Lombok Dec 2012

On Route from Perth to Denpasar

We have all seen those wonderful nature film footages of a mother protecting her offspring against all odds, the lone lioness battling it out against a pack of hungry hyenas attempting to carry away a tiny and helpless cub. It is an experience few will forget if witnessed first hand.

I had just such an experience on a Jetstar flight headed from Perth to Bali en-route to our beloved Lombok. Jetstar is a very comfortable low cost carrier, with generous leg room when compared to some of the other budget airlines, and seats that are at least comfortable rather than luxurious. However, some quirk of design has left them paper-thin at the rear, with passengers almost suspended in a sling of upholstery material. Somehow it works, except when the passenger behind decides to push various parts of his anatomy into the rear of my seat.

Behind us were a couple of young lads who seemed nice enough, being too young to spend the flight consuming copious amounts of alcohol and too inexperienced to be able to carry on an endless conversation about the finer points of holidaying in Bali without being ripped off by “locals”. At one point, early in the flight, the lad behind me started fussing with something involving the parting of velcro tabs and a fair bit of prodding and pushing at the rear of the seat. It was harmless enough really and I ignored it, figuring that it would cease in time but my patience came to an abrupt halt as a sharp object was pressed through the seat and activated my auto-response system somewhere in the vicinity of my left kidney. I let out a yelp and shot bolt upright.

“Sorry mate!” the other lad offered, proving he was at least old enough to remember Pat Rafter. I subsided back into the seat and reasoned that the experience was not all bad because now they were aware that they could hurt me and would be a lot more caring for the rest of the flight.

Once levelled out, the seat belt light was extinguished, the electronic gear came on and the cabin crew commenced the parade of carts and trolleys up and down the aisle to ensure that no one could get to the toilet. The boy behind me made the decision to spend the whole flight asleep and set about using every last cubic centimetre of space to accommodate his 190cm frame. By slouching in his seat and pressing his knees up against the seat in front (mine) he found Nirvana and collapsed into a deep and meaningful slumber. This gave me some unwanted lumbar support in the form of a kneecap-like lump. Every now and then, possibly due to a dream, the knee twitched, slid sideways or rotated. The flight wore on.

Slowly, a sense of pride in my own levels of tolerance emerged. “I am a very reasonable human being,” I thought to myself. “I could lean back and call the young man a stupid @#%$# or stand up and accidentally spill a can of VB in his lap but I am beyond all that.”

Once again, the end came in the form of a painful and forceful jab to the lower back that had me unclipping my seat belt and jumping to my feet. I glared down at the young man but, alas, he was dead to the World. I rolled my eyes and returned to my seat, little knowing that I had unleashed a monster.

“Do you have a problem?” demanded a voice next to me. A woman had materialised and showed all the characteristics of those mothers on the travel films. She looked like she had reluctantly abandoned the power-dressing suit for a trip to Bali but retained all the body language of a corporate power-broker.

“Only being continually kicked in the back,” I replied, trying my best not to launch into a stream of abuse.

“Well he is 6’2”. What do you expect? He’s sound asleep. He can’t help it.” This obviously made everything OK so she sat down, but maintained a state of readiness with claws bared.

In the face of such determination, all I could do was lean across the aisle and suggest very politely that she was actually being a tad unreasonable but, in truth, I knew I was already beaten and resigned myself to spending the rest of the flight gently simmering with righteous indignation. Like the hyenas, I could have made futile attempts to make her cower under a barrage of insults or even spill a can of VB in her lap but I knew that the mother instinct would prevail. Besides, she had a husband.

Beach Club Sengiggi

A return visit to Lombok was motivated by the fabulous experience we had last year when we came with our friends, Lesley and Mick. Despite the low season and lack of people (or perhaps because of it), the Beach Club at Sengiggi captured our hearts and cried out for a second visit.

Last year, circumstance saw us flying to Denpasar via Singapore then on to Lombok, a long trip with much waiting around and standing in queues. This time around, a three and bit hour flight to Denpasar followed by a Lion Air half hour flight to Lombok was a lot easier to handle, although the wait at Denpasar Domestic was incredibly boring. For some reason, the place is always packed and finding a seat is difficult. One would imagine that a steady turnover of flights would free up seats but the somehow it doesn’t happen.

We were dreading the hour and half drive from Lombok’s International terminal to Sengiggi but were pleasantly surprised to find that the road has been improved and the trip is now a lot smoother, taking just over an hour, despite continual rain and the gathering darkness. We arrived at the Beach Club without the adrenaline rush that so often accompanies a taxi ride in Asia.

At the Beach Club, we were greeted by Nanna and Eddie and booked in to Bungalow 1, right overlooking the beach. Then it was back to the bar for the required refreshments and a bite to eat before collapsing in bed.

Life at the Beach Club is extremely relaxing. We sleep, swim in the pool, swim in the ocean, watch movies, eat, drink beer, drink strong Lombok coffee and watch the small but steady trickle of guests come and go. The first day, we didn’t even step foot outside the grounds, a rare thing for us who usually like to be on the go when travelling.

 

On day two, we walked down into the village to find a hair-cut and a pedicure for Christine. However, the village holds few attractions with the low season resulting in most establishments either closing or going into slow mode. When a trader is found, it is hard to get away because we represent some of the very few potential customers they are likely to see that day. Last year, the poor state of the road and footpath made walking difficult in places. This year, a major reconstruction of the road through Sengiggi has been undertaken and new footpaths are being constructed. Whether they are ever finished remains to be seen but at present, deep holes in the ground and mounds of rock and rubble compete to trap the unwary pedestrian. Pity the poor struggling cafe that now has a huge pile of building materials blocking access. I guess it takes the right payment to the right person to get it removed.

Just as last year, we were totally spoilt by the wonderful staff at the Beach Club. Cheerful smiles, prompt and attentive service with lots of helpful advice is the norm here. Atok checked with us every day to ensure that we were happy and no request was too much for Nanna, Leah, Joe, Eddie or any of the crew. It is great to see they have won awards through Trip Advisor in 2012 because they deserve it. The owners, Glenn and Dee were away in Melbourne during our visit but they could be very proud of their staff.

Gili Air

The Gilis is a group of three small islands off the North West Coast of Lombok. In fact, the word Gili simply means island so the region has a great many Gilis, with another group in the South West gaining increasing attention through tourism.

We reached Gili Air, the closest of the three, via a twenty minute taxi ride and a transfer to the island in the Beach Club’s comfortable power boat. This is not the cheapest option around, costing us 60,000 RHP ($6) for the taxi and another 240,000 RHP ($24) for the boat but it so much easier than mucking around with haggling over fees at the wharf or struggling with the crowds on the very slow public boat. As an added bonus, we were landed right on the beach at the Beach Club Gili Air and within minutes happily lodged in our beautiful bungalow.

The scenery from the bar and beach is absolutely spectacular, looking across to Lombok’s Mt Rinjani, Indonesia’s second largest, towering 3,700m above sea level. It has an enormous lake filled crater so its rim is dotted with numerous peaks. The changing light and shifting misty clouds produced a vista that constantly recreated itself. Tropical rain squalls and spectacular lightning displays across its face added to the show. Looking the other way, the perfect cone of Bali’s Mt Agung protruded through a low line of clouds. Fortunately, both volcanoes are quiet at present.

The BC Gili Air is all very new, having opened mid year, and sports eight well appointed accommodation units set amid already well-established gardens. It is situated on the South Eastern tip of the island, a prime location because the beach provides swimming over clean white sand at all tides. Good coral growth to either side of the beach means wonderful snorkelling right off the beach. The bar and restaurant is comfortable and the marvellous array of beanbags right down to the water’s edge proved a real asset. When we wanted some variety from the Beach Club menu, a profusion of establishments down the street gave us lots of choice.

There are no cars or trucks on the Gilis. Small pony powered carts ply their trade, carrying passengers or hauling supplies. A simple network of paved roads crosses Gilli Air and most of the coastline is serviced by a hard packed sand track. Bicycles are common, and we hired one for $5 each, giving us the mobility to explore the island to its full.

The inland areas of the island are mostly covered with rolling paddocks of small Indonesian cattle, coconut plantations, mango trees, village housing and  the like. As we cycled around, we saw a school in operation and watched the parade of routines. In places, it is like a tableau of archipelago life, with little changing over the years.

Back on the coast, however, most things revolve around tourism, with an assortment of craft from traditional outrigger sampans to modern fibreglass outboard powered craft plying to and fro with divers, snorkellers and fishing groups. The low season here means lots of bargain accommodation and “special offers”, although everything in general is more expensive than Lombok itself, owing to the high cost of transport.

The island’s biggest problem is fresh water. For the many tourist resorts, all water is shipped from the mainland, with each establishment being responsible for its own. Some have adapted local boats as water carriers, with large plastic containers stowed aboard then emptied by pump across the beach to the resort , while other seem to have an endless array of small water containers that are shipped over and lugged up the beach by hand. The cheaper accommodation only has salt water showers but the more up-market places offer freshwater facilities. It seems amazing that the water shortage can be so acute, when Lombok’s rainfall is so high, yet we saw almost no sign of a rain water tank anywhere. Power on the island is supplemented by a large solar grid in the middle of the island but the output would probably not support any form of desalination plant. While labour remains cheap, and fuel continues to receive a big Government subsidy, the current system will probably prevail.

Last year, we visited the other two islands, Gilli Trewangan and Gilli Meno as part of a one day snorkelling trip. We were left very disappointed with the coral growth, most of which was in a very degraded state. The use of explosives as a fishing technique and inappropriate anchoring techniques had taken its toll. On Gilli Air, the fringing coral is beautiful. Although areas of damage and degradation are obvious, it is not hard to find patches of exquisite gardens, with an unbelievable variety of wonderfully coloured corals the drops away into a bottomless blue called the Air Slope. The fish life abounds, with gorgeous reef fish that show little fear of humans. However, there is a distinct lack of predatory demersal fish suggesting that it is far from a balanced ecosystem. There are few pelagics either, the odd mackerel and longtom but nothing much. Still, the corals and the amazingly clear water gave us a lot of enjoyment during times of slack tide. The tide does need to be watched, because the current is capable of being really quite dangerous and impossible to swim against in places. We had fun treating the beach in front of our bungalow like a lap pool, swimming hard into the current and going absolutely nowhere.

Life on the Gilis is the ultimate in laid back relaxation. Overall, things are a little more expensive than on Lombok, reflecting the cost of transport and service provision but the place still remains ridiculously cheap. Staff at the Beach Club are attentive, friendly and very keen to assist in any way. In fact, locals everywhere were very friendly with many just stopping to meet and talk, without any apparent ulterior motive. The beach sellers plied their trade as usual, but lacked the annoying banter and persistence so often encountered in Bali or Phuket. Nothing really upset the serenity of the place.

Central and Southern Lombok

On our return drive from the boat landing to Sengiggi from Gili Air was by private car organised Atok from the Beach Club. The driver, Amin, was exceedingly careful by most Asian standards and impressed us with his friendly chatter and knowledge of English. We organised for him to take us on a tour of the Central areas and the South on our final day on Lombok, before dropping us at the airport.

The day proved to be really interesting, Amin providing some fascinating insight into local life as we visited a few spots in the old city of Ampenam. This was the old Dutch trading port in past years and the Chinese influence also prevailed, as it did in most Asian trading centres. We stopped at the Chinese cemetery and toured a local fishing village with its scores of outrigger sampans drawn up on the beach.

Heading inland from Mataram, we drove into Central Lombok through extensive fields of rice, corn and tobacco, much of it being harvested at present. There is little sign of the mechanisation that is starting to take hold in Bali, with the old single furrow buffalo drawn plough and hand harvesting with sickles still very much in evidence. Despite the abundance of water in the current wet season, much of the region still only plants one crop a year due to a lack of irrigation systems.

We stopped at a weaving centre to watch the incredible skills of the workers. Here we were treated to two kinds of traditional weaving. The women practised the Sasak method, weaving extremely intricate patterns into the material by introducing threads. The patterns come straight from memory, each being the property of a family and handed down from mother to daughter. Christine was invited to have a go and managed two lines of weave under the careful tutelage of a local girl. Using fine cotton threads, they average about 15cm of cloth a day.

The men were producing a different weave called Intak. This has a batik pattern as its basis, the warp lines being carefully collected in bunches and wrapped in plastic binding before being dyed. The warps are then loaded onto the look and weave completes the intricate patterns. This system is faster but involves more people in the many stage process.

The results are quite staggering. A large blanket or bedspread may well be the product of two month’s work with weavers toiling for full twelve hour days. While they might sell for several hundred dollars each, the return to the weaver is probably somewhere in the vicinity of 25c a day. Fortunately, there seemed to be a considerable amount of culture and family support behind much of the work so it may not have been quite as exploitive as it could have been.

We ended up buying a small Sasak piece suitable as a wall hanging for $25. Hopefully, it wasn’t machine made in China and if it was I don’t want to know.

The next stop was a Sasak village, one of only two left on Lombok. These are the traditional people of Lombok, living still as they have done for eons with a religion that is a meld of Islam, Hinduism and Animism.

The village was composed of a very tight collection of grass plaited huts with thatched roofing occupying a small hill. Sellers of small trinkets were in abundance and we managed to ignore all the pleading looks and mournful faces.

Our guide explained about village life, focussing heavily on the system of marriage, which are not arranged but are usually a love match. The man abducts the girl, without the knowledge of either set of parents and they go off to another village to live together until the parent’s anger has died down. Then they return and set up together. Given that the maiden girls are allocated a small attic loft above the mother’s quarters to sleep in, the actual abduction is a work of art. Apparently, a prelude to the actual grab is to ply the girl’s father with rice wine to make him sleep well. I suspect that the parents are not really that stupid.

We toured the village and inspected a house, all of which is actually being lived in at present. We relented at the weaving store and purchased yet another woven piece, feeling more like we needed to support this attempt at maintaining a traditional lifestyle than we actually needed a woven wall hanging.

With hunger starting to set in, we headed for the famed Kuta Lombok region with its near perfect surf breaks and brilliant white beaches. Although still largely unknown by the West, save for the die-hard surfers, this area is about to explode with development. As soon as the current economic downturn releases investment dollars, the resorts and hotels will spring up in number. For now, the beach is a string of small shanties and palm frond woven restaurants. The few tourists around were heavily outnumbered by the masses of sellers. Ahmin had warned us to ignore all approaches, because any interest at all would attract all the sellers like seagulls to a chip. And so it was. As we ate lunch, we watched the young girls mob around a couple of women who had shown interest in some saris. It looked like hostilities would break out between rivals but the peace ultimately prevailed. We just kept repeating a polite “No thank you!”

With the stomach satisfied, we continued across an appalling piece of broken road 7km to Tanjung A’an, a delightful, deep, teardrop-shaped bay with a marvellous surf break across its mouth. A high headland in the middle of the bay provided excellent views of the surrounding area and we spent a good half hour at the top just taking in the spectacular scenery and imagining the sites of the hotels and resorts that will surely come to this beautiful part of the World.

Here, the persistent beach sellers were mostly children, so we had no regrets at all about saying no. It is part of our policy as we travel that we never buy from children or give to beggars. Each case is the end product of an exploitation and any support is an endorsement.

Amin dropped us off at the airport, leaving us very well satisfied with our driving tour. We enjoyed his company and admired his work ethic and promised to seek his services the next time we were on Lombok.

We leave Lombok with regret and knowing that we will be back. Of our eight days, I was sick with the gastro for two, yet I still thoroughly enjoyed every relaxing day. We are usually very active when travelling but our trips here have taught us how to truly unwind.

Quick Facts:

Perth to Denpasar – Jetstar 3hr45min $831.30 return for two

Denpasar to Mataram (Lombok) – Lion Air (actual flight with Wing Air) 30 mins $A107 return for two

Airport taxes and visa fees:
Denpasar – $25 visa

– $15 departure

Lombok    –  $2.50 departure

Accommodation Sengiggi – The Beach Club, www.thebeachclublombok.com $A65/night

Accommodation Gili Air – The Beach Club Gili Air www.thebeachclublombok.com $78/night

Taxi/Transfer Airport to Sengiggi Lombok – $A25 for two.

Private car/speed boat transfer Sengiggi to Gili Air $A36 for two.

Private car for day exploring Southern Lombok and airport drop off  $A35 for two.