom at night.
4. Safety speaking, as a girl, I don't feel completely safe, because the door of the bedroom has no key. There is a thick board that can be pulled to cover the top of the staircase and then locked with a cross bar, but I still don't feel safe. On the contrary, this heavy thick board makes it impractical when I need to use the bathroom.
5. The light inside the room is dim.
6. Water from the tap and shower is salty although clear.
7. Breakfast order takes very long.

Okay, so we checked in and settled down. First thing to do was to have a shower. I missed water so much. Even until I found that the water was salty water, it still felt refreshing a lot on my whole body.

Our hotel attendant kindly told me to go to Casa Mio which is about 20 minutes walk to get a nice spot for sunset. Once again we accomplished the standard. It had been 20 minutes when Frank turned to me,

"Did you say Casa Mio? Here's Casa Mio."

 Here is it, sunset on Gili Air. The sand on this side of the island was rough because the sand was mixed with small corals and crushed sea shells. It was definitely a beach only for seeing not playing.

The most fabulous moment is usually the minutes before the sun comes out from the horizon and the minutes after the sun sinks into the horizon. However, I wasn't 100% lucky this time. I couldn't get good after-sunset-shots. There was too much heavy black clouds. This was the last "color" of the sky. I waited until the sun completely sank, but even though there was that magenta tone, the black clouds ruined the whole color.