Countryside Tour of Lombok (Mar. 6, 2015)

Mar. 6, 2015 

Today I went on a tour of the countryside of Lombok. Abel’s company organizes them and since I was going to take the boat tour tomorrow, I thought I would trade in my ticket that I bought from him earlier, back to Bali, by the fast boat. I intend to take that boat tour to Flores, get dropped off and then go diving for a day in Komodo. I will take a flight back to Bali from there, so I won’t need the boat ticket. 

The tour today was really great. There were 5 of us on the tour, and it began around 10:00 this morning. There were three young Germans guys, who were in between starting university again, and were traveling for a while until the term started. There was also this really interesting woman from the UK, name Jane who just came from Yeman. She was acting as the British Ambassador in Yeman. She’s about 38 years old and has been the British Ambassador in many Middle East countries including Afghanistan, Syria and others. She was extracted recently when the situation in Yeman became critical, and was almost not let out of the airport. She said her bodyguard was ready to fight but they ended up being able to go after some discussions. Truly intriguing.

First we went to a local market, about a 2 hour drive from Senggigi. There we were give these lists of items that we were to buy, and a bunch of small money, to buy the goods with. We were going to cook a Sasak Lunch with the items. It was really fun to go around the market, talk to the vendors and find the items we needed. Now I know some of the basic ingredients’ names that we use everyday, in Indonesian.

Gettting ingredients at market

One of my vendors

LIst of ingredients

Then we drove a while longer and arrived at a family home in the countryside, surrounded by jungle. It was lovely and we were greeted by the father, 41, and several kids. One girl spoke fairly good English, as did the father, and he explained to us what we would be cooking for our lunch with the stuff that we bought. It was great to prepare the food, and chat with the family while doing so. They explained some of their Sasak customs surrounding marriage and families etc. The father told us that the Sasak man, had to go and steal the woman from her parents home at night if he wanted to marry her. Then he had to pay the parents some agreed upon price to keep the woman, and fund the huge party and wedding which all the families from the town were invited to. Sometimes this could be a very expensive endeavour depending on how large your town was. 

The place we went to cook Sasak food

Some of the kids there

Me, making curry spice paste

Still making spice

The two little brothers

We ate our lunch and it was fantastic, to say the least. There was so much food that none of us could finish our portions.

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After that, we followed the father for a trek into the jungle along rice terraces, up and down hills and around the paths of the jungle. It was a pretty rigorous trek but absolutely lovely. We walked for over 2 hours and it rained a little while we were out, but it was so hot, that you didn’t really mind getting cooled off. We walked to a forested area where we hoped to see the rare Black Monkey’s of Lombok. Nowhere else do they have Black Monkey’s only brown ones. As soon as we hit the clearing of this area we looked up and saw the tree tops rustling. There were the monkeys in the trees, looking down at us. It was great to see, but I couldn’t get any photos because they were too high and blocked in many cases by the leaves. It was very cool to watch them though. They started to throw stuff down at us at one point, so I backed away to watch from a further vantage point. I didn’t want to chance a coconut being hurled my way……lol.

Me in the jungle where we saw
the black monkeys

UK Ambassador, Jane, walking through
rice terraces

The last stop was a lovely little waterfall not too far from the monkey clearing. It was really pretty and the German guys stripped off their stuff and jumped in for a swim. Jane and I did not, but she went into the water up to her knees. I didn’t want to take off my runners, so I just took some pics and watched the beautiful scenery.

The lovely waterfall

It was a lovely day, but I was tired when I returned to the hostel. We got back around 8 pm, which was a lot later than I had been told, but traffic was really bad and we got stuck in it for quite some time on the way home. I’m glad I went on the trip. We saw a lot of things that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

When I got back, Abel texted me to say that the boat trip had been cancelled, but then the forecast was revised, so I'm off tomorrow for Flores, and Komodo. I hope the rain doesn't spoil the trip, but we'll see. If it's raining, I suppose you can always opt out of the trekking or whatever is going on. It will be nice to see the scenery on the way to Flores, though. All the food and entrance tickets are included, so that is really nice. I will try to write more before leaving, but if you don't hear from me, know that there is no WiFi on the boat and I will be in touch on Tuesday, when we dock in Flores.

Should be fun.