Lombok

  Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia
Saturday, August 2, 2008

After five days of what I would call a real vacation, compared to backpack travelling time off, I was ready to move onto the next adventure. Public boats leaves Gili Trawagan at 8 in the morning so I take this early start to make my way from the west north coast of the Gilis all the way to the south east coast of Lombok, Kuta. On the way, I met up with a French guy with whom I shared a beautiful house in Kuta. The prices were much lower out there and you get much more for your money so it was appreciated to rent an entire house. Of course, you still had the mosque prayers at 5 am but the house was great.

Beach south Lombok

While walking around in the very small town / street of Kuta, a young lady on a motorbike hailed us to rent her bike. Whereas everywhere else, it has been impossible to negotiate the price, with her, we managed to get the price down. As a matter of fact, as soon as she told us the price, which was the exact same as any other places, she added "you can bargain, bargain ok". So we did, but we had to promise her to lie about the price we got in case we were asked and pretend we paid the same price as quoted everywhere. That was our deal. We then had to go, the three of us on the motorbike, to her home to drop her off before we could actually have the bike.

She lives in a small three houses village along with her family, cousins, relatives and extended family. She did not ask for any kind deposit or security, nor papers and gave us the keys with a big smile inviting us to come back for dinner. I know it can sound suspicious but if you always ask yourself the question, "what if" you would miss out on too many, too good to be true, opportunities.  After a great afternoon driving around from beaches to beaches, on durt roads

The road in south Lombok

 of course here we are, back to Ayuni's little village for dinner. We were in for a treat. She was a fantastic cook and I'm glad we told her in the morning that we did not like it spicy otherwise, we would simply not have been able to even smell the food, never mind eating it. Apart from rice, we had absolutely no idea what we ate, spicy balls of somethig, it could have been meat, could have been fish or vegetables or whatever else, it was squashy, good, spicy balls of food.  Most of the other coulourful stuff in our plates did not ressemble anything like what exists in Europe and of course, the taste goes with it. As for drinking, she offered us coffee, what they call Lombok coffee and what is served everywhere is a spoon full of very thin ground coffee, in a glass, just add water and your coffee bits go down to the bottom of the glass, but you do not have to wait. They don't, they just eat and drink their coffees at the same time. It serves two purposes, it's a brilliant idea. Better get used to it cause that is all they have in Lombok. 

Dinner at my Indonesian friends

We clearly were the attraction of the night, had she invited her entire village/family to eat on her floor in her confined four sqm "room" in order to celebrate or in order for them to stare at us the whole evening, we still do not know but the outcome is the same. We found ourselves sitting on a durt floor, eating spicy brown balls with twenty other people mumbling, laughing and staring at us. We politely smiled the whole time, while shevelling spoonfull of whatever we had in our "banana leaf" (used as plates in Indonesia). Ayuni spoke excellent english that she has learnt from tourists and we got to learn a great deal about Lombok customs...and Islam (what they do not follow of it)... as we never stopped firing her with questions. Well she did the same to us trying to understand European culture I guess. She was so open minded and very comfortable speaking openly about anything and everything. She categorically refused us to pay for dinner and invited us again the next night when we return the bike.

The view in south Lombok

The next day we drove our little motorbike west of Kuta, on basically no roads.  There were paths ad the bike was having trouble on those roads. We had to push a couple of times, get off it some others but we made it...very slowly but we are used to that by now. It was a great day with amazing views and a great dinner again in the evening.