Exploring Gili Air: Indonesia’s Most Relaxed Island Paradise (so far!)

Exploring Gili Air: Indonesia’s Most Relaxed Island Paradise (so far!)

Having just been to the secret Gillies, in this video we head to one of the better known ones, Gileier, for great food, sunset drinks, watching the locals fishing, and best of all, amazing snorkeling with turtles. [Music] After a couple hours in the taxi, we made it to Bangal Harbor where you get the boats over to the Gillies. Don’t make the mistake we did, which unfortunately I’ve lost the footage on film, but it’s a bit of a scrum when you get there. There’s lots of people shouting at you to go into various offices and buy tickets. We made the mistake of doing that rather than sticking to our guns and going to the public boat office, which is what we’d intended to do, and ended up paying a fair bit more than we needed to. Not a massive deal, but if you’re on a tight budget, just be careful. We safely arrived in the harbor in the south and had about a 15-minute walk to our hotel which is in the middle of the island. But everything is very walkable, hence why we chose the middle so we could just easily get to all sides. [Music] [Music] does remind us both a bit of Kipe here cuz it is just lots of nice little paths through along the coast and with lots of little bars and coffee shops and restaurants along all really It’s got a nice relaxed vibe. Mhm. What we’ve seen first couple hours. And there’s no motorized vehicles. All the It’s either horsedrawn carts or electric mopeds, which we did hear bad things about the horsedrawn carts, but actually the three that I’ve seen, the horses looked okay. They’ve all looked happy enough. Yeah. Well, don’t know if they were happy. As happy as horses ever look. Assuming all these places get much busier later cuz they’re all kind of setting out their seats obviously for sunset. I thought we were kind of northeast facing as we come around here. But I guess you can probably still get a bit of Well, it is. But I think west is over there somewhere. Couldn’t be cuz it’s behind. Maybe we’ll see where we are at sunset and work it out. But really nice. All the all the bars along here are lovely again. I suppose I got to be complete. Tell we’re getting closer to busy places and more touristy back. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. [Music] This was the bar that chat GPT recommended for sunset. Unfortunately, there was no sunset, but I don’t suppose we can blame the bar for that. And the cocktails are good. And the cost 50, which is, I don’t know, £230. Cheapest we’ve seen. It’s the cheapest we’ve seen. Just in half hour. They are nice. And we have a nice guacamole. So yeah, it’s been quite nice despite the lack of Well, there’s a slight orange tinge. It’s been raining this morning and overnight. So we’ve come out for breakfast and looks like lots of other people had the same idea in this place. Nice little one. Lots of nice little ones, but pretty good. 85,000 pieces or five pieces for 13,000. Okay. We didn’t have breakfast there. Jan rejected that place cuz she felt the portion sizes would not be big enough and I’d still be grumpy. Tiny. The fruit was like this big. An egg cup of fruit. It was an egg cup of fruit and you would have paid money and then you’d have been hungry and then you’d have been moaning. So, it was self-preservation to have the moaning now before you’ve eaten rather than moaning after you’ve eaten. We’ve already we’ve already done a tour of a third of the island. It looks like we’re doing a full circuit again and we’ll end up back by our hotel probably. There’s a little place just there that look quite nice. It’ll be lunch by the time we get breakfast be better for you. Made it to somewhere for breakfast at last. Nice spot to be fair. Um baren u yeah anyway very nice. So gone for smoothie bowl. Jan’s gone for avocado egg on toast. Smart avocado toast. There you go. And it’s only 10 to 11. There we go. Breakfast at last. Thank you. Thanks. Looks pretty good. Decent sized portions. My smoothie bowl’s lovely. As is my ice latte. Oh, and the horses are off. And the horse horses are on something today. Shallow for a long way out. You see how far out I am? And it’s still just above my knees. See quite a war bit of low tide to get out where you can sn good spot for turtles. So, we’ll see. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat up here. [Music] They really weren’t bothered by us. As you can see, people are quite close. Um, and they just potter about, come up when they need to, and if they wanted to have a bit of peace, a couple of flicks of their fins and they were long gone. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Occasionally it got quite busy when a boatload of uh snorkelers came along, but most of the time it was just the two of us and we could just potter about looking at where all the fish, but mainly the turtles. [Music] You could see how powerful their jaws were, chomping away on the coral. And he just kept a little eye on us as we were watching him. But interesting watching all the other little fish circling around him and picking up the bits that he drops. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] We haven’t skipped continents. We’ve just gone European for food tonight and uh come to Santorini. Okay, we haven’t switched continents. We’re still in Indonesia, still on Gileier, but we fancied this restaurant when we walked past the other day, Santorini. And it does look just like a little Greek restaurant. Really nice. And we’ve both gone for the mixed gyros plate cuz it sounded good and it looks pretty good. Okay. Very authentic. Santorini. Really nice today. [Music] Definitely a place where people come out and have a few drinks and eat early cuz it’s just gone 9 and it’s pretty dead. But looks like most people come out for sunset drinks and then eat straight after and then that’s it. [Music] Cake Jan’s massacring a coconut. I’m lying. It’s failing. But it was a good one. Lots in it. Oh, that’s good. Some useful information boards in the middle of the island. We had wandered about the cat’s tails and they showed us how to tell one turtle from the other. The puffer fish we saw or porcupine fish. [Music] And Jan reckon she saw one of these this morning. [Music] There you go. We’re sat looking at Gillyino, which is where we’re going to tomorrow. So, we’ll probably be sat over there tomorrow looking back over it. Hope the boat doesn’t cost much cuz you could probably swim it in 10 minutes. [Music] I’ve been told off for sitting in the wrong place. Sunset’s a little bit around the corner, but it’s not a brilliant one. [Music] [Music] Suddenly gone quite spectacular. [Music] did have it to ourselves, but everyone’s just realized that that’s a pretty cool sunset. Bit weird in the middle of Gileia air. There’s a paddle court. The road up the middle was very quiet at 7:00. It was busy on the beach. It was busy on the beach. But I think cuz the place we’re in had live music, which was good. But yeah, these ones seem very quiet. Ooh, pearls. Spot pearls on the deer. Yeah. [Music] Yeah. Okay. [Music] Okay. Lovely. Thank you. Thank you. Just polished off our sulaki. Can I have cork eyed chicken and some pit tiki and some French fries we really didn’t need, but Jan’s eyes were bigger than her stomach. It’s your fault making us walk another 20 minutes. Anyway, nice little lapine right in the middle. Yeah, really lovely little place. [Music] [Applause] [Music]

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Welcome to Gili Air, one of Indonesia’s most peaceful and beautiful islands! 🌊✨
In this video, I take you along as I explore crystal-clear waters, sandy beaches, stunning sunsets, and the slow island life that makes Gili Air so special.

From snorkeling with turtles 🐢, walking the car-free streets 🚲, trying local food, and discovering hidden gems, Gili Air is the perfect escape if you’re looking for relaxation and adventure.

📍 Location: Gili Air, Lombok, Indonesia
🎥 What you’ll see:
– Beautiful beaches & sunrise spots
– Snorkeling highlights
– Best cafés & restaurants
– Real island life moments

If you enjoyed this video, don’t forget to LIKE, COMMENT, and SUBSCRIBE for more travel adventures around Indonesia and beyond! 🌎✨

#GiliAir #IndonesiaTravel #TravelVlog #IslandLife #GiliIslands #Travel2025

Hi – we are Callum and Jan – and having decided to give up work in our 50’s we are travelling through SE Asia over the next few months. We have already done a driving trip round Europe (Spain, France, Monaco, Italy, Croatia, more of Italy, Austria, Germany and Holland) in 2021, 10 weeks in Thailand in Spring 2022 and 10 weeks in Peru and Colombia in Autumn 2022. We did do BLOGs for these (https://rossiesgoroaming.travel.blog/home/) but decided to have a go at VLOGs as we have found many so useful in planning our current trip.

Our favourite VLOGs:
Paddy Doyle
https://www.youtube.com/@PaddyDoyle.
Joel Friend
https://www.youtube.com/@UCbn5xzRrAOY9DWJlbyPBsvg
Probably Lost
https://www.youtube.com/@ProbablyLost
Flora and Note
https://www.youtube.com/@FloraandNote
Eoin and Aisling
https://www.youtube.com/@EoinandAisling
Travels on Toast
https://www.youtube.com/@UC8AtHRB49boexr6i-1DoaSQ
Karl Watson
https://www.youtube.com/@karlwatsondocs
Retired Working for You
https://www.youtube.com/@RetiredWorkingForYou

Link if you want to try the plastic free shampoo and conditioner bars:
https://kinkind.co.uk/
(not getting paid for this – just had a friend who gave us some and was great!)

Water-To-Go bottles as featured (this is an affiliate link):
https://watertogo.eu/refer/836/