Lombok, Indonesia

From Padangbai, we decided to take the slow public ferry across to Lombok. You could pay for a "fast boat" but it was about 6 times the price, and only cut about 2 hours off the journey time. A shuttle bus was supossed to arrive at our hostel to pick us up at 8:45, but to our surprise showed up at 8:30. These things are never early in Indonesia. We rushed to throw things into our bags and wolf down our banana pancakes, then piled into the van, which drove us all of about 800m down the road and dumped us at the entrance to the harbor. We walked towards the boat, but were herded aside, along with all the other tourists to wait. We weren't sure what we were waiting for, but when we were finally allowed to board the boat we realised that they had let all the locals board first, and the tourists board last. There was limited seating to begin with, and it was all taken, with some locals stretched out across 3 seats. I was so unimpressed by the unfairness of the situation so I woke up one fellow who was pretending to sleep across three seats and made him get up so we could sit down. Once seated, the journey went smoothly... we even arrived on time. Our ticket was supposed to get us all the way to Sengiggi, and so upon arrival at the port the tourists were  herded aside and divided into groups based on who we had purchased our boat tickets from, and piled into rickety old vans. We arrived in Sengigi and were dropped off at a tourist office (not surpisingly), but they were actually very kind. They let us use their internet, and then a phone to track down the hotel where Dewey's friends were staying, and then actually dropped us off at the front door... free of charge! We checked into our cute bamboo bungalow on the beach (a bit of a splurge at $12/person, but so worth it), and met up with Danielle, Adriana and Zuhud, who were all surprised to see we'd actually made it. Danielle (a friend of Dewey’s from Sun Valley) and her boyfriend, Zuhud (Oeoet), live on Kalimantan (the Indonesian portion of the Island of Borneo) where they work for Schlumberger.

We rented a couple scooters, piled 3 people on one, 2 on the other and headed down to Coco Beach for a snack. The seating at Coco Beach was traditional Indonesian; you all sit or kneal around a short table, on a raised platform, shaded by a bamboo roof. It takes awhile to get used to sitting like this, and Dewey and I figited around trying to get comfortable. I was starting to come down with a bit of a cold so I ordered a special "Bandrek" drink, made from ginger, lemongrass, cinnamon, cardamom, star anise and brown sugar. It claimed to "help heal influenza and good for blood circulation". It tasted like Christmas in a cup! Absolutely delicious, and I think it actually worked. My cold went away the next day.

Our “economy” bungalow at Santai Beach featured a porch with a hammock and cushions, a tiled, private outdoor washroom with cold shower and bed with mosquito canopy. It was simple, and perfect.

During the next three days in Sengiggi with Danielle and Zuhud (Adrianna had to fly back) we explored the area with our local hosts. It was a nice change to have locals show us around, and we had some genuinely local experiences.

One morning, we arranged to have some surf lessons. We rented board and rash-guards, and the girls got booties to protect our feet from the rough coral bottom. The ocean was salty and abusive but we all got a few good rides in, in between being pummelled by waves.

For lunch one day Danielle and Zuhud took us to a Panang-style eatery on the side of the road. They place all the dishes on the table in front of you and then you just pay for what you eat. It is all very inexpensive. You could be brave and try intestine, skin, tongue, whole stuffed squid or whole fried little fish, or you could be less brave and stick to the familiar egg, cabbage, eggplant, tofu, tempeh, sambal and a variety of other local dishes which had no doubt been sitting out all morning. You then got a bowl, a dish of water, and a basket of rice for the table. Locals don’t use cutlery, they eat with their hands, but Dewey and I weren’t quite there yet, so we used a spoon.

They day we arrived Danielle, Zuhud and Adrianna had just returned from a four day trek up Gunung Rinjani. They raved about the experience (it was the second time doing the trek for Danielle and Zuhud), so Dewey and I decided to book a trek as well. We chose the 3 day, 2 night trek, which was the same distance as the 4-day trek, but with less rest. We had to pay the tour company with cash, and Indonesian money is worth so little that our pile of 50,000 Rp bills looked like we should be buying a car or something.

We had to switch hotels part way through our stay because they ran out of room at Santai, so we headed to Wayan Cafe, closer to downtown Sengigi. We rented scooters again (the best way to get around), and made it about 500meters from the hotel when our scooter ran out of gas. Danielle and Zuhud went and retrieved some petrol and brought it back for us.  

The second hotel was nice, but didn’t have the same relaxing feel as Santai, and it was actually more expensive. Dewey and I were on the top floor and in close range to the loudspeaker from the local mosque, so we were woken by prayer call at 4:30am. Our neighbours behind the hotel had a huge bat in a cage that was in full sunshine, and not big enough for the bat (which looked like it had about a 2-foot wingspan, at least). The owners would put fruit on top of the cage, but the family of rats living behind the shed had figured that out, and repeatedly stole the fruit. We watched the whole sad scene. Poor bat.

One evening Dewey and I scootered up the North coast of the island through some smaller towns, along the coast.

The day before our trek we headed into Mataram (the large city on Lombok) on our scooters to get a few warmer clothing items and some snacks for the trek. Dewey found a fleece jacket for about $14, and I found a warm windproof fleece hat for $2. We also picked up some local snacking foods (peanuts, banana chips, and some less familiar items that don’t quite translate). We were happy to be following Zuhud as he navigated the busy traffic of Mataram, which was quite chaotic. Stop lights are rare, and mean pretty much nothing even if they do exist. You are supposed to drive on the left hand side of the road, but often people just drove where ever there was enough space (the local definition of ‘enough space’ was questionable at times). You shared the road with bicycles, horse-drawn carriages, mobile food stands, trucks, pedestrians, and hundreds of scooters bearing two to five people and various other items. It was amazing to see how much stuff, and how many people you can fit on one scooter when there are no safety rules.

We ate lunch at a very local restaurant on the outskirts of Mataram overlooking a fish pond and some rice patties. English wasn’t on the menu so Danielle and Zuhud took charge of ordering. It was all delicious; we both agreed it was probably the best Indonesian food we’ve had so far. We had fish wrapped in banana leaf, tofu and tempeh in spicy sambal, battered shrimp, curried vegetables, and a spicy salad made of bean sprouts, coconut and spinach. The leafy green vegetables in the curry had been hand-tied into neat little bundles.

On the way back to Sengiggi we stopped at roadside vendors to buy Durian fruit and some interesting little drinks which are made in a plastic bag and consist of jellies, coconut, fruit, syrup, coconut milk, and some other things too. We opened up the Durian fruit back at the hotel... it has an overpowering smell and bizarre texture, almost like sweet avocado. It is an acquired taste, but definitely something you need to try at least once in Asia. It looked like a medieval torture device (covered in hard brown spikes), and weighed about 5 pounds.

 

At 5:00am on Sunday morning we were picked up in front of our hotel by a crazy driver (aren't they all) in a nice vehicle (unusual) and drove two hours up the coast towards Senaru. There we had breakfast (banana pancake!) before joining forces with the rest of our trekking group and porters and heading onward to Simbalun by pick-up truck. At somepoint we had to sit on the edge of the road for about 20 minutes while someone went back to buy water they had forgotten. We arrived, purchased our trekking permits and were on the trail by 9:45.

The first part of the trail was through burnt grassland, and we discovered just how much you can sweat hiking uphill, with a pack in the mid-day Indonesian sun.

We stopped at a bridge for lunch, then continued on uphill towards the crater rim.

 It was dry, dusty and exhausting. We were oh-so-thankful for frequent misty cloudcover, which was more frequent the higher we climbed. We arrived at camp one, on the crater rim, around sunset.

We were shocked to see how much weight the porters would carry, balanced on a bamboo rod on their shoulders, and wearing only flip flops (or no footwear at all).

They would stop to collect firewood along the way.

Here is a view of the summit from the rim-camp:

And a view from the rim down into the crater:

We had a postively terrible sleep on the first night. We didn't know they even manufactured matress pads that thin, and we were camped right on gravel, with tents all around us. Monkeys poked at the tent all night, and no one seemed to sleep. We were woken up at 2:30 for some tea and questionable cheese and crackers before begining our ascent to the summit. The 3-hour climb was steep and exhausting. For the most part, the terrain was deep sandy shale, and so for every two steps you took foward you slid about one step back... and then there were the effects of altitude on top of that, slowing us down.

We reached the summit right at sunrise, not 30 seconds too early. It was grueling, but so rewarding.

The summit was very cold, so we didn't linger long. We headed back down to the rim camp, where we enjoyed breakfast (banana pancakes, again!), then packed up our things. Monkeys spied on us the whole time, just waiting for you to turn your back on your belongings. Occasionally they'd get ahold of a plastic bag full of something, race each other up a tree and rip apart the contents. There were garbage bins, but it was rather pointless since the monkeys just spread the garbage all over the place.

We hiked down from the crater rim to the lake at the bottom; a very steep, 3 hour descent. There were natural hot springs at the bottom to ease our sore knees.

By lunchtime, we were exhausted and were ready to call it a day, but we had another 3-hour steep hike back up the crater to the rim. We needed some 5-hour energy and our i-pods to find the motivation to get back up to the rim. Fortunately, the views on the way back up were pretty motivational as well. We took fewer pictures though because we couldn't carry our cameras around our necks or in our hands since we needed "all fours" for climbing upwards.

The hike back up was practically rock-climbing. For a good part of the ascent it was steep enough that you needed both hands to climb. A grueling acsent for tired bodies carrying packs.

We reached the crater rim late in the afternoon and were pretty ready to just crash. They brought our dinner to our tent, and I think we were asleep by 8pm. There were no monkeys on the second night, just dogs.

The view of the sunset from our tent on the last night:

On the final day we had about a 5-hour hike down to Simbalun. The trail started out step and dusty but then descended into tropical rainforest. It was hot and humid, but thankfully we were shaded by the treecover and therefore out of the sun.

Bali, Indonesia

We landed in Denpasar, Bali just before lunch and got our visas upon arrival. You had to be careful because the visa fee could be paid with a variety of currencies, but they were not all equivalent. You could pay $25 US if you paid with US bills, or about $37 US if you paid with your remaining Thai Baht. 

 

We took a slightly sketchy cab (no name, no stickers, no seat belts, old beater car) cab from the airport to Ubud.  I was pretty nervous, but it was significantly cheaper than the legitimate "airport cabs". It all turned out alright, and thankfully, really cheap considering it was an 1 hour 15 minute cab ride. We didn't have a hostel arranged so we just got the cab to pull over somewhere on the main strip and let us out. He happened to drop us in front of a hostel, who immediately pounced on the opportunity and begged for us to take a look at their rooms. It had a lot of character, and was a good price, so we just settled for that rather than trekking around in the heat looking for a hostel. 

One thing I noticed immediately while driving through Ubud was how many beautiful artisan handicrafts were for sale everywhere. Everything was relatively neat and tidy (especially compared to Thailand), and there was so much detail! I loved the doors. Even doors to very modest places (like our $7/night hotel room) were intricately carved from wood and painted.

We learned something new here about the Swastika symbol. It remains widely used in Indian religions, specifically in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, primarily as a sacred symbol of good luck. In Hindu it represents represents the Sun's rays, upon which life depends. You can see it in the center of the following carved window, but it was widely prevalent in various art forms throughout Bali.

The other thing you notice immediately is the abundance of little Hindu offerings which are everywhere. At first we felt bad for tripping over them on the sidewalk (it was impossible not too). They varied in complexity, but always consisted of a reed basket, with some food and flowers, and sometimes an incense stick.

There were so many offerings left all over the place, that they just accumulated. On steps, sidewalks, windowsills, stone carvings, cars, anything really. Here was a particularly large collection at a temple near the central market. 

 

We wandered around Ubud, including briefly through the vast market, and found an inexpensive little cafe for lunch. This entire meal, including drinks, cost us about $4.80, together. Dewey tried Mie Goreng (typical Indonesian fried noodles), we shared some vegetable lumpia (spring rolls) and I ordered the "cresping water plant with chicken" (creeping water plant, I think). It was all wonderful.

On our second morning in Ubud we visited the Money Sanctuary. It was fascinating watching the macaque monkeys play. 

They were somewhere in between domesticated and wild; they knew full well that you probably had bananas, and you weren't going to hurt them, so they went about their everyday business around you. But you had to be careful about your sunglasses and your bags, they knew about stealing those too. 

This little guy took his banana, mashed it into the ground in front of him, then licked it up. Banana tastes better mashed?

A tickle-fight, or maybe a real fight, we weren't sure. 

 

Observe this next picture closely. It's too funny!

Inside the monkey sanctuary were numerous temples and various carved stone statues. The monkeys played freely around them. There were offerings at the temples, but the monkeys picked those apart quickly too, eating the edible parts and dumping the rest.

This baby macaque was climbing the spindliest little tree, the whole thing was bending under his weight. We were surprised he didn't fall out.

A whole family of baby macaques harassing their mom who was trying to sleep (far left, lying down). Notice the tiny little hand in the bottom right corner... he got pushed off and was climbing back up.

All over the streets in Ubud were stone bowls of water, filled with freshly set designs made from flowers, leaves, and flower petals. This was one of our favorites. A slight variation on a similar thing we saw in Thailand (where the bowls were filled with fish, and live water plants).

The Ubud central market was fascinating, and massive. There were multiple stories, and multiple building, and then all the space in between as well. I could have spend days in there. It was hard not being able to buy much, but we had to be realistic about what we were prepared to backpack around with for the next 8 weeks. 

Dewey snapped this picture in the market before he realized what he had actually taken a picture of! I believe this woman has a goitre.

The bottom floor was more "local", with fruits and vegetables and other food items.

Indonesian silk batik sarongs:

Carved wooden lanterns (you would suspend them from the ceiling, with a light bulb inside).

Dewey would have liked to buy a painting, but again, there were some tricky logistics involved with backpacking or shipping something like that.

So many things carved out of wood! And they were all so intricate. Quite different (much more ornate) from most of the souvenir markets we've been to in other countries.

 

We tried many local specialties including Gado-Gado, eggplant curry, and sate. It was all tasty, and usually quite inexpensive, but not as flavorful or spicy as Thai food.

 

On our second day in Ubud, we rented a scooter and two helmets for $5 and set off to explore the island. We somewhat planned to get up into the mountains to see the terraced rice patties.

We ventured off the main road and chose instead to scoot through some smaller villages along the way. There were school children everywhere, and they girls especially just loved to smile, wave, and say hello to us. The boys, maybe not so much, although they liked to show off.

We stopped at the Bali Elephant Safari park, thought about maybe riding an elephant, but you know that when they advertise the price in $US, not Rupees, that it is bound to be a rip-off... which is was. We decided we didn't need to pay that much to ride a domesticated elephant around a path.

On our way up into the mountains we were passed by a local on a scooter who asked (while passing us) where we were going. We told him we were just going to a drive, but when we later stopped at a temple on the side of the road he stopped to chat with us. 

 

He showed us around the temple, then asked if we wanted to go see his garden and have some tea. I was hesitant, but then he said we didn't have to pay, unless we wanted Luwak coffee (which was actually something we had been wanting to try!), so we went along. 

His "garden" was actually somewhat of an agro-tourism farm, where you could wander through pebbled paths displaying labeled plants (papaya, mango, mangosteen, snakeskin fruit, cinnamon, coffee, etc...). We got free cups of Bali coffee, Ginger Tea, Lemon Tea, Ginseng Coffee and Bali Cocoa  (from right to left) to try. Then we also paid to try Luwak coffee (in the center). It was about $5 US for a cup, but hey... they sell this stuff for about $20US a cup in Calgary. Dewey had originally heard about it on CNN so when we were in Calgary we had investigated, but figured $20 was a bit steep.

 

Luwak coffee is actually made from partially digested coffee beans. The Luwak is a small tree-dwelling animal native to Bali which eats ripe red coffee beans. 

 

The beans are then passed through the digestive system, undergoing some chemical changes along the way. Farmers collect the "droppings" in the morning, then the turds are cleaned, and the beans are roasted and ground like any other coffee beans.

 

 

To be honest, I'm not a coffee connoisseur,but Dewey said it was good coffee, although he probably didn't need to pay to try it again.

Salak (Snake skin fruit), which we tried. It was firm, and slightly sweet, slightly sour. Danielle later remarked that it would make a great "apple" pie (with cinnamon and spices), and I fully agree.

We then carried on up the road towards the mountains. After not too long we were pulled over by a police stop-check. At first, I wasn't nervous at all, because as far as I knew, we weren't doing anything wrong. However, this policeman proceeded to ask for Dewey's drivers license and insurance (which he had) and then pointed out that his drivers license wasn't valid in Bali and he would need to pay a 250,000 Rupee fine. This was blatantly unfair, and an obvious display of police corruption. The worst part is that he wasn't going to provide us with any proof of payment, or even require us to turn around and go back. He said we could just pay him cash and keep driving (or he threatened to take our registration and Dewey's license away). We argued this, and he eventually dropped it to a "special price" of 100,000, but I still felt this was so out of line... especially since we were probably going to drive another 10 minutes down the road and run into another cop, and go through the same thing again. Eventually I ended up crying out of frustration, and then the cops didn't really know what to do so they said "Ok, fine, you can just go... because of her". Haha. 

Sure enough, a few minutes down the road we were stopped by a local who said there were cops up ahead. He offered to take us through the back roads. We gladly followed him, but he took us to his restaurant. We felt obligated to eat there but didn't realize it was a fixed-price buffet lunch, and an absolute rip-off at that. We ended up paying 192,000 Rp for a terrible, cold, buffet lunch. So I guess we escaped one fine... and ended up getting ripped off later anyways.  We were pretty shook up and irritated and after hiding out at the restaurant for awhile we set back, taking the smallest back roads the whole way to Ubud, out of fear of running into cops again.

Here is a view from the restaurant where we stopped for lunch, although we weren't really in a view-appreciating mood.

On our final day in Ubud we decided to walk to the Elephant Cave (Goa Gajah), a few kilometers outside of Ubud. Along the way we passed many rice patties, and small artisan workshops.

A small bird market

This particular vendors art was so incredible. He hand carved sculptures of deer (sometimes with tigers chasing them) out of mostly hibiscus wood. I wish I could have taken one home... but this is about as unrealistic as things get in terms of backpacking souvenirs.

 

Hot and sweaty, from our walk along the roadside in mid-day, we finally arrived at the Elephant Cave. The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia, because they do a better job of summarizing what it was that I could have:

Goa Gajah (Elephant Cave), Jalan Goa Gajah. 8AM-6PM daily. The centerpiece here is a cave dating back to the ninth century, the entrance to which is an ornately carved demon's mouth. Inside are some fragmentary lingam and yoni statues, as well as a statue of Ganesha. Large, carved guards stand around pools near the entrance, and a little path leads to a waterfall, rice fields, and some Buddhist stupa fragments. Some parts of the Goa Gajah complex were not excavated until the 1950s. Nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Rp 15,000, including sarong rental.

On the ground there was a really fun old tree with some pretty artistic roots.

 

On the way back from the Elephant cave we took the backroads through some small villages and rice patties. It was a long walk, but it was so beautiful.

There are very few gas stations around, so mostly you fill up your scooter at small stands along the side of the road where they sell petrol in old liquor bottles.

The night before our ferry to Lombok we stayed in Padangbai...a very sleepy little harbour town. There was a short walk up a hill at one end of town, where you could walk up to this little temple.

These strange little boats were lined up all along the beach.  The had long "legs" with floats on each side, which was probably a good thing, since the boat itself was so narrow.

Another example of a dinner menu where the Bahasa to English translations are funnier than they were probably intended to be. Our favorites were "Rangging Bull" pizza with "hum", and the "Something like it Hot" pizza.

A fun little scooter-side car combo that Dewey spotted. The scooter is the primary vehicle of choice around Bali (and most of Asia, actually). Apparently, there used to be local buses on Bali but they were so terrible that everyone just bought scooters. 

The next post will be a few days since we are leaving tomorrow morning at 5:00am to start a guided 3-day trek up Rinjani volcano. We will talk to you all when we get back! Enjoy :)