Mic check one two one two, what the fuck is up y‘all, your boy taeb is back on his
bullshit. Chilling by our pool in Gili T, fresh off one week travels around the
Lobmok island and some afternoon diving. Sipping on some rice wine (courtesy of
lovely people of Lombok), got my dad sitting across the table, life is still
good. In Shanghai, shit gets shut down these days cause of this coronavirus
which makes me appreciate this island life even more. On top of that, I got
some of my closest people coming to the island shortly. My spirits are up, last
week was amazing, everything is cool as a cucumber here. I’m fucking sure I’m gonna miss like 60% of what we
experienced but I’m gonna give this my best
shot. Bear with me, here we go!
Last Monday, we woke up early in the morning and met my dad
by our dive school. From there, we continued to the port and got ourselves some
public boat tickets. The thing is, if you wanna go to Lombok, you can either
pay like 90k for a private speedboat, or travel with a boat along with about 50
other people for 15k. Here is the deal. You buy the ticket and queue up. Once
there’s at least 40 of you, the
boat gets ready and you go. Pretty convenient, it runs from around 8am all the
way up until 5pm and you usually don’t wait
more than 30 minutes. We made it to Bangsal – a port
town in Lombok. First thing we did over there was getting ourselves two
scooters. I took one with my gf and my dad got his own. The guy initially asked
for 100k for one per day but I was able to talk it down to 70k. The price I
remember from my last Indonesia travels two years ago.
Our first stop was Mataram – the capital of Lombok – specifically their immigration office. Now, it gets a bit tricky when it comes to that. For one, extending your visa requires at least two visits (in Bali, it can get up to 3 and can take more than a week). Fortunately for us, Lombok is a bit friendlier, less crowded and swifter than Bali. Took us less than an hour to get our application submitted, our fingerprints and pictures taken, and off we went. The destination for our first night was Tetebatu. Located on the south side of mount Rinjani, this village gives you a sense of what the real local life looks like. No foreigners around so you are basically an attraction everywhere you go. The area is full of small villages with typical convenient stands selling basic groceries, fruits and gas in bottles. Children holler at you, adults generally do the same. Muslim influence is all over the place with women wearing hijabs and mosques being on every corner. So yeah, a blond girl in a dress, tatted up dude and his dad riding around on scooters... We were relatively easy to spot. Our accommodation was beautiful. Pretty far from the road, silent and peaceful, just above some rice field terraces. Even the climate got colder as we were climbing up the hills. Pretty cool change after couple of weeks in Gilis. We did a nice random walk around the terraces and ended up finding one of the waterfalls nearby which was actually falling down to a cave where we took a dip. Beautiful. We spent the rest of the day dinking red rice wine (made from black rice), watching the night view and gorgeous night sky. What a start of a trip.
Our first stop was Mataram – the capital of Lombok – specifically their immigration office. Now, it gets a bit tricky when it comes to that. For one, extending your visa requires at least two visits (in Bali, it can get up to 3 and can take more than a week). Fortunately for us, Lombok is a bit friendlier, less crowded and swifter than Bali. Took us less than an hour to get our application submitted, our fingerprints and pictures taken, and off we went. The destination for our first night was Tetebatu. Located on the south side of mount Rinjani, this village gives you a sense of what the real local life looks like. No foreigners around so you are basically an attraction everywhere you go. The area is full of small villages with typical convenient stands selling basic groceries, fruits and gas in bottles. Children holler at you, adults generally do the same. Muslim influence is all over the place with women wearing hijabs and mosques being on every corner. So yeah, a blond girl in a dress, tatted up dude and his dad riding around on scooters... We were relatively easy to spot. Our accommodation was beautiful. Pretty far from the road, silent and peaceful, just above some rice field terraces. Even the climate got colder as we were climbing up the hills. Pretty cool change after couple of weeks in Gilis. We did a nice random walk around the terraces and ended up finding one of the waterfalls nearby which was actually falling down to a cave where we took a dip. Beautiful. We spent the rest of the day dinking red rice wine (made from black rice), watching the night view and gorgeous night sky. What a start of a trip.
Tuesday, we got our breakfast and hopped right back on our scooters. This time the road took us through the mountains, about 80 kilometers north to the other side of the mountain, to the village of Senaru. This place serves as an entry spot for trekkers doing multiple day trips all the way up to the peak. Unfortunately, it’s a rainy season now which does not mean much down by the sea but it makes all the difference up there. In other words, trekking is either not possible at all or possible, but there’s a good chance you won’t see much and get cold and wet. On the way to the village, we actually went through a pretty huge storm, and for the first time in Indonesia, I felt cold for a bit. Anyway, right next to the village, there are two famous waterfalls – Sindang Gila and Tiu Kelep. The latter being the biggest waterfall in Lombok. We managed to see both and even shared some durian with locals while at it. The durian season is just starting and I’m loving that.
Wednesday morning, we took it up to the shore and went by it to the South-East part of the island. About 120km, this time to village named Ekas. Originally, we were aiming for the Pink Beach which is in the area but after talking to some awesome guys in our bungalows (owner and his pals), we ended up roaming around totally empty beautiful beaches way closer, and watched the sunset from one of the tall cliffs about 30 meters above the sea. It was basically just us for the most part – no tourists. We wrapped up the day by some more rice wine. It is being sold all over the island but it is and under the table item. Comes in plastic bottles, nobody really knows how exactly strong it is, and it’s also the cheapest alcohol you can get over here. 1.5 liters would cost you 50-100k. After our first stop, we were not able to get our hands on red so we spent the rest of the nights with white. It’s a really lovely drink for long evenings.
Thursday, we took it all across the south coast to an area north of Kuta. We made a stop in Kuta as I forgot my swim shorts in Senaru. My Zoo York swim shorts that had been with me for about 10 years. I’m talking Turkey, Africa, Caribbean, Pacific, South-East Asia, China... Well, they did their part – rest in peace! My gf was not the biggest fan of them anyway, so we took the opportunity, hit a Rip Curl store in Kuta and got me a pair of new ones. Another 10 years, here we go! Our accommodation was super nice too. With this infinity pool with a view into the mountains. Now you gotta understand that during these days we did hundreds of kilometers on the scooters. So taking this day to chill by the pool, not doing anything, felt real good. After like forever, we even did some acroyoga – trying our best to make it a regular thing again.
Friday morning, we traveled back to Mataram. We picked up our passports, got a lunch in one of vegan restaurants (shout out Happycow!) and stopped by at a mall to get me another couple of swim shorts. That’s right - I got one for casual hanging out (heavier and more shorts-like) and one for real swimming and diving. Who would have thought.... After that we took it to the west coast and traveled up to this spot called Gypsea yoga. Lovely place in the hills with drinking water running out of taps (they have their own well). We spent most of the evening in a resort named Love Asia just down the hill by a pool, I did some meditation by the sunset, and then went to this Nuff Said Warung place to have some beers and dinner with my pops. We concluded the day with some more rice wine.
Saturday morning, before breakfast, we did more acroyoga
(trust me, practice does makes perfect) and went back to Bangsal. We returned
our scooters, bought a ticket back to Gili T, drank a cup of coffee while
waiting at the boat, and by the noon it was home sweet home. My and my gf even
made it to an afternoon dive to the Meno Wall – a dive
site we hadn’t been to yet. Visibility
under water is getting progressively better, water was calm and full of fish
and turtles, I felt awesome, we did a lot of pictures... Great dive. We met
with my dad by this Mexican joint around the corner from our villa for some
drinks and tacos (both awesome) and then took it back to our spot for some
chill out by the pool.
Overall, the road trip was A+. My dad had his first experience driving a scooter like that, we made it all safely, saw a lot, experienced even more... I’m pretty sure we did close to 500km over those days. All the great spots we stayed at, restaurants we ate at, road stands we drank coffee at... All the towns, mountain roads, sea views, dirt roads in the middle of nowhere... We got some memories. It was a really nice change after this chilled beach life we had been on for weeks prior. So yeah, greetings from beautiful Gili T! Hope you guys are doing at least as good as us over here. One!
Overall, the road trip was A+. My dad had his first experience driving a scooter like that, we made it all safely, saw a lot, experienced even more... I’m pretty sure we did close to 500km over those days. All the great spots we stayed at, restaurants we ate at, road stands we drank coffee at... All the towns, mountain roads, sea views, dirt roads in the middle of nowhere... We got some memories. It was a really nice change after this chilled beach life we had been on for weeks prior. So yeah, greetings from beautiful Gili T! Hope you guys are doing at least as good as us over here. One!
Highlights:
- The whole Lombok road trip.
- My dad being here.
- Meno Wall!
