David –
It seems we’ve settled into early starts for our travel days – our alarms went off at 5.30am and of course we also needed to finish packing before we headed to the airport.
We survived the Air Aisa X flight (against Lauren’s expectations) and arrived on the dry brown desert island of Lombok. Having been to Bali before the dusty landscapes were a surprise to both of us especially when the accommodation had lush green gardens posted online.
It didnt take long to realise we had stumbled onto the latest trending German backpackers destination! Apart from the local staff at Batu Bambu hostel/inn, Lauren and I were the only non-German speakers (well technically I am also a German speaker so it was just Lauren haha).
The receptionist indicated that it was only 10minutes into the heart of the town so we decided to walk down after check-in to experience the vibe of this destination. Well, turns out that may have been a miss-communication as it took us an hour and a half in the midday sun to walk along a relatively busy main road to discover a very quiet and simple beach strip. Two German backpackers who’d also just arrived waved us down and asked “Where is the town? We were told it was like a beach side Ubud”. “Yeah I think this is it..” I replied not realising that we had walked the long way around to the residential part of town.
There was no choice but to hire a scooter, it was too hot and the distances between our accommodation, town and the beaches required it! We found and failed to properly negotiate much of discount for a dusty $5 a day steed with helmets – around the block we discovered the actual town with lots of modern options for breakfast, lunch and dinner. OK – we started to feel a little more relaxed about our decision to come here instead of Sri Lanka..
Our week in Lombok actually flew by no thanks to our daily routine of breakfast, scootering, surfing, lunch, relaxing, beach exploring and dinner. The other travellers at the lodge were awesome and really made the stay feel like a big group trip. We’d organise surfing trips to various breaks around south Lombok and in the evening who ever wanted to join would meet at a different restaurants each night to chat about surfing, share travelling stories and discuss plans for the rest of our stays in Indo.
The surfing from Kuta was really fun – the waves we headed to each morning were accessible by a short boat trip and we were able to hire a variety of boards close by too. Lauren was even paddling into 4ft waves and even scored a 300m rolling wave right through the reef passage!
On our last day i’d suggested to our lil german gang about doing a day trip to Ekas, a wave spot around 1.5hours away and I managed to organise transport for 9 of us (a real rent-a-crowd but a mix of abilities). The drive was a nice change from the scooter – and it would have been pretty uncomfortable to go that far anyway.
The water was much cleaner and clearer than the local break we’d been used to and there were certainly fewer surfers here too however Lauren did get run over by a local surfer leaving her with probably her first surfing scar on her thigh! (she was ok and kept surfing like a champ).
We of course we had to end our stay in Kuta with our favourite dessert – a passion fruit ‘cheesecake’ which we plan on adding to our cooking repertoire when we return. Best dessert so far.
Far Away From Home 