Gilis or Bali - please help I'm desperate!

[Mucksavage]

Lots of sense being made above. Diving in Gili is inferior to Bali BUT it is a cool place and way nicer top side then Bali. If you are based in Kuta, Padang Bai, anywhere in Bali expect to spend most of your days driving or boating. Kuta based shops drive every day to Tulamben - 2.5 hours each. Many boats going to e.g Nusa Penida from Padang Bai take 2 hours each way. As a DMT you can expect lots and lots of this.

Kuta is crowded, Sanur is boring, Tulamben, Amed, Lovina are ghost towns (ps Lovina dive shops all dive in Menjangan - 2 hours each way!).

For great food, great bars, great parties, a young (attractive) crowd, cheap places to stay, plenty of courses for you to do your assisting on and an idyllic island life - Gili Trawangan. You can always pack up when done, go to Bali and in 1 week going around you can dive Bali's highlights.

I went to Indonesia purely to dive and was fanatical about it but had I known how noce Gili Trawangan was I would have stayed for longer and sacrificed a few better dives elsewhere.

Enjoy.

 

[Bubble Junky]

For great food, great bars, great parties, a young (attractive) crowd, cheap places to stay, plenty of courses for you to do your assisting on and an idyllic island life - Gili Trawangan. You can always pack up when done, go to Bali and in 1 week going around you can dive Bali's highlights.

And if you fancy a bit less of a party scene you can stay on either Gili Meno or Gili Air. The three Gilis are literally a stone's throw apart. Gili Trawangan is the party island of the three. Check out Blue Marlin, they have a shop on each of the three islands. Also Big Bubble are good on Trawangan.

 

[Mucksavage]

On the malaria thing - don't know if there is much to worry about on the Gilis however an instructor in Dream Divers (decent outfit by the way) got Dengue Fever while I was there . . .

 

[bodiver13]

manado is definitely better than bali in term of diving.

 

[timbir]

Have you thought about staying on Nusa Lembongan, the island life is very chilled and the diving is great. Corals are in fantastic condition and fish life varied. There are a number of dive operators on the island but only a couple who can offer the DM course.

 

[silent running]

Having just returned from Bali and having dived in the Gilis on another trip, I'd have to say that Bali is much better. Nusa Penida was great, did 2 dives at Manta point, saw good sized Mantas both times, even had a small pod of Dolphins give us a fly by at 20m. Batu Abah was also excellent with amazing viz, tons of fish and lots of healthy hard coral. Candi Dasa was also top notch, but with less good viz.

Gilis-one good dive which was Shark Point on Trawangan. Current was more challenging than anything I experienced in Bali, it was a hold on as long as you can type thing. Myself and 1 other person were the only ones out of 12 that didn't get blown off the site. Good amounts of fish and good viz, did it 3 times only because most of the other dives had lots of coral rubble and not very many fish.

As for Malaria, the notion that there is any on Gilis is hard to imagine. How could it have become so popular? I can just see the Lonely Planet Indonesian chapter now-"Malarial Areas which also have Diving Next to Large Population Centers"... I wish there were some malaria there, then there might be less backpacking dopes listening to lousy dance music on the beach in Trawangan and I might be inclined to go there again as it's a pretty island.

 

[fiksuviksu]

so i ended up going to gili T for two months (this was almost a year ago). it was perfect for the purpose of my trip. diving was definitely more exciting in Bali, however top-wise the gilis were paradise. absolutely beautiful, safe and peaceful. it's pretty easy to avoid the backpacker crowds and the locals were just such friendly people. there are some very good dive sites around the gilis too and they are all located max 15min boat ride away. i really enjoyed daily dives to han's reef, simon's reef, deep turbo and shark point. also the deep dive to the japanese WWII wreck is pretty amazing. i highly recommend all of these. also, the dive operations on the island are very professional and take safety incredibly seriously (compared to ones i used in bali, which came highly recommended).

there has been one case of malaria in the past ten years! and the person probably got it from Lombok in any case, and then traveled to trawangan. i had malaria pills with me but ended up not eating them, as i didnt feel it was necessary at all.

thanks again for all the info everyone!

 

[gman2008]

Hi,actually there's also another possibility on Lombok. Why not go south??? There's a dive operator there who operates 3 locations in the south one in Sekotong, south west close to Lembar. this location offers really cool diving (pristine coral and lotsa macro), but topside there's not really anything mentionalble. the second location is Kuta, Lombok. Also cool diving,and topside one can call it "Gilis 10 years ago".The third location they operate is "WOW" there it's about diving for the experienced diver. Big waves, strong current, possible hammerheads, huge eagle ray schools,big fish...

By the way, i've been on Lombok for 5 years, 2 years on the Gilis, and I havn't met anyone who caught Malaria there.

...but still, go South, i's definitly worthwhile!!!

 

[Wayan]

Hello all you wise people out there!

so i have been researching a location to spend two months at the end of the summer doing my DM. i have been trying to find the perfect spot and shop and have narrowed some down but find it impossible decide when the only tool for information i have is the world wide web. a great tool noneless but dont know how reliable.

im considering south bali (kuta/sanur) and the gilis. i know the diving around nusa penida & nusa lembongan is amazing, so staying in sanur for example would be a good choice. however, on the topside the gilis seem like the perfect place to relax with no cars or gigantic resorts. im having a really hard time deciding between these two. im really looking for some good diving (wrecks, fishies & healthy coral) but also a very chilled and relaxed locale with a youngish crown. no techno beats. just bob marley. you know what i mean.

so i have two questions:
1) is the coral really that dead around the gilis - is there really nothing to see under water?
2) is bali too busy and crowded and commercial and full of people trying to sell you everything between heaven and earth?

i do also have the option of doing my DM in five weeks in one place and then spending another three exploring divesites in other areas. what would you do? would you spend those five weeks in the gilis or sanur/kuta?
im hoping to get my DM internship-style and im looking for low-budjet accomodation. any advice on places to stay or dive shops? im so confused - i think i have done too much research and my head is spinning now.

thanks for your time!

/v

IMHO you can not go wrong with doing your DM internship at either location Bali or Gills and thens spend the remaining 3 weeks just traveling and diving. Dive destinations all over the world are all good in their own right and it really just depends on what you are looking for (ie if you do not like muck or macro do not do Lembeh you do not like Walls do not go to Manado). Gilis can certainly be laid back (you may want to head to Bali for a weekend after a 3 weeks or so - a number of people get island fever who stay there awhile and just need to get away)

 

[dangles]

No comparison - Bali is much better than the Gilis. You can see more on one Liberty Wreck Dive than you would in two weeks of diving on the Gilis.

With that said -Komodo is not too far away, and the diving there is much, much better than Bali or Lombok