Blogs from Sengigi, Lombok, Indonesia, Asia

Arrived in Lombok after a very long ferry journey. like 4 hours or something. it's only 23km! i can cycle that in i don't 30mins!!! anyway, sengiggi is a lazy town but lovely. beaches are lush here. much quiter and cheap. staying in a homestay with breaky for a fiver a night. very lovely family and endless supply of kopi (coffee). Martin one of the fam, is teaching me indonesian. he keeps laughing. i want to tell him how comedy his accent is when he speaks english lol. met some brits. first ones i've met so far! they knew things like where York is. and i could speak at a normal pace again. broke a few rules though - went on back of motorbike with random lone local male twice. i trusted my gut instinct. one ... read more

More things that begin with B Bintang, beer, bucket, beach. As I write this entry I am sipping a Bintang beer by the beach that the restaurant staff have helpfully placed in an ice bucket. Reminds me that this trip ‘is not a holiday’. Although, speaking of buckets, earlier today we were rubber gloved up and hand washing batches of laundry in a bucket; so it’s not all relaxation and pleasure. Onion boats Our bikes survived their short journey across the straits of Melacca on an ‘onion boat’ – so named because it occasionally carries onions. I suspect when it does carry onions, the onions pay a lot less for the trip than our bikes did. The onions certainly don’t have to argue as much with their shipping agent about ... read more

Western Lombok is where Islam meets Hinduism, on an island dominated by the former. A large Hindu procession took place on the streets of Mataram, under the light of the full moon. Locals, dressed in white shirts and hats, with colourful sarongs and sashes, walked the long road up to Cakranegara. Drums and xylophones play the traditional ‘gamelan’ music – strangely discordant to the unaccustomed on first hearing. Our two young Muslim chaperones are stopped and questioned by the police regarding their presence at the Hindu event. This seems ridiculous, as it’s a public street. No matter – they gesture to us, and the police are satisfied. We chat to locals, including one who, improbably, lived in Norway for eight years, and has two sons there, from a past marriage. There is more than a small ... read more

Up until April 26th. Lombok. How I don’t ever want to see you again and here I am having to write the same painful blog again – about nothing – due to bad Spanish internet connection. We paid 6 euros for the internet for 24hrs only to have to not work after 12 hours. How we are going to explain this in Spanish and get our internet back, I don’t know – but I guess if you’re reading this now, we managed, or we waited until Amsterdam. So, Lombok. To keep it quick, there wasn’t really much to see except for the occasional shack, then another shack, a bar with trafficked women, then another, then another shack, a perverted muslim man, maybe another or maybe they’re just staring at me because they’re not used to tourists ... read more

After our quick trip through Java, we flew back to Bali and headed straight to Padangbai on the eastern side of the island. Its a small town which is known mostly for being the jump off point to Lombok and the Gili Islands. We spent a few days here getting prepared to spend the last month of our trip ensconced in beach and snorkeling - this involved going to beach and buying snorkels. We then boarded the public ferry to Lombok and after 4 hours on the boat and another 2 hour van ride, we arrived at our hotel in Sengiggi. Here we spent a night in a normal traveler style hotel, watched the royal wedding at a bar in town, and anxiously awaited our move to the fanciest and most luxurious hotel of the whole ... read more

My trip order is going to be out of sync...sorry bout that, but haven't found much time to document my travels from Phi Phi in Thailand to Kuala Lumpur. And no internet while in Lombok (which was quite refreshing). After spending two too many days in Kuta Beach it was time to head off to the island of Lombok for some diving. So Option 1 take a 2hr fast boat for $70, Option 2 take a 6hr ferry for somewhere around $40 or Option 3 take 30min flight for $30. Hmmmmm tough decision.... had to check a couple of times to make sure that was correct. Since when is a flight cheaper then a boat ride??? Well in Indonesia it is every day of the week....of course that doesn't guarantee the flight departs and arrives on ... read more

We took a slow boat from Gili Trewangen to Senggigi which took 4 hours to cover a distance that I’m pretty sure I could have swum. We first went to Bagsal on a worryingly overcrowded boat and then waited there for a very confused hour until we finally got on a little mini bus to Senggigi. Apparently, Senggigi was quite a popular tourist destination until the Bali Bombings happened. This is a shame because it is obvious that it was once very pretty but now looks a bit run down with a lot of empty guest houses and restaurants that have closed. There were a lot of pushy touts around but it was just a random guy on a street corner who pointed us towards the cheapest guest house in town, Sekiki. It was cheap and ... read more

Allah Allah Allah akbar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tonen lød natten igennem fra kl 22 indtil kl 08 om morgenen. Celebration af Idul Fitri - den muslimske "jul". Hvor sygt er det at fejre noget på en ø med både hindu, buddhister og muslimer og så blive ved med at skrige i en diktafon linket til en gigantisk højttaler med dårlig lyd i 10 timer. Respekt respekt men gensidig ja tak... Jeg (Julie) drømte om at leje F16 fly fra den amerikanske airforce til at smide en lillebitte bombe bare lige ned i MOSKE'n. Hurtigt og smertefrit efterfulgt af ren stilhed ... aahhhhhh Lorte-ID. Af samme årsag kunne vi hverken leje motorcykler eller bil i dag så vi kunne komme på tur. De skulle alle bruge dem til at tage på familieudflugter i weekenden pga Idul Fitri. Regnen silede ned ... read more