Gili Meno is the smallest of three tiny islands located off the coast of the northwest coast of Lombok (which is a much larger island, like Bali) and was a short, 15 minute, boat ride away from Gili Air(LINK). Our speedboat dropped us off on the shore, not far from our hotel. No horse cart for us, as they do not look comfortable at all. We waved goodbye to the boat, and took a seat on a conveniently placed bench.
We were enjoying the breeze and view, when a good sized lizard came into our view.
It didn’t bother us, but we headed for the hotel anyway, only 100 feet or so away. We checked into our bungalow, with a nice looking bed (that’s mosquito netting, which is a bit worrisome) and super friendly staff.
Off we went, hungry for some lunch. Our hotel had a restaurant, but there was some kind of kitchen back up, so we went looking for a local Warung (restaurant). We found one not five minutes from our hotel, and it actually became our most frequented Warung for our week on the island. It was run by a smiling and friendly gentleman, with some help from his Dad, we came to learn. His Dad told us his name was Eddie, like Eddie Murphy, he said with feeling. We wound up seeing Eddie at a couple different places on the island during our time on Gili Meno, as it’s a small island.
Later that evening, we took in the sunset, and the lights of Gili Trawangan after dark.
We did some island walking the next day, where we ran into Eddie at the convenience store, and walked past the local Mosque, as well as an eclectic, apparently closed,music venue, and around Lake Gili Meno.
If you follow Jessica on social media, you may have read about the monkey that jumped us while walking around the lake. After two horse carts past each other and we were basically standing in the woods to not get run over, a grey monkey came out of nowhere yelling at us with a full mouth of sharp teeth bared. Jessica went to run, and I almost followed, before realizing it was better to yell and scare the monkey away. So I yelled sternly at it to stop and leave us alone. It kept screaming, but we backed away slowly and went on. It was freaky, as we had researched and read that there were no monkeys on Gili Meno.
After that we left the inland island streets and headed back for the sand road around the island; the view was much better, the water clear, and sand hot. We could see Mt. Agung on Bali in the distance, and the port a bit later.
Gili Meno has a turtle sanctuary where they raise baby turtles so they do not die in the ocean, and then they release them. We swam with them on our boat ride in Gili Air, and were able to swim with them again here by renting some snorkeling equipment next door to our hotel, and walk five minutes to our favorite Warung, and walk in the ocean. They are so cool! To see the little tiny ones was very cute as well.
We continued our route around the island; there are some pretty and not so pretty spots, to be fair.
We were lucky that our place had a nice pool (though it had no shade), and some sea lounge chairs that we could enjoy (along with some coconut water straight from the coconut).
Those stakes were to discourage swimming in front of our hotel; we learned that the beach has receded almost 500 feet here in only five years; just south of our hotel even the beach road wasn’t there anymore and we had to walk over rocks to make the full circle around the island, which we did a few times. It took about an hour and a half, but we would often stop for water or a beer as it was so sunny and hot.
We found this one Warung/hotel that had a couple huts and some beach access, but the waves weren’t the calmest, and the beach was a bit gravely. That didn’t stop us, as we went swimming there one time, and another time hung out for the day. I had a long conversation at the bar with the owner, Gooday. He was about our age and we had a surprisingly similar outlook on life and existential matters; so similar that I had to ask Jessica to confirm she had seen me talking to him (as we had a few beers in the hot sun that day). She did.
We were able to see a lot of sunsets being on the west side of the island, so of course have a lot of pictures of those.
When you’re visiting a tiny island, there isn’t a ton to do but we made sure to walk the island route every day. It really showed that there is a lot of beauty, but also a lot of places have closed and fallen into disrepair and the cleanup is not the best.
We also were able to see some really clear skies at night, and the island bars and warungs also added a lot of colors to the evening.
GIlo Meno does have a very fancy area where the hotels and restaurants are pricey and a bigger hotel was being built when we visited. There was definitely a contrast of the new and expensive areas and the more rustic and older places (as usual, we fell in between and stayed at a nice, if not a bit older, place). The two bottom pictures above are outside the nicer hotels. Also, there are mosquitos! We needed that net, and had to spray, especially at dusk, all our exposed skin, and still got bit. Don’t go light on the spray when in Gili Meno.
We had our final dinner at our favorite Warung, the Sunset Bar and Restaurant, before, sadly, having to leave Gili Meno. We took another speed boat across to Gili Trawangan, to take the big boat back to Bali.
It was certainly a great vacation spot in Gili Meno, that we hope to return one day. Until then, cheers!
Phil's WayPastCool 