The news that Lombok had suffered a magnitude 6.9 earthquake on the 19th of August came as a shock to us in the USA. Our home for a week, the beautiful Gili Meno, the smallest and quietest of the Gili Islands sits a stones throw away from Lombok Island. We contacted our accomodation providers who confirmed that they were lucky and received no damage and were ready for our arrival.

They may have been ready but we are not sure Gili Meno was. The title of this post is spot on, its a paradise and it is an Island in destruction.  We loved it and we were shaken to the core by it. It left us feeling humble, thankful and I guess a little helpless to the cause.

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Our transfer day started with a 5 am start and a 3 hour drive to Amed to collect our fast boat transfer to the islands. This is the fastest route over, anything else can take over 2 hours, ours was estimated at 45 minutes to an hour thanks to 1250 Suzuki horses strapped to the back. Poor Kristi gets sea sick and 5 days before we caught the boat she was clocking the sea forecast. How fast is 12 knot winds, is that safe? How is the sea at 3 feet waves? Gosh I was glad I didn’t suffer from such a thing. Poor Ashton was the same and I felt for both of them. Today, was a bit windy, the calm sea in the picture turned to white caps when we departed and everyone hung on for the ride.

Little did we know that was the easy part, the transfer from Gili T to Meno was windy as,,,,,,,,, and our boat was as small as……… I think the boys were distracted by the glass bottom theme in the small boat and Kristi was just too scared to talk or even think about anything. Luckily it was over in less than 15 minutes, The Gili Islands, The Walkers had arrived.

We were supposed to have been met by our hosts, nope…….nobody was here except a couple of locals, shouting taxi, taxi. We all clambered on to the horse driven taxi cart with Kristi wondering when the five us were on plus the driver plus the luggage would the poor horse be pulled up in the air and left dangling his legs shouting WT@?

There are no roads, so no gas stations, so you have three modes of transport, feet, bike or these guys. Now these guys charge more than a New York cabbie so it left me thinking we were in for a ride on the captured market of an island. Thankfully that was not the case.

Our accomodation was something out of faulty towers. Our Muslim manager trying to tell me that the call for prayer, starting at 4am and again 4 other times during the day was just like church bells. He was shouting because our accomodation almost backed onto the Mosque and it was time to call everyone in. He told us, they have call to prayer and we have “ding ding ding” of the church bells.  He failed to note that most churches don’t have bells and they certainly aren’t everyday starting at 4am!! Kristi and I have heard tons of call to prayer in The Middle East, it is always subtle, respectful and somewhat peaceful, this was far away from this. If I was Simon Cowell I would have hit my Red X button within seconds.

The Putri Homestay, our piece of paradise for a week, we could only rate at two stars and it was such a shame with beautiful bogonvillia gardens, comfortable beds and amazing breakfasts. The lack of credit on our electricity meter was a joke more than once when our power went off and took the air con with it (in addition to the numerous island-wide power cuts), the sea water shower and taps, the lack of hot water, running water to the toilets, non-working safes, scorpions taking up a free ride in our room and of course the call to prayer at full decibel at 4am was about all we could take.

First the destruction. The earthquake had hit this tiny 3km round little island badly. I would guess that 70% of places were closed, in a state of repair or just abandonned. Tourists were not flocking here and they need to. If you can look past the destruction and try to imagine what the island was like you can perhaps understand what it will be like again in a few years.

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Our hotel manager’s Brother, standing outside what was once his family home and now just a concrete slab, told me that they literally had enough time to run across the path in front of their house, turn around and watch his house fall to the ground in a heap of dust.  He said this with a smile on his face, as did most of the other staff telling us stories. The bravery and willingness to push through was outstanding. They were now living in make shift houses until they could afford to rebuild their homes.

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On the paradise side it was all we hoped it would be and more, being only 3KM’s around the island it has stunning spots everywhere.  We found favorites on all sides but our favorite had to be the sunset side, stunning sunsets, beautiful restaurants and 5 star views to eat and enjoy the cool of the evening.

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The nights were gorgeous because the temperature dropped to something really nice, this caused celebrations in our family and something to dance to for the boys.

Turtle Capital Of The World

Probably everyone’s reason to visit this beautiful little island is to have the almost gauranteed chance of swimming with turtles just as nature intended.

Now, this is where we kicked ourselves as Lara had a waterproof camera for Christmas and left it in the USA. So forgive our poor quality video here, we were using iphones in a waterproof case in a waterproof bag. These guys were just beautifully tame and although the temptation is to stroke them we resisted due to our harmful oils.

The second reason why people dive here is to see the underwater statues, 48 life size statues carefully positioned in the sea bed and said to be able to preserve the dying coral for future divers. They were somewhat magestic and we all enjoyed exploring them.

As for the rest of the lazy days, we found it easier to go out after breakfast and be back by 1pm for the boys nap time, anything else was just unbearable in the heat. The first day was a disaster, we were all tired from our 4am wake up call and we wandered to the wrong place on the island, no shade, tide out and all coral. The second day we wanted to try the snorkling at the area where we knew the top spot was, accessible from the beach. So being a good boy and looking for brownie points I volunteered to look after the boys on the beach while the girls went to meet the turtles. However on approaching the beach area we found a beautiful resort, The Seri. Equipped with freshwater pool, towels, showers, great food and hardly anyone there……..I was sold. We returned here four times. For a small fee that was easily covered by the cost of lunch we could have all of this. We later found out that the rooms here are a mear USD$45 a night and looked wonderful. It had about 65 rooms and only 10 were occupied, I think they were thankful for our business.

The boys and I immediately jumped in and the girls swam out with flippers and masks. The boys swimming is becoming amazing, they get their time to play and relaxation and fun seems top of their agenda.

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Our last night on Gili we enjoyed on the sunset side again, great meal. I showed the kids crab hunting and proceeded to get my index finger pinched and Charlie laughed and just asked for a bigger one.

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We really enjoyed our time here and would love to come back in a few years to see it in its full glory. We were glad to make our contribution to its little economy as best we could and wish everyone their health and happiness in claiming back their livelihoods.

Check out our wonderful images here

Next stop………….Ubud Bali….