Gili Air Gets its First ATM

The latest arrival to show how Gili Air is very slowly catching up with big brother Trawangan, is a new ATM machine. It is located on the east side in the middle of what you may call the main strip, on our map of Gili Air [click here] it is roughly between numbers 14 & 15, basically the concentration of warungs from the harbour to another fairly new operation of bungalows called Bibi’s.

It takes all the usual cards like – Visa, master Card, even Cirrus and Maestro. With the new power cable from the mainland Lombok installed, the time was right. It is a great advantage to visitors as they don’t have to take bundles of cash, and even though there are still some small “Mati Lampu” or power outages for a few hours here and there it means people may stay longer where as not that long ago a big reason for leaving the islands was access to money, as money changers had extremely poor rates, and cash advances used to be 10%, which is pretty painful.

Watch this space as there will be another what’s news coming shortly about my week on Gili Air, the handful of changes since my last visit quite a while ago, but still very much keeping it’s rustic feel and charm of a small Thai island where the beach has not been overtaken with flashy restaurants. My call, if you want that laid back island style, go to Gili Air, I loved it.