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Lombok
Chili Peppers - 19/05/06
We met a family on the ferry from Bali to Lombok. They
were visiting Lombok for this ladies nephews wedding. They
told us it was in the Cakranegara district of Mataram, where we
were staying and that we could go along.
The first point we noticed about Lombok was how friendly and
welcoming the people were compared with Bali. It was nice
to see sincere smiles. The one downside was the tour
groups we kept meeting at the supermarket, especially the,
mostly Australian, surfers. For some reason they think it
acceptable to go shopping bare-chested. This kind of
boorish “I am special, because I am a surfer” mentality is
sickening, especially in the worlds most populous Muslim
country. No wonder Bali keeps getting bombed, it is the
Australian Ibiza!
The second
point about Lombok is that the island is named after a small and
particularly potent red chili.
The day after we arrived in Mataram there was a royal wedding.
Of course Indonesia does not have a ruling monarchy but people
still respect the royal family that used to rule Bali and Lombok
and the son of the King was getting married. We soon met
the family from the ferry. This was their nephew, the lady
was the sister of the King! They invited us to join them
and we were soon eating lunch in the royal palace, in the
private quarters, sat just behind where the King was on display
to the crowds of people. We had access all areas, taking
photos with the official photographers. The ceremony
involved theatre, dancing and music as well as prayer and
blessing. Everyone had brought presents including two
spit-roast pigs and a mountain of food hampers. Even after
the ceremony we received another meal. The ceremony was
due to continue in the evening but a monsoonal storm deterred us
from attending.
Royal Wedding
From Mataram we headed to the Gili islands. These are
three islands (Gili is Bahasa for “islet”) off the north west
coast of Lombok. They are famous for white palm-fringed
beaches, azure water and excellent snorkelling and diving.
The largest, Trawangan is the party island, the middle one Meno
is the quiet island and Air is the best for diving. We
chose Meno and spent three days there, finding some exceedingly
quiet bungalows away from the main centre, which is not that
“main” when there are maximum 15 tourists on the island!
We had the beaches and reefs to ourselves and the pick of the
catch of the day Meno is definitely on the list of top
Southeast Asia paradise islands.
Idyllic Gili
Meno
Each day on Meno we awoke to watch the sunrise over Gunung
Rinjani, the volcano that towers over Lombok. We decided
to climb it, so we headed back to the mainland and around to
Senaru, the start of the trek. We managed to hire camping
gear and despite claims to the contrary all over Lombok and
Bali, we did not need to hire a guide or porter. It was
the most difficult trek I have ever done. The first day is
a climb from 800m a.s.l up to the crater rim at 2600m, almost
2km vertical over about 10km trek. The view from the rim
down into the crater lake and across to the summit was worth
every step though, one of the most amazing sights I have ever
seen. We thought the hard part was over.
View on
Rinjani from the rim
The second day is a steep descent down to the lake, about 600m
descent, and then a long walk around the lake, which does not
have a nice shoreline to stroll along. A brief stop at the
lake to boil water for noodles and coffee, whilst watching the
Australian couple with their six porters and guide. I just
kept telling myself that our coffee cooked on our fire tasted
better than their cool beer! The second half of the day
was the ascent up to the crater rim on the other side, our
spirits being sapped by the groups of exhausted trekkers coming
the other way. At the rim we camped away from the other
two groups as their guides were suspicious and unfriendly
towards us. One of the groups was a friendly English
couple who lived in Singapore and they gave us some of the water
that their guide found for them.
Above the
clouds on Rinjani
I awoke at 3am to climb to the summit at 3726m. Although
the sunrise was spectacular the main reason for going early was
so that I did not have to se how far I still had to go.
The last 350m involved scrambling up loose scree, 2 steps
forward, 1 back. From the summit the view is breathtaking,
you can see Sumbawa to the east, Bali to the west, the south
coast of Lombok to the, obviously , south and all the small
gilis off the shore. The only thing I dreaded was the
descent. First back down to the rim for more noodles and
coffee and afterwards back down to ground level to the village
of Sembalun Lawang. Just when you think you are nearly
there the trail veers right and you skirt the village for two
hours before finally arriving. We got there so late we missed
the last bemo back to Senaru and had to charter two motorbikes
to take us back.
Monika developed a sore throat on the trek and, fearful of a
repeat of last years abscess and tonsillitis e returned to
Mataram. The hospital however was a joke, they did not
even look in her throat, just told her “infection”, let student
nurses take her blood pressure and charged 150,000 Rupiah for
the privilege. They then tried to charge another 160,000
for antibiotics but Monika confused them so much they ended up
giving her money instead!
The next day we left nm the long journey to Flores. The
first leg was a bus across Lombok, followed by a quick ferry to
Sumbawa. In Sumbawa we were treated to a
complimentary dinner as part of the bus ticket before crossing
the entire island under cover of darkness. We arrived in
Sape in the early hours of the morning, and the ferry from
Flores arrived at 10am, packed to the rafters with bananas.
We were able to board at 4pm and then they decided to start
cleaning the ferry, after sitting around the port all day
looking bored. We eventually left at 8pm and were lucky
enough, or unlucky enough depending on your viewpoint, to see
the Champions League final kick off at 2:45am Central Indonesian
Time.
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