Indoland! (2)

Carrying on from the last post, about my adventure in Indonesia..

From Bali, I flew to Lombok as my friend and I have booked a holiday there for 5 days. I met up with my friend, her cousin, and the guys who were taking us around Lombok in the airport, and straightaway we were on our way to the first destination. We went to Sasak Village, where we had a tour guide showing us around the village and explaining the daily life of people in the village. It was quite interesting getting to know how the culture in that village. There are a few hundred people living in the village and the community is very close. Their house is still made out of mud and animals' faeces. The main profession is hand craft to sell to tourist. Most of the girls and women are able to weave. A girl is taught how to weave since they are 8 years old, and they would not get married if they can't weave. The guide said that when a guy wants to propose to a girl, he would 'kidnap' the girl, but with the girl's consent. And that's just a few of the very interesting way of life which I remembered from the guide's explanation.

Next, we went to this beach to see Batu Payung (umbrella rock), which was a big rock with its lower part already eroded, hence why they call it umbrella rock (even though it doesn't look like an umbrella). To be honest, the rock itself wasn't the main attraction to me. We had to climbed (literally) a hill to get to the rock, and the view from up the hill was the best part. Because it wasn't holiday season, the place was really empty too. Thinking about it, the road we took on the way there and to any other places were quite empty as well.

After having some lunch, we head to the mountainous area, I think it was called the Sembalun area. This is where we spend the night, and the view from our hotel was amazing. We had a view of Mount Rinjani, and we arrived at sunset time. It got quite cold at night though, which was kind of a weird feeling because it has been really hot since I came to Indonesia. During the night, there was a group of police and their families who were celebrating one of the police's wife's birthday, so they did karaoke all night long around a campfire. I thought I wouldn't be able to sleep at first because of how loud they were!

Walking around Sasak Village

Trying out weaving

On the way to Batu Payung

Mount Rinjani sunset view

View from the hotel the following morning

We started early the next day, first on the list was to go to a waterfall spot. There were actually two waterfalls in the same area. On the way there, a bunch of cows were blocking the way, it was rather funny. After waiting a few minutes, they walked to the other side of the road and we were able to carry on with our journey. Once we arrived at the destination, we had to walk a bit to get to the waterfall. The first waterfall was tall but narrow and so we didn't spend much time there. On the way to the second waterfall, we had to go across a river with lots of rocks. It was rather a fun experience, especially because the water was so clear and cool. The second waterfall was much bigger and there were lots of people swimming and playing around. We didn't really bring clothes so we only stand in the shallow end and took lots of pictures.

After a while we were back on our way to the next destination, Gili Trawangan. It is a little island with hotels, resort, bars, and there are no powered vehicle, only bicycles and horse carriages. I was quite excited because I've heard a lot about the island. We also spent a night in the island, the hotel was quite nice too. The roads look quite cute during the day and at night it was lively with music from the bars. We went swimming in the sea in the afternoon, the beach had white sand with lots of corals around, the water was so clear with turquoise and blue colour, and we had a view of mainland Lombok and its mountains. After we swam in the sea, we went back to the hotel and swam in the swimming pool (to make the most of our hotel :D). At night we went out to grab something to eat, and being in an island, I had fish which was seasoned very nicely. After walking around for a bit, we went back to the hotel. Just like the previous night, we could hear music from our hotel, as there were a band having a mini concert nearby, luckily we were still able to sleep as we were so tired.

Road block!

Waterfall 1

Waterfall 2

Somewhere between the waterfall and Gili T

Only in Asian countries

Thank you fish for being so yummy

Our home for the night

View from Gili T

Boats to take us back to the mainland

From Gili Trawangan we went to Mataram, to have lunch and pick up bits and bobs for....camping! Yes, we went camping in Gili Kondo, which was an island of zero population. This was such a new experience for me, because there were no facilities they usually have in camping grounds. I went camping every now and again but this was different..there was no one in the island! Apparently it is usually quite busy when it's holiday season. It was quite nice to have the whole island to ourselves especially when we went snorkeling. We snorkeled in the afternoon, right by the beach and there were lots of fishes, even colourful ones. This was my first time going snorkeling and I enjoyed it. However, I accidentally stood on a sea urchin and its spikes went into my feet. Luckily I didn't fully stood on it, kinda just touched it but a few spikes still went in. Apparently your feet would swell up and you would get high temperatures, but luckily it didn't happen to me. It hurts to walk for the night but in the morning I was able to run around. We caught the sunrise in the morning and it was beautiful. We went snorkeling again, but this time in the middle of the sea and there were many more fishes and they were even more colourful, we even found Nemo and his dad! I enjoyed snorkeling a lot, although I still had to adjust the goggles a lot as it was quite hard breathing from my mouth. After we had enough of snorkeling, we went to Gili Bidara just to take a few photos and then went back to the mainland.

Dinner - fish again!

Sunrise

Sunrise

Camping area

Clear water

So serene...

The following night, we stayed at a nice hotel in Mataram. The next morning we left the hotel early to catch our flight. Me and my friend flew to Surabaya, and her cousin flew to Jakarta. To not make this post super long, I will continue with my journey in the next post!