05-OCT - Sat - Senggigi – Tourism gone wrong

We took a day trip (1,5hrs) to Senggigi, the real tourism mecca of Lombok (apparently). The drive itself was very educational, seeing the countryside change from an arid landscape to lush green vegetation, with the all familiar rice paddies; whilst having a good conversation with our driver. We learnt that schooling is free up and inclusive of high school and compulsory for all children. The kids selling bracelets and claiming they need money for school are transported in from other villages by their head of family, to boost the family’s income. We heard how families in need receive assistance from the government, in form of money and subsidised rice. We saw rice fields just out from Kuta, all dry, the land cracked by the sun, with farmers tending to them, removing the weeds, the walls being repaired. This is in preparation of the rainy season to begin at the end of October/early November, for the one yearly harvest of rice in this part of Lombok. As we reached Senggigi, it was nothing like we imagined. It has a wide main street going straight through it, large warehouse style buildings on the one side, half of them abandoned; small shop fronts and café on the opposite side, largely boarded up. The beachfront is livelier, with big resorts taking up all of the coastline, some having seen better days, a few desperately holding on to their luxury status (and failing), and others having fallen from their glory, now all abandoned and protected by a layer of dust and vegetation, their 80s image preserved forever. Never-the-less, the feeling of being in a post-apocalyptic town cannot be shaken, with the infrastructure of what used to be or should have been a sought after tourism destination clearly visible, but no tourists in sight. Seems like a tourism boom took hold 25 years or so ago, and then imploded, leaving a large concrete memory of a better era gone by. Thank God we choose Kuta instead of Senggigi!

04-OCT - Fri - The good, the bad and the ugly

The good: The beaches here are tropical paradise. The sand is “fairy-tale” white, the water as blue as only Hollywood could imagine it, and the mountains frame the hole setting majestically. The hinterland a different world altogether again, with its various crops, all farmed by manual labour with no machinery in sight, the villages unchanged in centuries, the locals going about their daily life, opening an unimaginable window for us city lads of the 20th century. The food is bolder, the flavours more intense than in Bali, maybe fresher and truer to their origins, how Indonesian food should be. We once again followed Rick Stein’s lead and purchased fish from a group of women, smoking it right there on the beach on burning coconut husks, as the husbands brought it in on their colourful fishing boats, the catch as fresh as it could ever be, out from the cobalt blue ocean we just swam in. It tasted truly spectacular, as we picked away at it with our hands, with the sun tickling our skin. The bad: The dogs are a constant companion, be it in the rural setting, on the beach or in town. They walk the streets, alone or in small groups. They sleep by the road, under a tree, under a table or under your daybed. They are not the lovely pet we are used to. Albeit being extremely human friendly, they most certainly are not to each other. They forage for food from villagers, along roads or from a kind tourist. They do not share food between themselves and will aggressively bark, scratch and bite any other canine challenging their find. They sniff food a mile away and will spot you in matter of seconds. They will sit and wait and look at you, till they either fooled you to pity them or you finished your meal and your leftovers are for them to conquer. Their constant presence makes these two lads uncomfortable, as most do not look healthy and might be carrying lice, ticks or worst, have rabies. Avoid them, we shall! The ugly: The sight of discarded plastic is omnipresent. We encounter plastic by the side of roads, behind homes, outside mosques, in bushes, in the fields, on the sand, in the crystal clear water. Mostly small pieces, of course the usual culprit Mr Plasticbag, sometimes a flip-flop, worst if it cumulates into bigger clumps. We are amazed at seeing locals just throwing it out. It is truly a most saddening sight, leaving a dark shadow over this magnificent landscape. They burn it, from time to time, causing the most sickening smoke. The only logical conclusion these two lads came to, is that in the olden days, the discarded broken bamboo wall, thatched roof, unwanted wooden furniture, consumed coconut, worn out straw hat were truly burnable or would decompose over time. Plastic does not! We guess once again, the influx of the Western world is starting to leave its mark, all our produce made mostly out of plastic, but the final link of rubbish collection, disposal and recycling not a link the money hungry businessman cares about… yet! Till the plastic’s negative impact so bad, that ignore, they shall not!

03-OCT - Thu - Felice and her goodwill

We have discovered a beautiful vegetarian warung run by a young woman named Felice, her sister and friends. Her warung is a bamboo structure, with thatched roof, woven bamboo sheets as walls, and all the furniture is made from the local bamboo, tables and all. A cosy setting. We decided to make it our dinner haunt for the week, after tasting one of her dishes of fried tempeh (soy bean product) in a delicious sauce, served with kankong (local spinach). A taste buds explosion! But Felice’s warung has a twist: she uses a part of her profits to support an orphanage, moreover once a week, Saturdays, she closes her restaurant to cook for the local kids, who are selling goods on the beach all week, trying to give them some respite from their hard work. How can we not support such a business? She is even intending to set up a foundation, maybe finding a job in Australia, to earn more money to give back into her community. We brought some colouring in books and pencils from Australia, with the intention of giving it to local kids. In Bali, it is hard to find rural spots. On our rides around Kuta we see many families, but which one do you decide to give something and which one not? If destiny or faith has an influence in life, it definitely played its card right into the palm of our hand, we gave our colouring in books and pencils to Felice, to use with her kids, and we most definitely will keep dining at her warung for the rest of our stay! Indeed for us, here in a location that does not yet depend on tourism, it has made us question what we should do: support the locals who have made the gutsy business decision to abandon their more traditional work to establish a shop selling goods for the tourists; buy from locals walking the beach selling coconuts or pineapple; negotiate with group of ladies selling sarongs and blankets; purchase some bracelets from kids? What is the alternative? Should we not purchase anything and thus promote this kind of activity, as more and more locals might abandon their traditional way of life to suddenly depend on the volatile tourism industry? But how can you deny a monetary reward to an old man, older than our parents, walking the beach with heavy coconuts, under the midday sun, selling them for A$1 each? How can you not buy bracelets from the local kids who try so hard to make you smile, when they cost A$2 each? Who has got it in his heart to say no to a group of ladies, walking this remote beach to sell the most beautiful blankets (locally made according to them, but even if they are not, does it matter?). How can we be the type of tourist that uses their water, uses all their town’s facility, and just sits on the beach all day, buying absolutely nothing from the local merchants? In our hearts we know that buying a few things from each single seller hopefully does something positive and we will keep doing just that.

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!

01-OCT - Tue - Where are all the people?

We rented a scooter for the two of us, this being the only way of going exploring around Kuta, as the distances are too far for walking or cycling. The roads are horrendous to anyone’s standard; it is more of a hopping along at meagre 20km/h from pot hole to pot hole. As we left Kuta and ventured East, we rode past families of farmers, their living standards extremely basic from what we are accustomed to. Mothers sitting in the shade with their newborns, children playing in groups, older children and men in the fields, herding cattle. The land is very dry, its landscape is mostly bushes, small trees and lots of coconut palms, all in that washed out green and browns we are so accustomed to in Western Australia, with the only lush green you see being fields of corn and tobacco plantations. The coastline is an amazing contrast to this landscape, with bay after bay of pure white sand. Each bay is cocooned by coconut palms and sheltered by rocky hills. The water is pure emerald green and turquoise blues, balmy and calm, as the waves crush on reefs far away at the entrance to these sheltered beaches. We explored all three beaches East of Kuta, suitable for swimmers, and settled on Tanjun Aan. Imagine a clock and draw a circle from twelve noon to ten, this is the shape of this bay. Add pristine white sand to the whole setting, and make the beach ten football fields in length; let the most amazing clear, blue, emerald and turquoise water into the whole bay; make it shallow so that you can walk nearly to the centre of the bay in waste deep water, walking past patches of seagrass and corals; add coconut palms in the background and further on brown dry hills. Add two bamboo huts on this huge bay, 100m apart, offering cooked food and refrigerated drinks; gently place ten tourists (we counted them) on this vast beach, inject a family of sarong and fresh coconut sellers, and this most amazing setting is complete. We could not resist buying the most beautiful blanket and feasted on a fresh coconut whilst taking in the setting and the sun! No boats, no cars, no scooters, no aircrafts to break the silence; all you hear are small waves, the wind, the occasional rooster and a goat or two. This truly is a tropical island where the Western commercial wave of destruction has not yet arrived, but with the new airport for Lombok only 30 minutes away, regrettably another paradise will be lost.

Hello Kuta (Lombok) – A step back in time!

What a difference! 35 minutes on an aircraft, a quick hop across to a different island (Lombok), a 30-minute drive to the southern edge (away from touristy Sengiggi) and as Kylie sang, we have stepped back in time and a completely different geography from Bali. Kuta (Lombok) is a small fishing village, set in a bay surrounded by hills and mountains, on very dry land. Gone is the lush vegetation of Bali, gone is the rushing water, gone are the rice paddies. As we explored the village, we realised it is nothing what we expected! This is how life used to be on an island, before the Western world changed life for everyone, willingly or unwillingly, before Starbucks arrived, before McDonald and all other chains. As we walked the one main street, we passed families living in a couple of basic wooden structures, with thatched roofs, and woven bamboo as walls, on dry and dusty soil, with chickens, goats and cows roaming the compound. The occasional shop selling basic goods, a little workshop here and there. The beach, or better the bay (as beach recalls more an image of Westerners plonking their lazy asses on the sand) is full of fishing boats and huts filled with nets and farmed seaweed. The kids were taking over the sleeping boats and loving it as their playgrounds. The roads are dirt tracks, the bitumen long worn away. There is tourism here, there are lots of warungs (restaurants), we saw two ATM booths, there are maybe three hotels (one of which we are staying in) and lots of homestay accommodation. Along the main road, parallel to the shore, there are small huts either side, selling all type of merchandise for the tourists: wooden masks, items of clothing, cosmetics, and drinks. The setting is rustic, very rustic and the shops are very basic. We are not the only tourists, but the masses we were used to in Bali are nowhere to be found. We are in the minority here, the locals still rule village life. We are thrilled to be here and all comforts we are used to are on offer, never-the-less, it does feel like we have stepped into a functioning fishing community and we are intruding in their lives. The predominant religion here is Muslim and the calls to prayer cannot be missed. For the first time in all our previous travels, be it Egypt or India, we are feeling what must be culture shock and are needing to adjust. After discussing it at length, we concluded that the extremely short trip from Bali to here and the huge difference between the two lifestyles has been very sudden and we need a day or two to adjust to it. This is a trip for the memory books!

Chapter one: Kerobokan

We have now had three weeks on this amazing island, making Kerobokan our home. We have had amazing times of relaxation by the sea, either in style by staying at a beach club or just renting a day bed on the black volcanic sand, days of absolute dolce far niente and days of just going for a stroll. We have dined at sophisticated venues, at funky set-ups and at local warungs. We have sourced our food at local markets, in line with "km zero" ideals of freshness and eco-responsability. We have explored some of the sights by venturing out of our immediate surroundings, and our expactations were surpassed each time. We are bronzer, trimmer, healthier than on day one. We have stayed on target with a healthy life style of light and tasty meals, good dose of exercise and rare adventures into the world of sweets. This truly is an adventure like no other! We enjoy each day, not really knowing what it will bring, just loving the fact of being here in the company of the man of our dreams, and keeping our eyes open for every little aspect of life that might make us stop in our tracks and determine our next step. Thank you Bali, it is now time for chapter two: Kuta on the island of Lombok (not to be confused with Kuta on the island of Bali).