Lombok - Mataram, Indonesia
Mataram, Indonesia
Where I stayed
Kuta Baru Guest House
Our stay in Indonesia has sadly ended. But it went out with a bang on the island of Lombok.
Lombok is the island to the east of Bali and although it is very close it is a world apart. Lombok is much less explored than Bali and is just making a mark as a major tourist destination. Although sadly the land and even the beaches are being sold to foreign investors, Lombok is still unspoilt in places and we found paradise in several spots.
We started in Senggigi, a nice little town on the West coast with a long sweeping sand beach. We started becoming more adventurous with food at this point and in Senggigi we ordered what looked like a lovely piece of chicken in sauce in the picture on the menu. To our dismay it turned out to be a baby chicken (maybe 2-3 weeks old), WHOLE, legs, feet, heads and some internal bits as well. We managed to eat it, and the Satay sauce was lovely. Phew! Good effort we thought. Tony Maddocks would be proud of us.
Next onto the Gili islands. A short bus and boat trip took us to the little island of Gili Air. We loved it so much we stayed for 4 nights here. We found a friendly homestay called 'Abdi Fantastik' on the Northeast part of the island and started to settle in. We had a view of the sea and white sand beach and Gunung Rinjani (Indonesia's second highest volcano at 3,726m) from our beach bungalow. No motorised traffic, only the occasional horse cart passed us by.
With a tight budget we settled for Snorkelling over SCUBA diving, but we were not disappointed.
I will do my best to summarise what we saw, Charlotte (the expert) is sleeping at the moment. We saw turtles, loads of turtles, green and hawksbill. They were not scared allowing us to get within 2 metres of them and watch them feeding around the coral reefs. Lionfish, scorpionfish, frogfish (this is a fish that is so well camouflaged it looks like a rock, in fact, I am still not convinced it was a fish at all), among others mentioned in previous posts. The colours of the coral were incredible in places.
We also had an encounter with a sea snake. Whilst enjoying the sun in the shallows I felt something caress my elbow. As I looked down I saw a black and white snake and lept from the sea, Charlotte soon followed after I shouted "Sea snake, sea snake, sea snake, sea snake". We later found out this was a yellow-lipped sea krait that is relatively non-aggressive. We think it had more important things to do than bother with us.
After a lovely time in the Gili islands we decided to book our first real tour. After some hard bartering with a gentleman that called himself "Frank Ribery" (or was it "Frank Blueberry", I can't remember) we hopped on a bus to Gunung or Mount Rinjani. It had been luring us for days as we saw it in the distance and was asking to be climbed.
The trek was 3 days and 2 nights. We were in a group of 9 people who were all great fun. We met two french guys who were on a world bicycle tour and couch-surfing their way around. They were so fit that they would practically run up or down any incline. We found out they grew up in the Alps.
The porters carried our food/water/tents/etc in baskets suspended of either ends of a thick piece of bamboo that they carried on their shoulder. I tried to lift one of these loaded bamboos and it weighed around 30kg. Of course they all walked in flip-flops as well making us feel ridiculous in our hiking shoes. How they managed it we will never know. They would even shout adeng adeng (slowly, slowly) and hati hati (careful careful) to us as they slipped and slid up and down the mountain.
The first day was a tough uphill trek from 900m to 2600m where we camped at the crater rim. It got very cold at night. The next morning we entered into the crater and trekked down to the crater lake where we had a well-earned swim. The porters cooked us up a nice Nasi Goreng (Fried rice) by the lake and then we started our afternoon trek back out of the crater and to Base camp at 2700m. The views from up here in the evening were spectacular and probably the best we have ever seen in our lives. We observed from above as the clouds rolled into the crater as the sun went down and created some extraordinary colours in the sky.
Charlotte quickly overcame her fear of heights as she saw our tent was located only a few metres from a cliff face drop into the crater.
As the morning party set off for the Summit at 2am we decided to have a nice lie-in as we didn't fancy the tough 1000m ascent up a scree slope to the Summit.
The final day saw us off the mountain and although we were tired, sore, cold, sunburnt, plastered in ash we were sad to say goodbye to the mountain and to our group.
Next to south Lombok and back to the beaches. Boy, were they welcome! Our car-proud and safe taxi driver was unexpectedly swapped half way through the journey to a daredevil maniac. I decided the best thing to do was take a drowsiness-inducing travel sickness pill and send myself into a coma.
I was swept out of it as we arrived at Kuta Baru guesthouse in Kuta Lombok. This was a lovely chilled out place with a pool and lots of fellow travellers to chat with. There was a power cut approximately every 10 minutes for the whole time we were there. Instead of fixing the problem they decided it was better to employ a boy to sit by the fuse box 24/7 and keep flicking it back on.
The beaches around Kuta were no less than stunning. Mawan beach was just a short drive away and was the perfect swimming beach. Here we met with some fellow trekkers from Mount Rinjani. Mathias, an athletic french guy tried to teach me how to back-flip on the beach. The theory is simple, and I'm pleased to say I mastered the theory in 2 minutes. The practical was not so smooth. After a few practices and twice planting my face ungracefully into the sand I gave up and returned to the shade with a bruised face, sandy nostrils and a battered pride.
Our last day in Indonesia was for surfing. Selong Belanak was our beach with some modest waves but a nice sandy bottom, perfect for beginners. Charlotte's instructor, Dika, insisted on holding onto the tail of her board while screaming "peddle, peddle, peddle, peddle" at her which seemed to infuriate her a little as she would remain stationary. He would then give her an almighty push just before the wave and shout "STAND". She was much better when left to her own devices and the experience from surfing Gower's beaches soon showed. I stood up a few times which made me feel a bit like the coolest guy in Indonesia. Although, I'm sure the truth was I looked like a slightly white and sunburnt brit on a massive beginners board, riding a 50cm wave quite slowly.
Our last Indonesian meal was probably the best we'd had. A nice young couple had a small street restaurant in Kuta called "Nuggets corner". The "nuggets" were non-specific but delicious breaded and fried triangles but the highlight were our black and yellow curries with red rice. Delicious.
We had a great time in Indonesia. The people of Bali and Lombok, despite having what we would regard as having very basic lives, are always happy, joking and smiling. Most have never and will never leave their island, but they have their family and everything they need. We would love more time to explore more of the 17000 islands but we are excited about Kuala Lumpur and reaching the mainland SE asia.
TERIMA KASIH (Thank you) Indonesia