Partying in Gili

I can’t pretend I did much in the Gili Islands other than socialise with people in my hostel. But we did get out to do some snorkelling (yes more snorkelling), but this time we saw turtles!

The Gili Islands are a collection of three islands about a two hour ferry away from Bali. We stayed on the biggest one, nicknamed Gili T, but did visit the other two via the snorkelling tour we did.

For the first night, our hostel took us out on their boat to watch the sunset and get to know each other. I can’t fault the hostels efforts to get everyone socialising. They have volunteers who stay there for free and their job is just to ensure that they chat to everyone and bring everyone together. It’s a genius idea that other hostels should take note of.

We played drinking games into the evening to get to know  each other and headed out to explore the local bars.

The next day we went to three snorkelling spots. My favourite bit was where I was just swimming along minding my own business when I almost bumped into a sea turtle. It was incredible to swim alongside these creatures, a very surreal experience!

Another night meant another night of partying, including me being slapped and having thrown water all over me as part of a game. I’m way too old for this…

The next day we managed to hire some bikes to cycle around the island, which was in turn a lot of effort.

The next day was a travel day. We had to get on another ferry and shuttle bus across to another island, Lombok. Whenever you need to get transportation here, you always get the impression that it’s never that organised, but it always seems to work out.