Loving it in Lombok

Tetabatu, Lombok, Indonesia

Left Ubud early this morning in a van with 6 people on the Intrepid tour of Lombok. It’s me and 5 other guys and Sukio, our Javanese tour guide. It is a companionable group of insatiable travelers – a  jolly pair of partners Ernie and Clintus from Chicago who are  a lot of fun, Steven, a very laid-back pharmacist from Ladysmith on Vancouver Island, Richard, a retired financier from Sheffield, England who had just returned from hiking the mountains of Borneo, and Alan, a chubby mostly deaf guy from Melbourne, Australia whose English is barely intelligible because of deafness and lack of teeth. Four of them have already spent a week together touring Bali on another Intrepid tour that backs up to this one and arrived at the hotel yesterday with a much larger group that was predominantly young backpackers.

An hour and a half through beautiful and exotic Balinese countryside brought us to the standard third world ferry dock where throngs of people waited in unintelligible order to board for unknown parts.

Five hour ferry ride – rough in the middle – no seasickness for me (pre-trip Dramamine did the trick)  lots of long limbed young backpackers- So rough they closed the ferries after ours and no one could leave Lombok. Our travel lunch of local Balinese food was packed in a banana leaf "lunch box" - the other passengers were very jealous.

 

Followed big trucks with noxious fumes off ferry into parking lot looking for our van and instead there waited a big 24 person luxury air-conditioned bus for just the 7 of us and the two drivers. Odd but easy to get used to – luggage stored safely inside, everyone can stretch out in comfort and get a good seat. Not the usual Intrepid tour way; everyone is surprised.Went inland, away from tourist areas through lots of traffic and then finally into smaller villages and up to higher altitudes to beautiful Tetebatu where we stopped for the night at the Green Orry Inn, a quiet resort hotel with a view of pastoral green rice paddies and a conference of Indonesian agents from all different island there to discuss rural economic development!

90% of the people are Muslim here, but it is very mixed with Asian culture. There are mosques everywhere, and calls to prayer blast out of loudspeakers several times a day, starting at 4:30 am. Women wear headscarves, cover shoulders, most local people wear sarongs, very similar in many ways to Polynesia. But very very friendly – EVERYONE is happy to see us everywhere – we feel like rock stars or the queen in our fancy bus.

All exhausted from 8 hour day of travel – dinner at the hotel and bed. Being the only woman, I always get my own room and nice double bed.

Next morning we hiked through rice paddies, walking on dikes and narrow muddy paths, learning about first and second class rice, wandering through local yards, stopping for local Lombok coffee and vanilla drink and then hiking on up and up, not a flat walk at all. Was worried about my back but it was all fine, a three hour walk, as long as I have snacks I am fine – in fact my back hasn’t felt so good in months – I can even sit cross-legged now.

After the walk we went to another small village where everybody does pottery – all the women, that is. 

Our guide was a teacher at the high school and brought his students along to practice their English. It was a great cultural exchange. Then we went to a village that specialized in weaving, where we had a traditional lunch of all Sasak specialties  and then visited various women weavers throughout the village. Sasak are the indigenous people of Lombok. They live in very densely populated villages, most are very poor but still you will see satellite dishes on houses and many, many of them have cell phones.

Late in the day, we were lucky enough to catch a Muslim wedding parade going right past our hotel (we saw several wedding parades coming from the ferry to Tetebatu). The bride is always very sad and serious (as well she should be!) and sometimes the groom is too. But the wedding guests are always very joyous, dancing and reveling to loud music as they move through the streets.

Loving Lombok…