Segara Villas Lombok

... forest at higher elevations. On Rinca the land rises gradually from the north coast to a plateau that ends at Mount Dora (667m) in the south. The rugged south coast is very sheer as a result of volcanic activity in the distant past, as evidenced by the crater bay in which Nusa Kode nestles.

Komodo is unique in the world in having two distinct marine habitats - tropical and temperate - a few nautical miles distant from each other. There is a constant flow of the warm ...

... when he introduced himself so I still don't know it. Consistent with the other French people I've met on this trip, he barely spoke English and seemed to not understand most of what we were saying when we spoke quickly. He was fairly mute the entire trip. Peter, on the other hand, was fairly talkative and knew a lot of interesting facts about Indonesia, as it used to be a Dutch colony and there is a lot of Indonesian influence in Holland.

At approximately 7:30 a.m., we ...

... in a long time (a minivan no less) and this was on narrow island roads that are littered with all sorts of motorized and unmotorized, inanimate and living traffic. It required a great deal more focus than cruising around on the motorbike and I immediately wished I was on a two-wheeler, even though it was nice for all of us to be under the same roof. It is also much more closed off, as they refer to in the movie Crash, than riding around ...

... Went to a stick fight on the beach yesterday. Pretty wild excuse to gamble and a sport, like bullfighting, more fun for the spectator than for the participants. Rambutan are in season (the red fuzzy fruit). If you've never eaten rambutan, it is highly recommended you do so before you die. Tonight is Nyale, the annual festival where sea worms are harvested. Local legend has it that Princess Mandalika was being ...

... and with a hot water shower, for the 1st time in weeks!... just what we needed after the 24 trip! Senggigi is the most developed tourist resort in mainland Lombok, the local beach is nice, but the sand is dark volcanic ash. The infrastructure here is good and there are many bars and restaurants, it was a nice change after the more basic conditions in Flores, so we decided to stay for 4 days. There are plenty of touts trying to sell just about anything, some ...

... run up to the bus trying to claim us. They see me as an ATM machine. They start screaming at me demanding to know where I'm going. They immediately begin to lie like crazy; there are no buses today, buses don't go there, exaggerate the distances from place to place, it's maddening. They refuse to tell you where to get the "public" bus to go somewhere. They yell at others not to help us, they hope we will give up and use them to get ...

... working the land!! Everyone seemed very excited to see a white face!! (look at photos!) Day 2: Must have been an Indonesian public holiday...the beaches were packed. We braved the black sand, the locals and the touts and went for a swim at the beach! Really warm water, and saw some awesome surf on the reef, with lots of locals surfing. Had a drink at a bar where we got to sit on swings while we drank, then went to a ...

... ox carts and amazing little Sasak villages. I saw locals making and firing bricks and roof tiles and women drying seaweed. Just driving around was an experience of its own- like nothing I have ever imagined before. The hours passed quickly on those narrow back country roads. The local children would stretch out their hands to give you 'high fives'and the other moto riders would give a quick wave and beep of the horn. I would return ...

... banana, etc. are so plentiful and each day we were the happy receivers of many a fresh fruit juice. The cuisine is very tasty as well, with the delicious peanut sauce to go with many of the meals (gado gado and nasi campur were two personal favorites, along with black rice pudding for dessert). We found one amazing restaurant and went there so many times that they gave us a "preferred customer" card which entitled us to a 15% discount ...

... rucksack, which I understand he was, then it would not take much of an error to tip you off balance and send you over the edge. The descent was a slow 3 hour clamber through a vertical landscape of rock and grass to the left and fog to the right. When we finally arrived at the lakeside mentally and physically ruined the four of us fell in a heap together on the ground and slept. Thankfully that was it for the day and even though it was only 12:30 we had covered 19km. We awoke ...