Indonesia Island Life I: Good in the Gilis

When I pictured the island paradise of Bali, I always imagined sipping fruit juice from coconuts on pristine beaches with crystal clear aquamarine water as far as the eye could see.

Unfortunately, my Bali experience has not involved much in the way of ocean life. While there are plenty of beaches, Bali is a pretty big island with a lot of geographic features. And much of it, including Ubud, where I am staying, is actually part of a large city or loose conglomeration of smaller urban areas in a jungle area. It is much like some of the places I visited in India – lots of people, including tons of western ex-pats scooting around on motorbikes, in cars and in taxis, on roads that are not wide enough to handle two-way traffic in many places. And transportation is not really cheap, especially considering the price of gas is no cheaper here than it is in the United States or elsewhere. So getting back and forth to the nearest beach, which is about 30 kilometers away is not really an everyday option.

But, that being said, I did not come to Bali for beaches. I came for the yoga, which is why I chose Ubud. Yoga is everywhere here, but I will get to that later.

Life Is Good on Gili Air

While Bali may not be all beaches, a visa on arrival stamp at Ngurah Rai Airport gets you access to all of Indonesia. And Indonesia is a nation of islands – large and small. And some of them, like the three Gili islands near the northwest coast of Lombok are pretty much all beach and ocean life.

When I was doing my initial planning for this part of the trip, I found a place called H2O Yoga and Meditation on the island of Gili Air. There was something exotic about the idea of doing yoga in a pool on a tiny island somewhere near Bali. I had booked an all inclusive “Eat, Pray, Love” package before I left Thailand.

I know how corny that sounds, but before this adventure, I had only heard brief references to the whole “Eat, Pray, Love” novel by author Elizabeth Gilbert. I knew it involved India, but I did not see the similarities to this journey I’ve been on until I started watching the movie with my fellow pashus at the Sivasoorya Ashram in Kerala back in April. I was tired and bailed on the movie halfway through; so I have yet to see how the heroine, played by Julia Roberts, completes her journey in Bali.

All that aside, I had arranged my stay on Gili Air for the second night I would be in Indonesia, not really factoring for the logistics of getting from an airport in a metropolitan area out to a secluded island. I did not leave myself enough time to collect a cash transfer at a bank before going to the island, so I ended up being cash poor on this part of the trip, but needless to say, everything worked out fine – especially considering much of my food was included including in the package along with unlimited yoga.

Yoga Unlimited

A driver picked me up by 7 a.m. at a hotel I had booked near the airport and dropped me off at the Padangbai ferry terminal in time for the 9:30 a.m. fast boat out to the island.

I made it to H2O Yoga by 1 p.m. and almost instantly redeemed my first EPL meal and yoga class pass for the evening slow flow. I was already starting to get the feeling that yoga in this part of the world is much more like its American counterpart than the yoga I had been practicing in its ancestral homeland.

Nevertheless, the classes were good, led by a cadre of young women from around the globe – Emma, a Kiwi, who taught most of the classes I attended; a Scot named Efa, whose specialty was meditation; and a fiery Italian whose name eludes me; along with the super friendly and accommodating property owner Jon, who taught a nice yin detox class.

The selection of classes was nice too, including a more challenging vinyasa or hatha class in the morning and a slower paced evening class, interspersed with meditation, qigong and the all-alluring aqua yoga.

The pool yoga class was novel and doing yoga in a pool – at least in a class format – was a first for me. It was nice just letting the water support the body and relax. Plus, not to sound like a dirty old bastard or anything, but holding beautiful bikini-clad young ladies as they floated in svasana was an added perk. The only drawback was that my fingers and toes had pruned up fiercely by the end of the hour in the water and I got a bit of sunburn on my shoulders.

Among the other offerings was a bamboo stick yoga practice, which I had only tried one time prior at the school in Amritsar, India, with the really cool Buddha on the wall. Emma’s stick yoga class was not so intense as the Sunsine Yoga class, but it was a good workout and the sticks can really help with alignment.

Since I didn’t really have cash to go spend sipping fruit juice on the beach, I just did a ton of yoga. I think one day I did four classes and spent the off hours lunging in my hammock doing some work on my laptop.

Water Everywhere

But yoga is not the only thing tiny island of Gili Air had to offer.

As an aside at this point, the word "air" in the Indonesian language Bhasa actually means water and is pronounced ay-er. So its name literally means water island.

First off, when I say tiny, I mean I could leisurely walk the circumference, which is entirely beach, in a little more than an hour. I estimated the total distance to be about 5 kilometers or so. That means I could walk from H2O Yoga east to see the sunrise in about 5 minutes and west to see the sunset in about 15 minutes.

After spending all the time leading up to this stay in ashrams and monasteries where the morning gongs and conchs start sounding at 4 a.m., I was getting up super early. I had time to do my morning pranayama breathwork in the shala before walking down to the beach to catch sunrise. It was an invigorating way to start the day.

Most evenings, the yoga class ran until 5:30 p.m. and the sun was already dipping below the horizon as I made it to the beach. I did catch the full sunset on a couple of occasions. Unlike the beaches of India, you could watch the sun settle all the way down into the ocean instead of seeing it disappear into a layer of smog. And the stars at night were the clearest I had seen since my nights in the high reaches of the Himalayas in Nepal.

Snorkeling trips are also extremely cheap out on the Gili islands. There are three Gili islands in total, Gili Air, where I stayed is the farthest east; Gili Meno in the middle; and Gili Trawangan is the largest of the three in the west. A five-hour day trip cost 120,000 Rupiah, which sounds like a lot, but is only about $8 USD. Two cheerful young islanders took us out on a boat at spots near all three islands to snorkel with the sea turtles and colorful array of fishes above the coral reefs. And just like the picture I had in my mind of Bali, the waters were aquamarine and crystal clear.

The Quiet Life

An added benefit of the Gili islands is that there is absolutely no traffic. The only motorized vehicles on the island are electric bikes, which are eerily quiet. There are bicycles for rent and horse-drawn taxis that will help tourists carry luggage from the ferry dock to their resorts.

While you might think all these hotels and food on a small island will cost a lot, the prices for food and lodging on Gili Air were at least as cheap if not cheaper than they are here in Bali.

I ate most of my meals at H2O, where I could bill the tab to my credit card, but I found some nice and really inexpensive restaurants with great coffee all over the island. And I discovered some really cool local dishes like gado-gado and capcay that use tofu and tempeh as the main proteins. It’s a vegetarian or vegan paradise when it comes to food options here.

So if you are ever planning a trip to Bali, I highly recommend you set aside a few days for at least one of the Gili islands. It’s super easy to get there and is a good chance to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life, especially if you are staying in a landlocked place like Ubud.

That’s all I have time for tonight, but I will pick up where I left off back in Bali in my next installment.