Bali Hotels and Travel

Diving in Gili Trawangan, Bali and Lombok

The Gili islands, off the great Lombok, is a paradise apart from all that may be encountered in Indonesia. Place of relaxation, a place where youth partying at night and enjoy the pleasures on sea days, the island of Gili Trawangan, the largest of Gili, is a haven of peace without motor vehicle where one travels by bike and carriage.

How to get there?

In addition to the classic plan is to fly to the airport of Mataram on Lombok, then request a transfer to your hotel to go to the islands, we have recently experienced the Gili Cat. The speedboat from the port of Padangabai east of Bali and two hours takes you to Gili Trawangan. It is a good option to combine Bali and Lombok cost.

Diving

Many sites can be visited around the Gili and diversity of dives can see many beautiful things underwater. Sharks and turtles can still be seen fairly regularly, not including cuttlefish and stripes with blue spots, and you can also enjoy the macro well represented on the three islands.

The dives are fairly easy, with little current times, but there is no danger for beginner divers who will find their account.

Dive with Gangga are different, we believe the club the most serious of the island. Good rental equipment, knowledgeable guides and safe sites, good boats, all conditions are met for the dive takes place under optimum conditions.

Hotel

To dive with Gangga Divers, it is best to stay at Villa Almarik. This small hotel located on the eastern part of Trawangan is a bit isolated from the shopping area of the island, which can be quiet, away from crowds. A bike rental company near the hotel you will enjoy both the tranquility of the Villa Almarik and restaurants, clubs and bars, a few pedal strokes, are not too far.

You’ll love the Almarik Villa, nestled in lush tropical garden of flowers and a well-maintained. You might also like this place for the comfort of spacious and well designed for its courteous and helpful staff and a restaurant with Italian specialties. Nice little pool outside the hotel and, crossing the road, a nice little beach will give you the opportunity to bask in the sun with a beautiful view of Bali and Lombok.

Like all islands, the land mass that makes up Bali is in a constant state of collision with the surrounding ocean in a never-ending contest of the elements. And somehow, as with so many other natural phenomena on this dream-like island, this eternal collision between the land and the sea seems more dramatic and spectacular here in Bali than it is in other, less magical parts of the planet.

This ageless interaction is at its most intense on the Bukit Peninsula, a great, round lump of land that protrudes into the ocean on the south coast of Bali. The Bukit is an area of low hills surrounded by a formidable wall of cliffs towering up some 100m from the sea — like the defensive walls of a medieval castle. To the southwest the ocean is open all the way to Antarctica, and it is from here that great sea swells come rolling in to crash with unabated ferocity against these castle walls. It’s a coastline of thunder and tumult, stubborn land forms and a relentlessly pounding sea — all making for the spectacular discharge of powerful natural energies.

None of this has been lost on the Balinese who, being spiritually hypersensitive, have for a long time regarded the area as being of a very special religious significance.

One particular point on the Bukit juts out a little further than the rest, a jagged promontory that takes the first impact of the incoming waves. Balinese mystics and devotees have been coming here for centuries to meditate on the great force of the ocean, so inevitably it became the site of one of the most impressive temples on the whole island: Pura Luhur Ulu Watu.

Then, in the 1970s, Ulu Watu was discovered by devotees of a different type: international surfers. In what must have been a moment of near-religious revelation, a group of visiting surfers came to this desolate coast and saw to their amazement that rather than crashing bluntly onto the cliffs, the waves hit a submerged reef and broke in long, hollow, perfectly peeling lines. In what seemed no time at all Ulu Watu became a legend in the surfing world, synonymous with almost impossibly perfect crystal tubes, and the dream pilgrimage of wave riders from Malibu to Manly. It was soon discovered that the whole Bukit area of Bali had magnificent waves — though none quite matching the undiluted purity of Ulu. Indeed, the opening up of the Bukit led to surfer-explorers fanning out across the whole island, and up and down the archipelago.

It’s one thing to admire the power and grace of these waves, another to actually ride them. This is Indonesian reef surf at it’s most uncompromising. The rips and cross currents are strong, the impact of the waves is fierce and if you get pounded onto the reef you’ll receive very severe lacerations. Several very good surfers have died here. But if you’re up to it, you can pull into some of the most exhilarating, awesome tube rides in the world, and plug your whole body directly into the magically-charged energy that makes this place so special to the Balinese.