Advertisement
Published: March 6th 2011
Edit Blog Post
Week 7 – Adventure to the island of Lombok
Day 47, November 28th, we hung out at La Joya. Said goodbye and sent Chris, Kate, Tanya and Evan to Nusa Lembongan. Clare and Hunter headed to Ubud. Relaxed at La Joya. Went surfing at Uluwatu. Natalie decided she wanted to paddle out. Tried to take a short cut but current too strong. Went around to paddle to Temples. Nat got caught in a set midway but continued on and ended up getting a wave in at Temples. To celebrate we had a beer at The Edge bar and enjoyed another perfect Uluwatu sunset. We went to ULU Thai and enjoyed a delicious dinner that was the best Thai we had during our trip. The other Thai restaurants had been pretty terrible.
Day 48, November 29th, was our last morning at La Joya. We slept in since there was a major rain. Natalie was still in town so we enjoyed a lazy afternoon around the pool before heading to Padangbai.
Day 49, November 30th, woke up to a lovely harbor bay view in Padangbai. Before boarding the ferry we had to talk with car owner to get special permission
the car to Lombok and Sumbawa. He told us it was just the ferry guards looking for a bribe and to give them $50,000 rupia ($6US), which worked. We were pleasantly surprised when we boarded a nice new ferry (especially since some of the older ones can be dirty and slow. We hopped up on the un-crowded top deck that had the lounge chairs and laid in the sun listening to music. We drove off the ferry to our first destination, Kuta beach, where we stayed at the Novotel. We were so tired we treated our selves to room service.
Day 50, December 1st, was our first full day in Lombok. We woke up to sunny perfect weather. Our hotel had a morning market tour that I was stoked to join. John also came along reluctantly. When we returned we walked around the grounds of the Novotel. The place is really beautiful and authentic looking. Since it was our honeymoon the manager set up a complementary couples massage for us, before having a relaxing lunch on the beach. A little later, I had a fun time negotiating for beautiful handmade sarongs and John surfed Seger Beach. Lombok is so
breathtaking. It is still like an ancient paradise. The sunset was amazing red, pink and purple that night. Just after sunset we went to the Manager’s cocktail hour. We talked with the Manager, who was a cool French guy and met a nice Dutch couple.
Day 51, December 2nd, we woke up in a fluffy bed at the Novotel. We took a trip to a small nearby town of Grupuk to catch a small boat out to the surf point break. We surfed for a few hours then relaxed a little before John had second surf at Seger Beach. That night we had dinner with the Dutch couple we had met the night before. They were super cool and fun to talk to. I had noticed the bar had a hookah aka shisha (water pipe for smoking flavored tobacco). Anyway when I saw them earlier at the beach I had mentioned we could try the hookah after dinner and finished with “why not try it if they have it here for us to use”. Later that night as we were finishing dinner the “hookah” came up again. They were not familiar with the name hookah (since they call it
a shisha) and proceeded to tell me that earlier in the day they thought I was suggesting we try the “hooker” after dinner. It was quite a funny miscommunication (I’m still surprised they showed up for dinner if they thought that was what I was proposing).
Day 52, December 3rd, we slept in. Had a delicious breakfast before seeking out another hotel. Besides the Novotel the Kuta hotels are low end to middle of the road at best. We checked out several places and most were dumps besides Hotel Rinjani and the more authentic place we ended up staying the Matahari Inn. Being off-season we were able to get a villa suite for about $35 US. Then we headed to check out the renowned beaches of Mauwan and Mawi. The main roads in Lombok are really great, however, the side road are like an off-roading adventure. We made our way up the pothole filled road and stopped high up on the hill at a beautiful restaurant called Asthar, owned by an Australian. We enjoyed a panoramic view of Kuta beach and a delicious vegetarian lunch. We arrived at Mauwan a great snorkeling beach for a quick look before we
headed to Mawi. We arrived at Mawi to enjoy the beauty of the beach but there were no waves. We headed back to Seger beach for a sunset surf session. That night we had a traditional Sasak meal in town for dinner (it was not my favorite).
Advertisement
Tot: 0.137s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0424s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb