Day 11 - Journey to Lombok

It was an early start this morning, 0630 for breakfast and leaving at 0730. We got on the bus, which is now a lot more spacious with half the amount of occupants and heading towards where we would get on the fast ferry to Lombok. We were told last night that if the weather was rough, we would have to go onto the slow ferry which could take up to 5 hours to arrive at Lombok, if it arrived there at all, sometimes when the weather gets rough, the boat will stop at any port it chooses, it’s then down to us to work out how to get to our next destination!

Luckily the weather worked in our favour and we boarded the fast boat from Padang Bai heading to Bangsal. “Boarded” is a big word, it was more flinging of backpacks and clambering aboard fighting for a seat. I’ve been told that when you board these boats to make sure you sit up top, if the boat starts sinking you don’t want to be sat below... I took this tip and we managed to get seats upstairs behind the captain. We sat next to Sookiyo and he gave us some more information on the colours of sarongs that are placed around temples, statues and trees: Yellow - Holy, White - Clean, Red - Wisdom and Black & White - Balance, which is where the Ying & Yang symbol originated from.

We made two stops on the way to Lombok, one at Gili T, the party island where hundreds of people were waiting to board boats either back to Bali or to Lombok, the other to Gili Air my last stop of the trip which looked far more chilled and relaxed, the water was stunning, can’t wait to go there in a weeks time.

We clambered off the boat 2 hours later and met our new driver and the monster of a bus that we had just for the 6 of us. In all honesty I’m quite pleased we had the big bus as the driving is absolutely terrifying in Lombok and I felt a lot safer in something that was higher than most mopeds.

Lombok is a completely different feel to Bali in my opinion, a lot poorer, 85% of the population are Muslim here as opposed the same percentage being Hindu in Bali. There are no temples in sight, no brightly coloured offerings or the lovely scent of incense as you walk down the street. Instead there are huge mosques that appear out of nowhere as you drive down smog filled narrow roads.

The coast however is very pretty, we stopped for lunch shortly after arriving in Lombok and sat on the beach to eat pizza and have beer.

We arrived in our cottages in Tetebatu Village which are basic but there is a fully working shower and toilet so can’t complain!