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.
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).
.JPG)
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.
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).
.JPG)
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.
