7th Dec - A trip to Gil Air

Of the three, Gili Air is the island nearest to Lombok, it's the most populous, but without all the party bars and clubs, feels quieter than Trawangan. It's certainly busier than Gili Meno though.

We decided to visit Air as a day trip from Meno. We got on the public boat with locals and backpackers that hops between the islands and the mainland twice a day. It takes about ten minutes skirting around the reefs to get from Meno to the jetty at Air.

The rainy season was upon us though and our four hours on Air coincided quite neatly with the day's heavy rain, so we decided against hiring bicycles and instead sheltered in a couple of different bars and watched the world go by.

Showing off my new necklace, with yet another bottle of Bintang.

Plenty of accommodation options on Gili Meno, as well as a good selection of bars, restaurants and dive centres.

If we hadn't already sampled the extremes of Trawagan and Meno, then Gili Air would have seemed like the perfect holiday island. But since its identity is some midway between the two, we didn't feel the need to linger any more than half a day, and got the last returning boat at 3pm back to Gili Meno for our final night there.