02-OCT - Wed - A spellbinding ride through rural paradise

Today we headed West, scooting to Selong Blanak, which according to LonelyPlanet is: “[…] a wide, sugar-white beach with water streaked a thousand shades of blue, ideal for swimming. […]”. So off we went. The road took us out into the hinterland of Kuta; into valleys, over hills and through villages, till we reached our destination a good 45 minutes later. Yes, the beach was spectacular in capital letters! The sand white as cotton, the water an amazing Mediterranean blue, green hills plunging straight into the water either side of us, and a cone shaped island sticking out of the ocean straight ahead from the beach, in the middle of the horizon. The water was so inviting, we just had to jump in and stay in. But what completely blew us away was not our destination, rather the ride to it. The journey took us on a windy road, up and down hills, through the most amazing landscape. We encountered the most spectacular vistas overlooking lush fields, seeing bays with the cobalt blue ocean in the distance, and palm trees at the bottom of the valleys. We saw locals slaving away with very rudimentary machinery at the local soil, looking for gold, the land stripped bare. We passed tobacco field after tobacco field; we witnessed rice being harvested, with ladies carrying huge bundles on their heads, and muscular men using their raw manpower to pound on the harvest, separating the rice from the husk; we saw rice being dried on the ground, inside the family compound; old villagers with sunburnt skin, herding their water buffalos through rivers. We passed thatched villages, how they must have been built for centuries, followed by brick and mortar houses with satellite dishes. We had villagers old and young walking the tiny road; pick-up trucks passing us with their load of labourers, on the way to work; school children walking home in their uniforms for midday break. Each turn we took, each hill we climbed presenting a new window into the rural life of Southwestern Lombok. This trip was a true kaleidoscope of magnificent natural beauty and rural village life, a trip through time, something we city lads only knew from books or documentaries. What an eye-opening and extraordinary experience!