Our overnight on Gili Air was pleasant. It is like Gili T, but much smaller – not cheaper, and not geographically smaller, but far fewer crowds and almost no hawkers. The number of tourists per resident is much lower. Still lots of restaurants and the like. The west of the island is farms plus bungalow establishments, no stores.

I will be brief – we went there for music and hippie culture, but were charmed by the rural beauty of the backside of the island. It’s a bowl of endless blue looking seaward, and an emerald niche of coconut palms, grasses and scores of golden dragonflies looking landward. Swallows cut through the air in front of you at a steady rate. On the eastern shore, the views of Mt. Rinjani on Lombok are wonderful in the morning, before the clouds hide the mountain. We met a lovely couple – him an artist, she a midwife – on a little bohemian family vacation, and that seemed about right for the place.

There are more mosquitos than on Gili T though. Keep that in mind if you get a room there!

– The Private Eye