Gili Trawangan

Some people I met on Gili T were hassled every few meters with offers of various drugs, but I apparently have an innocent face, and was offered snorkelling gear instead- the two main activities for tourists in the Gili Islands. This is a party place, disguised as a snorkelling place. Although Island Security protects the locals and tourists, no police are on the island allowing for many illicit activities, such as widespread drug use and the mysterious absence of dogs. This ‘freedom’ and the crystal clear, warm waters of the paradise beaches attract thousands of people to get loose.

Whilst you would expect there to be a lot of problems stemming from this kind of culture, there is actually quite a peaceful balance in the area. Tourists arrive to party, and then get bored of the beach-bum life and start to dive, funding a pretty good lifestyle for people on the island. To be a divemaster is a high aspiration for some local people, and considered a very cool job. This puts the dive shops in a very powerful position, and it is a position that they don’t seem to abuse. In fact, they fund all the environmental conservation and take their position very seriously as responsible businesses. From all of my research so far I have found that diving tends to improve environmental conservation in an area, and Gili Trawangan takes this to the extreme, as conservation would be non-existent without the popularity of diving.

So it seems to work out just fine that people will dive all day and party all night. There isn’t a resentment of tourists here because the village was created when tourists started to arrive. I was actually in the Gili’s at the quietest time of the year, as Ramadan causes many of the restaurants and bars to shut earlier, or even to not open in the first place. For this reason, I am well aware that my opinion of just how well functioning the island is may have been different had I visited during the craziest times of the year.

In a place where the government doesn’t really get involved and where making money is the main priority, the big decisions that affect the environment such as for development and waste disposal become hard to control. Although conservation attitudes are widespread with no vehicles being allowed, cats being cared for and new coral being actively encouraged to grow, the bigger picture is beyond the control of the local people. As well as this, in my opinion wherever there are drugs there needs to be caution, but controlling widespread drug use in a country where the sentence is already capital punishment must be very difficult.

However, my most interesting revelation for the island? People are full of conservation ideas and plans, but no one had an answer for how to control the drugs in Gili when I asked, because no one viewed it as a problem.