Lombok & Bali

12th April: The bus trip was promising to be quite complex due to all the changes  needed to be done: from Maluk to the harbor on the southwest of Sumbawa Island; still inside the bus a ferry to Gianyar in the east side of Lombok Island; and finally, the road from Gianyar to the capital of Lombok Island: Mataram. I was wrong about it. Very simply, well organized and punctual, arriving at 3am in the terminal nearby the airport, exaclty as predicted. Actually I was the one who was praying for the trip to have delays so I would have more time to sleep in the “confort” of the bus. But no, from 3am until 8am I had no other option than sleep there in the terminal, on a bench of a roadside restaurant, protected by my sleeping bag.  At 8am, as previously agreed with Mr. Klaus (my next couchsurfing host, from Germany), I called him and went to his home. I asked a couch for Mataram, the only place in Lombok where there’s active couchsurfing accounts, but actually Mr. Klaus lives a few km north from Mataram, near the touristic Senggigi, nearby many dream beach destinations. Promising, no doubt, but what I would never imagine was that in only 20 minutes I would be jumping from a dirty and smelly bench of a roadside restaurant to and indescribable luxurious home inside a private neighborhood appropriately called “Secret Garden”. It has all, the wild and rich tropical forest in the backside, the paradisiac beach 2 minutes away by bike, and an astonishing exquisite swimming pool (and quite big) shared by the owners of the several houses of the private neighborhood. There’s no need many details to explain how happy I was, after almost one month travelling, to be in such a place, able to sleep in a real (good) bed, to take a hot shower/bath or to have the possibility to really wash my clothes… These are examples of basic needs in Europe that here are usually luxes. So imagine me being presented with European style luxes! :p Ahahah

Probably one of the bests decisions I made so far in this trip was to rent a bike for 3 days (10€) soon after have settled down at Mr. Klaus home. With it and some maps I copied from my guest, I was from this moment on completely independent and free to move around in this paradise called Lombok. For the first day, and because I was very tried, I decided to only go to Mataram Imigration Office to extend my VISA for 1 more month, and to make a small tour, crossing around 25km of coast to visit the first 5. Four of them were probably the best ones I visited so far in my life: Mangsit, Coco, Malimbu and Nipah. The remaining one I didn’t like: Senggigi beach, situated right in front of the touristic town with the same name. Exhausted but happy, I came back home knowing I had succeed to accomplish my mission for the first day, once the bureaucracy went pretty well, and the data collected for my friend’s website www.mylovelybeach.com was very promising! The day finishing in a perfect way, having a wonderful dinner with Klaus and his mate: Mexican beans and meat sauce remembering in taste and aspect the meal my sister so well is able to prepare too! 🙂

13th April: As the woman in the Immigration Office had told me to do, punctually at 10am I was again there to do the second step: the payment, 250.000rp. The third would be to receive back the passport at 2pm, but that will completely destroy my plans for the day, once it would force me to not travel too far away. The solution I found was to bribe her with extra 50.000rp. She accepted and made it immediately! :p

With the tips I got from a guy in the Immigration Office, I managed to cross the rest of Mataram city and get out at the right exit, in the direction of Lembar, my first destination. The reason to go there was to check out the ferries’ schedule to Pandangbay (Bali), and also because it was on the way to the forgotten and paradisiac beaches Mr. Klaus highly advised me to explore! Immediately after getting out of the urban zone (Mataram), many interesting and exotic sights kept my attention: colorful and exquisite mosques, workers in the rice fields, street markets, tiny villages, kids fishing or playing in the water, palm trees forests and so, so much more… Unfortunately, for you, there are not many pictures to show this wonders. Not because I didn’t wanted to take pictures, but because it would make the bike tour very complicated. First most of the roads didn’t have large roadside where to park the bike for a while. Besides that, if I would stop to photograph all the wonders on my way, I wouldn’t have time to make the planned circuit. I’m really sorry for that, but still, there are a few photographed exceptions, and plenty of pictures from the surreal beaches! :p  And believe me, it was really joyful to drive a bike with a quite good speed, crossing beautiful towns, endless rice fields and getting into “Lost World” like mountains and jungles…

Before arrive in my first destination, but not too far, a mega rain storm started suddenly, giving me no time to park the bike and protect myself before get completely wet. Not a big deal, once it was quite warm. I stopped in a motorbike garage, took out the shirt and used my “anti-rain pack”: the hot towel (kept under the seat, near the engine) and toilet paper to clean my glasses. The rainstorm lasted for 15 minutes, but the consequences of it were unbelievable: big pools of water in the road, and worst, much worst, instantly created strong rivers of orange vivid color, coming down the hills and crossing the roads. I was quite afraid to cross those deep and fast “rivers”, but after realize that everybody else was crossing it I went back to the road too. It was still raining a little, but nothing that would prevent me to drive. When I sighted a quite big town (for this zone), I decided to stop, this time to dry myself well, take a hot coffee and wait the rain to stop completely. While drinking the coffee I asked about the name of that place, and for my joyfulness, it was already Sekotong Tengah, the last landmark before turn northwest and move towards Taun Beach. There in the shop they had also colorful slices of watermelom tempting me. I asked the price: 4cents! Mmmm, delicious and, basically, for free! :p

Right after Sekotong Tengah a found a not mapped beach and I decided to stop. Although very narrow, the environment was very rich, and the view of the bay superb… A few kilometers more and I finally found Taun Beach. What can I say, I’m running out of adjectives! Yap, definitely worth to visit! 🙂 To get into the second destination, I needed to come back again to Sekotong Tengah and then move south, crossing the “Lost world” like mountain range full covered by an incredibly rich jungle. Better than this one, only in Flores.

In the south coast of Lombok is situated the Sepi Beach. Its name (“sepi” means quite/deserted) says everything. A magnificent and forgotten paradise beach of white and clean sand, with the mountain range behind and, in the front, an endless bay that leads to a wonderful archipelago of tiny Islands and rocks…

To get into Kuta Beach, I needed to get again inside the mountain. So far, and besides being in a forgotten part of the Lombok, the roads were quite new and with good asphalt, but the next part would be completely different: a completely destroyed road, with 1 and 2m deep craters, dozens of meters without a single bit of flat surface and, in some parts, I was even forced to move out of the road, passing through the forest, or jump out the bike and push it! What madness! Yah, it sounds terrible, but my only worry was to not get into Selongblanak and Kuta beaches on time, I mean, before the sunset. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have any kind of worry or reason to feel upset, once crossing this outstanding landscape and the third world villages with welcoming and surprised people was such a good experience that I didn’t felt the time going by. Even with the feeling that I was really running out of time, I couldn’t resist to what my eyes were showing me: a little and poor village, with no running water neither electricity, where I found people who looked really shocked to see a foreign. And that’s not all. The best was the beach: immense, long and large, with white sand and no vestiges of plastic rubbish. A really lost paradise in potential, once I don’t want to offend those people living there calling it paradisiac (and consequently their lives paradisiacal)! No, not at all! But the place is definitely special, having even a little lake reflecting the beautiful shapes of their bamboo houses and the beginning of the beach. Ah and the kids! Better to watch the pictures! Because it is not mapped, as I said, I decided to call this it Nangong Beach, after the name of the village also not mapped but whose inhabitants taught me its name.

Still in the mountains, I found a great spot with an open view to the coast, when I was able to have the first glimpse of my next destination: Selongblanak Beach. From this privileged spot, not only the beach was easy to sight, but also all the bay and hills surrounding it, as well as the islands in the shore. And separating me from that beach was a luxury forest hopefully there to complete the idyllic scenery. Front the top of this mountain, the beach looked to be very near, but actually it took me quite long time to get there and confirm how wonderful Selongblanak Beach was. Back to the road, one more cool surprise: a traditional wedding going on in a small village, completely blocking the traffic. Once I was forced to stop the bike, I get out of it to check the wedding closely. Good it happens! Really worth to be seen! But not for long, the sky was getting a little bit dark, and I still had to make 25km until Kuta beach. Unfortunately I really needed to move away, and more, I needed to drive fast. Actually really fast I drove, once there’s a great road in the south leading to Kuta Beach: several kilometers of a perfectly straight line with very good asphalt. I reached 95km/h there, with an automatic scooter! And yah, just on time to be presented in Kuta with a magic and multicolor sunset. Really lucky! The sky has very cloudy for the whole day, cover of clouds that made the favor to get away at the right time! :p Kuta Beach it is not so quiet as the beaches I have seen previously in this day, once it as a town nearby (with the same name) and there’s enough tourists coming here to sustain the increasingly growing number of restaurants, guesthouses and bars. But, the beach itself, is surely the most complete and exquisite dream scenery in Lombok Island, and probably also one of the best in whole Indonesia. So much to say about and at the same time so hard to express it! I highlight its endlessness beach enriched by 3 zones with 3 different kinds of sand, the vivid green trees right on the beach and, above all, the beautifully shaped rocks spread throughout the beach (especially near its capes) that are at the same time great to complete the “perfect picture” and very useful to take other great pictures from its tops! Still at the top of a rock, now simply enjoying the idyllic view, I had a surprising and lovely visit. A group of young people (2 girls and 3 boys) came to seat next to me, inviting me to drink their local drink made of fermented rice, the “brom”. When I say local I don’t mean the whole Lombok, only this southern part where live the Sasak People, one of the 3 main ethnic groups in the island. Authentically welcoming and truly enjoying the presence of a foreign (not a “turist”), they were very curious to make questions about me and my homeland, and also willful to teach me about the region, their culture and their Sasak language, while pushing me to drink (a lot) of their delicious and strong rice wine. Their unique kind expressions and their genuine smiles would be one of the best memories I will keep for my whole life…

A little bit drunk and without (international) drive license, I still needed to make around 50km through unseen roads without artificial illumination in a night particularly dark. Hopefully my destination was Mataram, the capital of the island, so there’s was a bypass (kind of narrow high-way). Besides that, every time I stopped to confirm the right direction, obviously everybody knew which roads to take on the way to the capital… Once I got into a known place (somewhere in the road between Mataram and Senggigi), I immediately parked the bike and look forward to satisfy my starving stomach and “relieve waters”! Ah, too much Brom! Lucky me, I got wonderful seafood rice for 80 cents. Great, simply great… :p

9 hours after have started the journey, I was again at Mr. Klaus “palace”, feeling all my bones broken, but the mind immerse in bliss… “mutluluk”…

14th April: The main goal of the day was to visit one of the three worlds renewed Gili Islands, a top destination for snorkeling and diving. From Senggigi I should go north crossing again the paradisiac west coast of Lombok. Not far from the harbor where I should take the boat, I had the found a cape with a perfect view for the three islands, and better, two more wonderful beaches to had on http://mylovelybeach.com  database: Pandanan and Nara beaches.

In the harbor there were not so many people going to the island Mr Klaus advised me to visit, Gili Meno, the middle one, so it took 2 precious hours to fulfill the boat. At the least I had plenty of time to discover the tiny harbor, buy enough food for the journey (yah, must count on the insanely high prices of goods in the hiper-touristic islands) and have a discussion with a stupid guy who had enough good skills on English to express himself, but still the mind with the size of a peanut, impeding him to understand the difference between “tourist” and “traveller”. 99,9% of Indonesian do the same mistake, but I understand it when is said by a child, and old man, or by illiterate folks in general, not from a guy speaking English as good as me… anyway…

To have opted for the middle Island (Meno) was mainly a consequence of Mr. Klaus advises. Only when I was in the boat moving towards it, suddenly a great thought came out: being in the middle one, with a tele-zoom lens on my camera, I would be able to “spy” a little bit the other two (Trawagan and Air)! Cool! :p

The first impression I had when I got into Meno Island was of being “jumping inside the TV screen”, joining a documentary I previously watched. Why? Because those kinds of unreal sceneries, with absolute clear and crystalline waters, ones usually just know it from the TV! :p After have made a short walk on the south part of the island and have swimming on its dream waters, I moved to north, looking for the snorkeling spot shown on the map. The view from the other islands, the forest, the animals, the insects, the coral and shells spread throughout the beaches… everything was great, except the overexploited tourist industry…  and the silliness of those “orang-hutan” who don’t know how to make business: wanting all the money at once often leads to the absence of it! In front of the snorkeling spot I found a single person renting masks, snorkels and fins. She wanted 40.000rp for the whole day. I said: “ok, I just need for 1 hour, so I will pay you 15.000rp for this hour, the equivalent of a whole day in Labuan Bajo”. She said “no way, this is not Labuan Bajo but the touristic Gili Island”. Yah right, but the point was to pay the same amount of money for a SINGLE hour. When she understood it she drop the price to 35.000 and finally to 30.000. The husband joined her to call me a greed tourist! F****** bastards! Tourist not for sure, otherwise I would pay their price with no complains, second they were the greed ones. Renting 40.000/day, I offered them 15.000/hour! Insane orang-hutan’s mentality people. I gave up! Continuing to walk west eventually I found a cool bar with cool young guys also renting snorkeling equipment. Their prices: mask+snorkel for 15.000rp/3hours or mask+snorkel+fins for 25.000/3hours. I proposed to remake it: 15.000rp for the 3 objects instead of 2, but only 1 hour instead of 3 hours! With no arguing and smiling they accepted immediately! 🙂 Ahahaha, and I got exactly what I initially proposed to the stupid woman! :p About the snorkeling experience, it’s a matter of luck, not an exact science to sight the famous turtles, so I sighted no one. But in the other hand there are no words to describe the feeling of immerging in such rich and exotic waters fulfilled by colorful fishes with bizarre bodies and wonderful corals. And yes, I saw some of the very famous and rare blue ones! Simply great! 🙂 Finished the underwater adventure, I moved towards the inner-island to visit the salt lake and photograph (by chance) a giant spider! Without much time left until de departure of the boat that would bring me back to Lombok, I decided to seat nearby the harbor and enjoy the view, now with a better light thanks to the clouds that decided to open the sky for a while. Unexpectedly a wedding ceremony started right next to me, a great occasion to take some more nice pictures and luckily meet 2 Dutch persons who were also happily photographing and enjoying the ceremony! She was a professional photographer and took a great album of pictures of myself with my camera. He was a musician, partying for his birthday, so invited me to join them and drink a strong sweet alcoholic drink made from dark rice! Later in the evening, when he added me on facebook, I discovered we had four friends in common! :p

Back to Lombok, quite drunk, I still had enough energy and willing to move a little bit more north, to discover Sira Beach. Surely one of the longest beaches in Lombok, with crystalline waters almost like Gili Islands, a dream place, very quiet, perfect to relax and also for snorkeling. There I found a reggae stile bar, with very cool guys smoking joints, Bob Marley hits playing on the radio and a “rastafari” young guy, who surprised me with his kindness and his skills with Portuguese language. He was able to say, with perfect accent of Brazilian Portuguese, sentences like: “E aí meu irmão?” or “E aí maconheiro”! Ahahahah, great! 🙂

Around 6pm I was again at Mr. Klaus home.  Prepared a tea and went outdoors, seating in the terrace enjoying the perfect light and the Bossanova songs perfectly mixed with the sound of the singing birds in the backyard. What a surprise Mr. Klaus made me with his music preferences, especially when I heard two of my favorite songs: “Desafinado” and “Corcovado”… again “mutluluk”…

15thApril: Early morning: time to finally try to swim in the exquisite swimming pool available in the paradise where Mr. Klaus live. Refreshed and completely woke up from the swim, I went to the terrace to take my last luxurious breakfast of exotic fruits with coffee, while discussing again the Libyan Faked Revolution with Mr. Klaus, who as a completely opposite opinion of mine! :p The guy from the renting bikes company took too long to came and receive the bike back, and made me loose the only bus of the day to Lembar harbor! Great, great! Better run away with the bike on the next time! Some mad guys were asking me between 100.000 and 150.000rp to take me there. Lol. Want all at once? Mmmm, again you get nothing…  Luckily a French guy was there trying to buy a tour ticket for the mountains and, having heard the conversation made me the following proposition: he was planning to rent a bike today and go south (Lembar harbor is on south too), so I could pay him 20.000rp and we would leave me at the harbor. Great! I accepted. We decided two meet around 2pm in the restaurant where I would be using internet and eating, but soon after he came back saying he changed plans once he didn’t manage to make a deal for the price he wanted. French are known in this part of the world for being persistent negotiators and for barging too much, now I see why. About be, this was catastrophic news. I still could pay 500rp Bemo to Mataram, and then try to find something for 20.000 or 30.000 to get into Lembar, but that would take a lot of time and patience, so I told him I would pay 40.000rp to rent the bike for him and he would bring me there after all; he would pay the fuel. The French guy accepted, rented and before 2 was there to pick me up. He didn’t knew the way, but my memory was still fresh about it, so I explained the route and he drove, under a heavy rain in the first 10km. Hard negotiator but real cool and friendly guy. It was a really big pleasure to meet him! He was a traveler blog too. Check it please: . 🙂

The ferry ticket was cheaper than what I thought: 40.000rp. Plus 40.000 for the bike, still much cheaper than the 135.00 for the pack: shuttle bus Senggigi-Lembar plus ferry Lombok-Bali. Good I missed the 10.30am bus and met this French guy! 🙂 Nice price but not social environment in the ferry: a multitude of stubborn guys trying to sell me all kind of stuff were coming to talk with me every 10 seconds, although I had made already very clear that I had all I needed in my bag and that I would not by for sure nothing from them! What tiring people! So, I put the music in my laptop on the maximum volume and start to write!

5 hours later I was in Padangbay, east Bali. It was already night, nobody was able to explaining me where or if there were buses to the west side of Bali, or at the least people didn’t looked that interested on helping me. Only the typical boring guys, the motorbike-taxi guys, were coming to talk to me offering insanely high prices to bring me nowhere, to bring me to the next abandoned corner… what to say… hopefully I saw a western guy passed by (I had seen him before in the ferry) and asked him for help. He told me he lives and he was going to Ketapang to, the harbor city in east Java where I was planning to go next! Uoh, what a coincidence! I asked if we could share the fuel bill in case he would give me a ride, but he said the fuel was no problem for him, no need to pay him nothing. The question was if I would like to make the tour he was about to start. He would drive is car until the South, to Kuta, sleep one night there, then next morning he would be dealing with his business partners and only afternoon he would go to Java. I said I was open to everything, so I joined him! Ah, what a mad surprise. This is the kind of unexpected travelling experiences I’m always ready to get into! 🙂 And who would guess that precisely one month after have started my trip, I would be back to the very starting point!?! Amazing…

While crossing the southeast coast of Bali, we had a lot of time to start to know each other, especially me about is unique and eccentric life story. My “new friend” is Italian and his name is Enrico.  He got married with a woman from south Lombok, a member of the Sasak People like the teenagers I met in Kuta (Lombok one, not Bali one) for who he needed to fight a according with the tradition of the village against her husband. The win for the Italian guy in this fight would make possible to the woman to divorce and get rid of the domestic violence she suffered since she married forced, at the age of 14. No need to say the result of the fight, just mention that Enrico and the Sasak girl are now together and have a little baby. About having a “wife” (they are not married) who grew up in a countryside third world village, he told me and I believe him that in many aspects he his firstly a father, secondly a husband. Very easy to understand it, after all I had seen around here. Most of the people have an intellectual age of a 6 or 8 years old European child. Not joking. Only in the big cities (Surabaya is a perfect example) I found mentally adult ones! Enrico explained me where is situated the village in south Lombok where his “wife” grew up and, if I’m not equivocated, I passed there before yesterday. And that’s not the cool coincidence. The really cool one is that Enrico recognized one of the children in the pictures I took in the “uncharted village! Unbelievable! His skills with Indonesian language completely surprised me! He really speaks fluent Bahasa Indonesia. I asked him how he managed to reach such a high level. He told it was very simple: he lives with a woman who knows barely anything about English! Yap, I got it! :p Once Enrico lives in Indonesia for quite long time and visit Kuta many times, he knew where to find a quite cheap and very good hotel, with swimming pool and a cool view. To share the room also helped a lot to make it cheaper! Last interesting information about Enrico today: he told me he bought a huge land in Sumbawa Island, including a long white sand beach and a hill with fresh water source in Sumbawa for a ridiculous price, where now he is building is dream house. For instance, a hectare of this paradisiac and desert land costs around 2000€! You see guys what I mean when I talk about live in Indonesia!

16th April: Enrico went to Kuta airport zone to take care of his business; I stayed for a while in the hotel, enjoying the swimming pool and the quite good breakfast, having also time to meet a cool Israeli guy who wanted to keep secret his nationality because, according with his point of view, it would be dangerous to spread out it in a Muslim country like Indonesia. Yah, sure! Lol! With still enough time I decided to make a tour around the neighborhood, coming back at noon to check out from the hotel and take my bag and Enrico one. The plan was to wait for him in the roadside next to the hotel and so I did. There, another amazing coincidence happened. Do you remember Garry, my “first friend” of the trip that I met in the last day at Kuta? Yah, this very same guy moved his job from the place we met to another place right in front of the hotel I stayed this time! I felt really happy to find this great guy and to have time to continue our very interesting conversation, especially because Enrico came much later that what we had agreed, giving me extra time to enjoy the company of Garry! 🙂

One of the best reasons to get in contact with guys like Enrico, who knows everything about the country that adopted him, is de fact that he knows where to eat good and cheap food, including in Kuta. We went to have lunch in Warung Nikmat, the restaurant with the biggest variety of food I found so far in this trip, and undoubtedly the one who as the best ratio price/quality. Here is the address for those interested on it: Warun Nikmat, Jalan Bakung Sari GG, Biduring, Kuta-Bali.

Back to the road, we crossed Denpasar, the capital of Bali, on the way to the north through the road that leads to the lakes and mountains I wanted to visit and later gave up about due to the insane prices they offer to the “turists”. Without expecting I eventually did it, and in a much better way, with a guys who know everything about the Island, who was stopping frequently in the best spots for me to take pictures of the lakes, the mountains and the monkeys, and all this with a genuine altruism or, if you want, completely free of charge for me! The empathy we built with each other became a great a memorable think. There was not anymore this uncomfortable feeling of the silence when next to a strange person, when we always urge to find a theme to keep talking, even when we even nothing else to say. With Enrico the silent moments were as natural as when next to an old friend. The conversations interrupted the silence naturally, when there was truly something to say, both from me or from him. Keeping with the unbelievable stories, Enrico explained me with details about the 2 times we was attacked my sharks, and the other one when a snake bit him. All these stories and many more are fortunately registered in his diary, that’s waiting to be published as a book. I will wait for it impatiently!

One more tip for travelers: in Indonesia, when you take a ferry as a passenger of a motorbike, a car our any other kind of vehicle, you only need to pay the ticket for the vehicle, doesn’t matter how many people are inside it. So, while crossing the strait between Bali and Jawa, Enrico paid the ticket for the car and I paid nothing once I was seated inside the car. Great! I may try to repeat it on purpose, asking people with cars or trucks waiting to embark if they let me go in just a few minutes until get parked in the ferry. Let’s see! :p