In Reply to: Gilli accomm posted by robb on Thursday, 28. June 2012 at 18:37 Bali Time:
In March this year, I stayed at Black Sand Homestay for Rp 100,000 per night. It is at the back of the village on Gili Trawangan.
As I am not a party animal, my two 'must dos' on GT are snorkelling and visiting the Japanese Cave.
I simply rolled up near the jetty at 10 am and for Rp 90,000 for the trip plus Rp 10,000 to hire flippers I went on a six hour snorkeling trip around all three islands.
My other 'must do' is a visit to the Japanese Cave. If you walk to the back of the village and along a wall, you will see concrete steps going up to the Communications Tower on top of the hill. The steps stretch for about a kilometre. When you get to the top there is a great view of the islands. Walk around the tower and follow the track at the back. You will see a small sign in English and Japanese. Walk down a slippery slope for twenty metres and you will see the entrance to an L shaped Japanese Cave. The cave looks like something out of the film "Letters from Iwo Jima". It has been blasted out of the rock. It has about a one metre high entrance and is about four metres wide. I still do not know whether the cave was built by Japanese soldiers themselves or by forced labour.
You can return the way you came or walk down another set of concrete steps on the other side of the hill.
I also walked completely around GT which took 2 hours.
GT is a lot busier than Gili Air or Gili Meno and is currently undergoing a boom. There are no motor vehicles on GT. The only form of transport is the Cidomo, a horse drawn cart.