Gili to Lombok to Subawa to Flores and back to Bali

My last night on Gilies turned out to be rather dramatic when I woke up at 4 am with odd sounds. The shutters by the outdoor bathroom were moving and when I opened them ,there was a local guy behind the glass door, trying to open my door. Thankfully they were locked and he run away when I screamed at him.
I run out and woke the employees up. They had hard time believing the guy would be able to climb the high wall with barb wire and broken glass on it.  Going back to sleep was hard.

Lombok
I took the short boat ride to Lombok. There were horse carts already waiting for us and I arranged one to take me to the bus stop. As usually the driver tried to take me into the tourist office instead but I was persistent and eventually got dropped of at the stop.

There I waited only a short time for local bemo that took me to the next village, where I got on the bemo going directly to Senaru which is a starting point for the Mt. Rijani hike.
It was obvious there aren't many tourist traveling by bemos and I got to enjoy the full attention of the lovely local ladies, checking out my eyes and earrings.
Lombok is lovely, green, with Mt. Rijani in the center, making for postcards like views.

Senaru is just a little village with guest houses along the main road. I picked a nice room in one of the lodges recommended in LP and headed out to find more information about the trekking.
Trekking to Mt. Rijani takes 3 days and cost over $100. I didn't have the time and the money to do that. I asked around and find out that it is unofficially possible to hike only to the rim of the crater, where you get stunning views of the lake and the volcano. I was able to negotiate the price to $50.

Me and my guide left at midnight the same night. It was long 6 hours of climbing in the darkness, not seeing much, stepping over the roots of the trees, zig-zaging through the jungle. We didn't meet any other hikers, only passed few tents at the post2 and post 3. The last hour of hike got more exciting as we exited the thick woods and started climbing the open face, you start seeing the outlines of the mountain.

We took a longer brake at the last post, we wouldn't want to climb up too early and have to wait in the freezing cold. While we were snacking my guide tried to talk me into becoming his girlfriend. I guess my blond hair and hiking skills must have made him forget all about his wife and 4 children.

We made it to the rim just in time for the sun rise. Stunning views, you could see half of Lombok spread out in front of you. My guide pointed the 3 Gili islands and you could see the tallest mountain of Bali in the background.

Gilies and tallest mountain of Bali.

There were some 20 tents set up on the rim and soon there were people out watching the sunrise with us.
Lovely place, the only downside was the amount lying around the campsites. I guess that comes with the organized camping. Big groups, porters carrying the loads for the tourists , cooking for them, they do leave Lot's of stuff behind.

We stayed for about an hour and started to head back down. I could finally enjoy the rain forest, tall trees and  monkeys. We took it slow and stopped a lot to sit in the shade to soak up the views.
As we got lower the weather changed and we hiked the last hours in the heavy tropical rain, the last few kilometres being the hardest as the dirt road had a constraction goingon and it turned into a big mud slide with 10 cm deep  mud spots making it imposible to progress. And than the leeches.... you know, tropics.
We made it back after 14 hours of hiking. I was spend! We climbed from 600 m to 2600 m in  9km ( one way). I ate dinner and and went straight to bed.

My Lodge provided me with motorcycle ride to Bayan where go on the 2 hours bemo drive to Labuhan Lombok. I was hoping to find a boat that would sail to Flores from there.

The bus dropped me off somewhere and I had to take ojek ( moto taxi) to the harbor. Nobody spoke English so I ended up at the ferry harbor, with ferry about to leave for Sumbawa. I got spot on one of the buses that went to Sumbawa Besar, the main town on the west side of this poor island.

I knew I am off the beaten path when I was the only tourist on the 2 hours ferry. I become quite an attraction and was offered cigarettes and taken pictures of.

Just before we took off,  small local boys run onto the boat butt naked and would jumped from the thirth floor of the giant ferry into the see.  They soon had big audience as they would dive for coins and bills the passengers would throw into the water.

Sumbawa
I am not a big fan of Sumbawa. Dry, poor island. Not much of a scenery. It took 4 hours to get to Sumbawa Besar, uninspiring city, with only few hotels and no tourist. The street food was delicious and cheep, $0.70 for the best Gado Gado I had in Indonesia.
Finding information about transport was hard, not many people speak English. It took a while to find out that there aren't any big buses that would go to Bima. The only option was to take the local beaten up, no AC bus to Bima. What a ride! 8 hours in heat, on small roads, with no bathroom breaks. It was hard to sleep as the bus was buncing up and down. I was glad we made in one piece ( we passed few buses on the side of the road that did not).

The ojek drivers were fiting to grub our suitcases from the bus. I was told there was no bus going to the harbor town of Sapa, but I know from reading Lonely Planet they are just bluffing. I took ojek to the bus stop on the other side of the town and sure enough there was a bus waiting to be loaded.
It was the oldes bus I have been on, I was amazed it made the 2 hour trip down the hill into Sapa.

Sapa is what it is.... scetchy looking, dirty harbour town. It was easy to find the only hotel in town and I spoiled myslef to de-lux $16 room with mold on the celing and dirty bathroom. Let's don't talk about the sheets....
I only went out to eat, it didn't look safe enough place to be out after dark.
I was not looking forward to the 7 hours ferry ride, but was pleasantly surprised by the fist class like sitting area with TV that was rather comfortable and there even were 4 more travelers to keep me company.
I didn't take pictures from this part of the trip, I simply didn't feel comfortable flashing my Nikon around.

Flores
It took me a while to start liking Lubuan Bajo, small harbour town ,with few nice hotels and unbeliavable amount of Italian restaurants.
I was watching the sky change into all shades of orange while listening to 2 preyes from the competing mosques. Impresive.

Flores is all about the diving. I spent the first day resting and waking around looking for the right diving shop to go diving with . Flores is know for it's strong currents and I wanted to find a small shop that would make me feel safe. It was off season and I found one place that would give me my very own dive master. That is as good as it gets for me and I signed up for 2 dives the next day.

We took of the next morning. We were 2 groups ( I and my dive master counting as a group).
We went to Manta point. Amazing, we were drifting by sharks and some of the biggest fish I have ever seen. And at the very end, there was a manta, waiting for me to see it! How lucky I was. What an amazing creature!

When we got out after our dive, it turned out the boats engine broke down, so we had to be towed back to the harbor. As we waited a group of giant mantas was feeding in the surface and we were watching them occasionally jumping out of the water.

 I got all excited and jumped in to swim with them, unfortunately the current on the spot was too strong and after 10 min of hard swimming against the current with not moving any closer to the mantas, to huge entertainment of everyone on the boat I was happy to made it back on board of our boat.

I took one more dive the next day, at the one of the most popular spots coled Batu Balang. Amazing wall with unbealivably colorful corrasl, probably the nices wall I have dived by so far. We saw lion fish, scorpion fish and much more.

I saved my last dive for the last day. It was nice wall, but not as nice as Batu Balang. We stopped at Ringa Island in the afternoon and I had great time watching the Komodo Dragons with my diving buddy Frans.

Last dinner at the night fish market made a perfect ending to my nice stay on Flores.

I flu out the next morning from the smallest possible airport.

One more night in Kuta and it was time to say good bye to Indonesia. It has been amazing 32 days. I hope I will come back one day to explore more of this lovely country.

Bali to Java to Bali.....

Java
We woke up early and left the hotel by 6 am. It went pretty smooth. In 20 min we waved down first Bemo ( local mini bus) to G....... From there it was easy to find the ferry, which cost 50 cents and was the cheapest transport I took in Asia. Hour later we were docking in the Java.

It was 8 am and the train we wanted to take to Brumo was leaving 8:30 am. We made it!
We walked to the train station and while buying our tickets we realized that it is only 7 am of local time. Java is has one hour time difference. Great! We could have slept extra hour.
We left our backpacks at the train station and went to get some local coffee and walk around this dusty town.
We were both excited to be taking the train, spoiling our self with fist class tickets. 5 hours train ride through lovely country side, rice fields with volcanoes in the background. The view was better than I thought it would be.

We were on time and got of in the little town of Probolingo. Getting Bemo from here to bus station was easy. Sure enough we got tricked into getting a ride up to Bruno in private car instead of taking the public bus. The Bemo dropped us of on the wrong location... which happened to be in front of the tourist office. The usual scam.

Our driver was speeding up the steep hill, cutting the turns like a pro he was. Soon enough we climbed up in elevation and the scenery changed drastically. We were driving through little mountain villages which reminded me so much of Nepal.

Finding accommodation was easy enough, there are only few budget options. They are not cheap. Our simple room was $40!
We put some warm clothes on and went out exploring. We made last minute decision to push to go to mt. Brumo for sunset. The hike was good hour each way, fist long walk across the sand valley and than steep climb up the steps to the rim of he volcano. We made it up just in time to see the sun set behind the mountains.

The rim of Brumo was an surreal place. All grey and smoky, with low clouds covering the tops of the surroundings hills. Spooky but beautiful. We didn't have too much time to play up there. It was getting dark soon.

We were trying to plan our next morning. The sunrise from the view point is The thing to do.
Somehow the idea of driving up in a jeep in a traffic of other tourist didn't seem appealing, and for the hike to the view point we would have to be up at 3 am.
After dinner we came up with a plan just skip the sunrise and enjoy a nice hike up to the view point at 6am, when all the jeeps will be already at mt. Brumo.

It worked out. We had the view point for our self. Looking over to Brumo volcano I could see about 50 cars parked down there. How happy we were to have gone there for the sunset when there was nobody there.

We got back to the hotel just in time for breakfast. We decided to leave the same day, taking public bemo down the mountain, than catching 2 hours bus to the second biggest town of Java Surabaya and fly from there ( flight for $40). It would save us 12 hours on the bus trying to go overnight to Dempasar.
The transfer was rather easy. The plane had a delay, but we were in our hotel in Dempasar by 1 am.

That was our fast but nice trip to Java. Indonesia is so big and my visa are running out !

I sad good byes to Pam the next morning and headed towards the Gilies. It took a bus to Panang Bay. Small harbour town, with friendly people and cheep accommodation. There is a nice blue lagoon beach and good snorkeling of it. I was only going to stay one night,  but met one girl who told me about a old wrack that is amazing for snorkeling and it only takes 2 hours on the motorcycle.

 I decided to rent a scooter and head to explore the next morning. She was right. The wrack was great spot! Lots of fish and everything only few meters bellow, great visibility. There were lots of divers bellow, almost too many.

I took the long coastal way home, visiting small town of Amad, and than following the coast up north. The road was narrow, but with no traffic and the views of small bays with fishing boats were stunning.
It was lots of driving for one day, so I treated myself to Balinese massage in the evening. Than nice dinner and early bed.

I woke up at 1 am, feeling all itchy. I knew what it was.... bedbugs again! Small blood suckers all over the bed. I killed some and collected few into a zip lock to be able to show the guy in the reception why I am so upset.
I decided to sleep on the front porch. Not exactly the most comfortable place, with its tiled floor. But at least nothing was biting me.
I woke up early, cranky as can be.

My boat to Gillies was leaving at 9 am and I finally decided to got to Gilly T, the biggest island, with the most affordable accommodation.
I slept the whole hour on the boat. Time to get off. Dirty harbor, tuns of people and annoying tots were my first impression. I didn't like it.... I didn't like it a LOT, so I waked back to my boat and forced them to take me to the next island.
Gilli Air was much better. Smaller, chill and beautiful.

I found a nice place with a porch and garden and the most comfortable bed with no bed bugs. Oh heaven!
The snorkeling of the shore is pretty good. I am happy to have my own gear and go in few times every day.
It takes about hour to walk all the way around the island. White beaches all around. You can see Lombok and the other Gillies not far away.  Little restaurants with some good food are welcoming you to stop and chill.

Today is my last day ( day 3) on the island. I could stay here much longer, but Lombok is only 25 km away and is calling my name. 

North Bali

Bali

Kuta
I booked a nice hotel with a pool in Kuta to be able to relax for few days. It served it purpose and after lazing at the pool, strolling down the streets, eating good food and getting massage I was ready to head out to explore Bali.

Ubud
You can only fall in love with Ubud. The center of art with so much to look at. Streets are full of temples, family compounds and friendly Balinese people.
I stayed in a small home stay and was enjoying the view from my room over the rooftops. I would wake up early with the loud roosters making it hard to sleep in.

I rented a bicycle and explored the city and it's surroundings.

Ubud had few major celebrations going on in the five days I was there.
The cremation ceremony of the royal family member was a huge event. Preparations took several days and it was interesting to watch the progress of building the huge tower and giant bull statue.

On the day of ceremony the body was loaded to the top of the tower and than carried by 300 man to the temple where it was transferred into the bull statue to be burned.
It seemed that everybody who was in Ubud come out to see the Ceremony.  It was bigger than 4 of July if you ask me!

The next morning was last day of local celebration and locals dressed up and went to the temple to give their offerings. Man wearing white shirts, sarongs and bandannas. Woman in colorful sarongs and lacy tops, with baskets full of offerings carried on their heads.

You are welcome to come and watch them, but wearing sarong and sash is required.
Ubud has a great selection of local and western restaurants, the food was delicious.

It is also a good place to get a massage. I got the local lulu treatment that includes massage and flower bath at the end. So relaxing!

Munduk
Little village in the mountains, with amazing view of the coffee plantations, rice fields and even the far away coast.

It was a great place for hikes around countryside and to  the near waterfalls .

The most expensive coffee...

I met a well traveled couple from Sydney there, who soon became my friends. For someone in their 50's they were in better shape than me and the stories from their travels to Tibet 30 years ago were great over the dinner entertainment.
The first night I was wandering around the village I came across gathering which turned out to be the cock fights. I wasn't brave enough to go and watch alone, but asked Adrian and Anita to come with me the next night.

It was interesting. They let us watch as long as we would not take pictures. Fair enough, after all cock fights are illegal.
They mount a sharp blade on the left foot of the roosters and then let them fight. As soon as the fight starts man ( only man allowed to participate ... and tourists ladies  I guess) bet on the winner . When one rooster  gets hurt ( very soon) and doesn't attack any more, they put big basket over them and the strong one just finishes it. Fast and bloody.

The last day we added Pam from Utah to our group and hired a private car to go to the coast town of Lovina.
We made a little detour to hike 11 km around the near lakes. You were required to hire a guide, but that would be lame so we sneaked in and Adrian was acting as guide. Sure we got lost a little, but after 2,5 hours of speed walking made it to the end of the lake where our driver was already waiting . We were proud and bleeding on spots that blood sucking leeches left behind on our legs.

The fresh local strawberries we bought on the way to Lovina made us soon forget the rough morning.

Lovina

Lovina doesn't have much to offer. Dirty beaches, little downtown. The highlight for us was staying in a resort that was completely empty, just us enjoying the pool, and nice sunset views of the beach and mountains.
There was a rather big celebration that night in the temple , so we dressed up and went to visit.  Bali sure has lots of celebrations and it it nice to watch the community get together.

Pemuteran
Me and Pam said our good byes to A and A and headed to the north west of Bali to Pemuteran.
We found a lovely new hotel with a dive shop. We signed up for diving the next day. Only one dive for me , since I was dealing with a cold and wanted to save some diving money.
It worked out, I was able to slowly equalize and the dive was nice. 27 m, nice reef wall. Living corral, some fish and MY first shark.... Black Tip Reef Shark.

Heading to Java next still in Pam's company.