Magic Mushrooms in the Gili Islands, Our (Ridiculous) Story
Gather round friends, for this is a tale with many twists and turns, trials and tribulations. (Serious question: is the word “tribulations” ever used without “trials and” preceding it?)
Anyway, some of you may be well versed in the world of psychedelics. Others may have no experience with them at all. When we arrived on the Gili Islands in Indonesia, we fell into the latter bucket, but we were excited to try the magic mushrooms the islands are known for. After all, we like to experience every destination as deeply and as fully as we can, right? So let us tell you about what we now refer to fondly as: The Day of the Shroom. 🍄
If you’re looking to dip into the world of magic mushrooms in Bali or the Gili Islands, may this post be your guide!
ABOUT GILI TRAWANGAN
The Gilis are a group of three tiny islands – Gili Trawangan, Gili Meno and Gili Air — near the coast of northwest Lombok in Indonesia — about an hour and a half ferry ride from Bali. We chose to spend a couple days on Gili T, the largest and most popular of the three islands, which is still only 3 x 2 kilometers and has no motorized vehicles — only horse carts and bicycles. After our less than satisfying beach experience on Bali itself, we were stoked to spend some time on a smaller, more remote island known for its sandy beaches, palm-lined coasts, and crystal clear waters perfect for snorkeling.
WHERE TO GET MUSHROOMS IN GILI TRAWANGAN
If you know a little bit about Indonesia, you may be surprised to find out that almost every bar and beachside cabana on Gili T advertises magic mushrooms using blatant slogans like “We have bloody fresh magic mushrooms send you to heaven n’ back again” and “Go to the moon with magic mushroom.” While drug use is punishable with strict penalties throughout Indonesia, and most of the local Gili islands population is Muslim and doesn’t consume alcohol or weed, magic mushrooms have somehow escaped any level of religious or political scrutiny on the Gilis. The islands are a no-mans land of psychedelic tourism and total decriminalization. You’ll likely be offered shrooms within about 30 seconds of arrival — though it’s totally easy to have a non-psychedelic experience during your stay.
So the answer is…you can get magic mushrooms almost anywhere in Gili Trawangan. We recommend a beachside cabana on the sunset side, so you can avoid our harrowing experience…
OUR FIRST TIME DOING SHROOMS: THE MAGIC “MILKSHAKES”
Having never tried psychedelics before, we did debate it for a bit. Was a tiny foreign island over 8 thousand miles from home really the place to try mushrooms for the first time? On our second day however, we’d mustered enough courage and ended up deciding it was now or never. After all, the Gilis are known for mixing their magic mushrooms up in a “milkshake” (actually no milk involved) which we had never heard of anywhere else, so it seemed like a decent way to consume the notoriously less than delicious tasting fungi.
We waited a few hours after eating lunch because shrooms have a stronger effect on an empty stomach, wandered back to a beach bar we had enjoyed the day before, and had a good laugh at the menu that offered “magical levels” all the way from the nondescript “low” to “fucking bloody sexy super duper strong.”
“Cooktails,” joints, and Mr. Mushy’s *vegan* magical mushroom shakes. Has anyone ever done the L5? 😬
While Sam ordered the low magical level, Ray took the bartender’s recommendation and went with the medium...which in hindsight could have been the reason for his downfall. The shakes are basically just a mixture of the shrooms, orange juice, lime juice, various fruit, and sometimes soda blended into a sludgy brownish green concoction. We noticed that the methods for mixing a “low” vs. “medium” strength shake were in no way precise. They just threw some shrooms in there and then filled Ray’s cup more than Sam’s.
We toasted to the experience, laid back in our beach chairs, and drank up. The shakes actually went down pretty easy and didn’t taste bad. However, Ray noticed that his was pretty chunky while Sam’s wasn’t at all, so he could very well have consumed the majority of the shrooms :)
Not long after finishing the drinks, the effects started to set in. We stared up at the tree branches above our heads, transfixed on the way the leaves fluttered in the wind. We became entranced with the huge thunderhead clouds off in the distance constantly moving and reshaping themselves. A beautiful rainbow even started to emerge before our eyes — could life get much better!? We swam out in the water, giggling as the light danced off the waves in patterns we had never noticed before. It was an altogether enjoyable experience at first. Some cool visual effects that felt like we were observing a new side to nature, but nothing felt too crazy.
AND THEN IT TURNED ON US…
Then we made the fateful decision to bike across the island for sunset. This had been our plan all along, but we now realize we should have camped out on the sunset side before taking the shroom shakes...because everything started to turn on us during that ride. The other side is literally just 2 kilometers away, but what felt like a short jaunt the day before now seemed to be taking a decade. We stopped to buy water bottles at a roadside shop and found that interacting with the shop owner and handling money seemed near impossible, sending us into a minor state of paranoia.
Sam continued in the lead down the bumpy, rocky path. She was having a good time enjoying the beauty of the light shining through the palm trees, although her heightened sense of smell did not mix well with the strong scents of horse poop and trash fires as we passed through villages in the center of the island.
Ray, on the other hand, started to feel less that peachy. Sam had a specific sunset bar in mind because c’mon, we’ve all seen those sunset swing Instagrams, but before we arrived Ray pulled his bike off at a reggae bar and ran inside to the bathroom feeling like he had to throw up. He didn’t end up getting sick, but came back outside in a complete daze, not seeing Sam even though she was literally 5 feet away from him calling his name. He now claims that he heard her calling to him but it sounded miles away 😅 Upon reuniting with Sam, Ray asked in frustration “do you have any idea where we put our bikes!??” even though those were also right next to us…
Clearly, we were in no state to continue the bike ride and decided to post up at the reggae bar under some trees to watch the sunset. Soaked with sweat, Ray ripped off his shirt and stumbled out into the ocean, laying on his back in what looked like a ritualistic baptism as girls lined up for their sunset swing Instagram (it turns out literally every bar on the sunset side has a swing) and looked on in horror and disdain as this pale, sweaty man ruined their perfectly-planned photos.
As Ray fought waves of nausea for the next couple hours, Sam had also been thrust into a black hole of bad vibez. She actually felt like everything slightly annoyed her...including the terrible live reggae music and the groups of Instagram girls posing for photos....something she had been planning to do herself before this whole shroom situation went down. We’d feel moments of happiness as we gazed out at the crazy colorful sunset over the ocean and distant volcanic peaks, but for the most part we were simply waiting for the shrooms to run their course and for this hellish experience to come to an end. Needless to say, Sam did not get that swinging Instagram photo 😂
Our spot for riding out the shrooms. Note sunset swing photos happening on the left and beautiful volcanoes + colors. We were in no state to get prettier photos.
After a couple hours when the island was blanketed in total darkness, we started to feel a lot better so we busted out our headlamps (thank god we brought these!) and made the only slightly scary bike ride back to the other side. We passed bunches of lively night markets, but found that we had no appetite at all and much preferred to head back to our Airbnb for a cold shower. No place has ever felt as safe and welcoming to us as that room after the experience we’d just endured. We spent the remainder of the evening in, and cracked up laughing the next morning as we recapped the experience from both of our perspectives. Unfortunately, Ray continued to experience stomach pains for the next couple days...unclear on whether this was induced by the shrooms or not.
THREE TIPS TO FOLLOW IF YOU’RE PLANNING TO TRY MAGIC MUSHROOMS IN THE GILI ISLANDS
We hope you get a good laugh out of our inaugural shroom trip, as we now do. Should you find yourself in a magical mushroom oasis in Southeast Asia (of which there are quite a few) and you feel called to try it, don’t let our less than euphoric story dissuade you! If we’d done a couple things differently, we think we would have had an amazing time.
Here are our top three tips to have a positive magical mushroom experience:
Evaluate your headspace before trying psychedelics. We’re both super positive people and we were having one of the best times of our lives on a 3.5 month trip, so technically we were in the right state of mind, but shrooms can affect everyone differently. Being so far from home and doing physical activity in the intense heat may have contributed to the anxiety we ended up feeling.
Stay in one place! Take this tip with a grain of salt, because we know plenty of people who enjoy hiking, biking, etc. while on shrooms. But for us with it being our first time, we feel that if we had taken the shrooms on the sunset side of the island and didn’t have to bike across, we would have had a totally different experience. We were loving our experience before we took the bike ride, and feel that the physical strain of doing anything besides chillin’ is what turned the trip on us.
You can always start small. If you’ve never done shrooms before, we definitely recommend the “low” strength shakes. You can always get a feel for the effects by starting low or drinking half a shake, and then drink the other half afterwards if you like the way it feels.
And a bonus tip! For those who are interested in learning more about psychedelics and their properties, here are some books we’ve either read and loved or are on our list to read: The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley (read), The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe (read), How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan (want to read!), The Psychedelic Experience by Timothy Leary (want to read!)
Have your own tips or funny stories about magic mushrooms in Bali or magic mushrooms in the Gili Islands? Leave a comment here or on our latest IG post!
Happy travels!
