Lombok

Our flight from Labuan Bajo landed in Bali in the late afternoon so we had to spend the night in Denpasar before going to Lombok the next morning. Even though we had never experienced any issues organizing transport or other stuff on short-notice, it was a bit tricky this time to get tickets for the ferry for the 2nd of January, but we sorted things out at the end. After an unspectacular evening in Denpasar a taxi dropped us off at the ferry pier 40km north of Denpasar.

The ferry was leaving a bit later than expected, but I guess that is part of the package you buy in Indonesia :). The 1h ride to Lombok was alright even though a lot of others around were complaining about missing air-con, the rough sea etc., but also that is part of the package :). We arrived in the not too pretty town of Sengiggi where we spent the afternoon and first evening. The reason why we wanted to land in Sengiggi was its close location to the  Rinjani National Park, home to the largest (to be verified) volcano in Indonesia. And of course Alex wanted to climb it! As all people we met on our way who had climbed Rinjani said something like "It was hard as hell!", "I almost died!", "I would never do it again!" Moni had already decided for a while that she would skip this adventure and go to the beach instead.

Alex was, however, quite unlucky as the park authorities had just closed the National Park on 1st Jan because of the rainy season. We went to the main agency in Sengiggi and they confirmed that they were not running tours anymore until end of March. Alex was quite disappointed, but at least it gives us a reason to go back to Indonesia one day and explore even more areas and islands around.

Therefore we both hopped onto a shared minivan to Kuta Lombok the next morning which was said to have beautiful beaches and good surf around. We arrived after a massive rain shower (the only one we experienced in our 6 days on the island) and went around the center to look for accomodation. We found a decent place and after bringing our dirty clothes to the laundry and a quick lunch we went to the local beach in Kuta Lombok itself. We went swimming to the sea and were lazing around reading and taking a nap. For dinner, there was quite a big choice of little warungs (simple Indonesian restaurants) with fresh fish and seafood as well as other Indonesian classics around so we were well fed in Lombok as well.

The next day we rented a scooter to explore the area a bit and went east of Kuta. First we passed by beautiful Seger Beach which had white sand, turquoise water and waves for experienced surfers. The next stop was Tanjung An beach, one of the most beautiful beaches around. A long stretch of white sand in a halfmoon bay and beautiful turquoise water. We carried on a bit looking around for other spots, but did not find any similar beach so we returned to Tanjug An for the afternoon. We worked hard on our tan, dipped into the sea, slept and read. We know - life is really tough!!!

The next day Alex decided he wanted to try surfing as well so he organized a lesson with one of the numerous surf schools around town. They transported all the equipment to Selong Belanak Beach, one of the beginners beaches as the waves were rather small and in the shallow sandy water so you could not hurt yourself when falling off the board.

We just had to follow the instructor on his scooter to the beach which was a good 45min west of Kuta Lombok. And lucky us, about halfway we had a flat tyre! Great! So we all stopped and luckily - as pretty much everywhere in Asia - there as a guy around who had material to fix our tyre. The tube had obviously been patched quite a few times already and we added yet another patch to it. We had asked the surf instructor how much we can expect to say and he told us a number which was apparently still 3x the price you really have to pay (but we only learned that later). Well, the guy who fixed our scooter even tried to double that price, but as we were running out of cash he accepted 40% of his originally demanded price...

So with a good 45min delay we continued our journey to get Alex on his surfboard. Another French canadian guy shared the same instructor with him. While Moni was reading on the beach and trying to get some good shots of Alex, he was learning how to catch waves at the right moment and stand up on his board. Partly he was doing very good while some attempts just failed immediately and he landed in the water. But he had lots of fun and kept trying for a good 3 hours. When he came back his stomach was slightly scratched open from rubbing on the board all the time (even though he wore a T-shirt for protection), but he was happy about his progress.

We had a late lunch and made our way back to Kuta as we tried to get some stuff organized for our next destination, New Caledonia, which turned out to be not as easy as expected. On the way back there was a big parade blocking the street and we were wondering what it was. Moni got off the scooter in her beach outfit to check what was going on and it turned out to be a wedding. The locals saw Moni and pushed her to the front to see bride and groom better and even encouraged her to take pictures - cool :).

The next day Alex felt adventurous again and wanted to rent a board to go surfing himself. Basically, there were only two spots in the area that were suitable for beginners: Selong Belanak, where we had been the day before and Gerupuk, from where you have to take a boat and either go outside the reef for the big waves or stay inside the reef for the smaller waves. Alex felt brave enough to take the boat and try his luck off shore. And he also felt he did not need the very big beginner's board, but can handle a smaller and cooler board.

Moni dropped him off at Gerupuk and wanted to go to the beach in the meantime, but the guy who owned the boat told her she could come along because the inner surf spot was just next to a beach and she could go swimming there. So she came along, but it turned out the surf spot was nowhere near the beach and she could also not really go swimming there in the middle of the surfers and other boats around... Well.... So she stayed aboard and watched Alex. He regretted quite quickly not having taking the bigger board as he had a lot less stability on his small board and was fighting to stand up and even paddling back caused problems with the not so small waves. After all, he probably did not catch a single wave where he managed to stand up and after an hour he was so exhausted from paddling that we stopped the surfing adventure and headed back to the shore. But to be fair, the waves were quite big even inside the reef and most of the beginners were just paddling and not surfing that day! Moni had even saved an Argentinian girl that had been abandoned by her instructor and she was too tired from paddling so she was holding onto our boat and Moni helped her get on the boat with her board to relax a bit.

After lunch to revitalize Alex we headed back to Tanjung An for the afternoon and had a really beautiful day. We were actually amazed that such an incredible beach could be so deserted. There were some tourists, but mostly locals around and apart from the mandatory parking only a small warung was in place, but no other facilities nor any hotels or similar. Really cool!!! We enjoyed the sunshine and blue sky to take some nice pictures of us in the white sand and turquoise water lagoon to make you all really jealous :).

And on the way back... Yes, correct, we had another flat tyre! Either the patch from the day before had not been applied properly or we made another hole... So we pushed our bike again into somebody's backyard - the guy did not speak a word English, but our problem seemed obvious - and he started working. Turned out the tube did not have a puncture this time and was just slowly but continously losing air. So after his checks he just refilled our tyre with air and we could go back to Kuta where we asked to change scooter for the next day and told them to replace this bloody back tyre!!!

Air Caledonie was keeping us busy and frustrated for the rest of the evening as their online booking tool did not work and all bookings had to be made via e-mail. Great, and each time we told them which flight date and time we wanted to book they told us it was no longer available. And we had to start our planning (incl. Rental cars etc.) all over again. And it was weekend so we could not even call them to get our reservation sorted out quicker.

On our last day in Lombok we went west again to see another beach: Mawun beach. Yet another beautiful halfmoon bay, this time emerald green water and again no hotels around, just some tiny food and drink shops and one guy who rented out sunchairs and umbrellas. We looked for a shady place under a tree and did our usual stuff: getting a tan, swimming, reading and relaxing :).

On our last morning (Monday!) we finally managed to get Air Caledonie on the phone and voilà, half an hour later we had the confirmation for our Air Cal Pass in our inbox.

To go back to Bali we had decided to take a flight this time as the airport was just a 15min drive away from Kuta Lombok and the flights were super cheap (20-30€) and it saved us the hassle of going back to the harbour for another hour, taking the probably late ferry back and then yet another means of transport to Denpasar.

We had already booked a flight to Nouméa and as we did not want to miss it we planned a spare day in Bali in case of any flight interruptions (you never know in these countries with all these airlines :)). We booked an accomodation in Kuta Bali that was so close to the airport we could even walk there. We spent the last day shopping around Kuta (not really pretty!) and Alex tried his luck once again with the waves - a bit more successful this time. A massage, picking up our bags and we already headed to the airport again, ready for the next adventure.

New Caledonia was next on the list, a destination usually less travelled by and we can already tell you so much: what a beautiful country!!!!! Stay with us if you want to see some more pictures from paradise in our next article!

Greetings from hot and sunny Western Australia,

Moni & Alex (the Lord of the flies - these beasts are everywhere!!!)