Lombok and Sumbawa

Mekaki Bay - Lombok

The last two weeks have been spent exploring the islands of Lombok and Sumbawa, and we have just arrived in Flores.

One of several Hindu processions

Lombok - the island east of Bali remains relatively unspoilt in the south, though there has been a lot of development in the north around the Gili Islands, however they have ambitions to attract tourists away from Bali and have built a large new airport and are putting a lot of effort into developing Kuta on the south coast, with the whole seafront being paved to create a large promenade. However it is still early days and Lombok offers fantastic deserted sandy beaches along the south coast. As a result of the government relocation of people from areas with high populations there are some interesting mixes in villages, with one half of a village Muslim, from people relocated from Java, and the other half Hindu, with people relocated from Bali. These villages have generally ben created in areas on Lombok, and Sumbawa where there is little population, and the countryside has not previously been used for agriculture. In addition to the building of some infrastructure, mainly roads, there is also some development of irrigation which is essential for these areas to develop. Several times we have driven along beautiful new roads - with signposts, and white lines, to find they suddenly end in the middle of nowhere and we have to backtrack.


Ebony Langur

Looming over Lombok is Mount Rinjani, the second highest volcano in Indonesia and a popular trekking destination. For a few days the top was unusually clear - it normally attracts a shroud of cloud, and on its slopes are rainforests. We were fortunate to see a troupe of ebony langurs as we drove over the shoulder of Rinjani on our way to Terjun and Sendang waterfalls.


Sendang waterfall

Sumbawa comes as a complete contrast to the previous islands, as it is very dry, with mainly sedimentary rocks rather than deposits from volcanoes. The central area is very mountainous and almost completely undisturbed supporting a much drier forest, many of the trees showing autumnal type colours as we are in the dry season here. The south coast of blessed with extensive deserted white sand beaches, and on west facing shores more excellent surf.  There had been very little tourist development so we always attract a lot of interest as we pass through. The north coast is very dry, and undeveloped, but again transmigration is planned with some roads laid out for new towns but with no houses. The ground supports little natural vegetation, but where it has been cleared and irrigated lush crops grow. Huge areas have been roughly cleared, but now need the manpower to create the paddies and plant and manage crops. Around Bima on Sumbawa is a huge area of salt farming, where shallow "fields" are flooded with sea water and left to evaporate with the salt scraped off the base manually using wooden rakes. Again very labour intensive.
Yesterday we caught the ferry to Flores, arriving in Labuan Bajo in the late afternoon after sailing past Komodo Island.





Dry landscape of Sumbawa



Houses for transmigration

With no rubbish collection - some roads are blighted



Bima salt farm



Sumbawa traditional houses

    

Back to Bali

Southern tip of Bali

After a wonderful four weeks in the UK, culminating in our youngest son's wedding we arrived back in Bali at the end of June. We have spent most of the last two weeks on Bali as we have been waiting for an extension to our Carnet for the car, so have managed to relax and recover from a hectic four weeks in the UK, and explore some of the lesser known areas.

Filming cigarette commercial

We found a great place to camp at the southernmost point of Bali where we spent a couple of nights, including one with Javi and Ines, (fellow travellers across China) and a couple from England, Aldo and Vera who are planning to ship to Australia in Mid July. It was great to catch up and share experiences before we each had to go our separate ways. We were nearly in a commercial for Lucky Strike cigarettes which when we woke up we found was being filmed on the road past our campsite. The location manager came and chatted for half an hour making sure we were out of shot.

Tiny temple for 6 houses by crater lake

As a mainly Hindu island Bali is very different from other Indonesian Islands, and is also very much more developed with western style shops and goods available, and a huge amount of traffic. There are thousands of temples, from tiny serving a few houses to large famous ones. We were surprised at how many ceremonies are held, especially at the period of the full moon, with one village where we stayed holding three days of celebrations which involved several thousand people from the village and adjacent villages. In other places where we camped were smaller ceremonies either for a community or for an individual family, all of which include quantities of offerings of flowers and fruit in small wicker baskets.
To avoid the crowds we headed for the centre and the north of the island. We spent two nights on a campsite, the only one we have found in Indonesia, by a crater lake and enjoyed wandering along the lake shore to a typical tiny temple for a community of half a dozen huts. As it was the school holidays there were lots of youngsters each night enjoying singing round campfires, so not the quietest of places at night, but very peaceful during the day.

Family ceremony

The north and east coasts are much less developed with very few tourists, mainly divers for the few ship wrecks and at Amed a very low key pebbly beach with a coral garden just by the beach, so great for snorkelling.
As soon as the Carnet extension arrived we wasted no time in stocking up on western essentials we are unlikely to see again in Indonesia and headed to the ferry for Lombok, where we were the last vehicle on, but packed in so tight we had to climb out of the passenger window.

Beach campsite

We are now on Lombok, a much more relaxed island with beautiful stretches of white sand and not a person, or hotel in sight. Desert Point - a basic surfers location at the end of a 4km rough track has one of the longest surf waves and surfers come from all over the world when the swell is up. Camping by the beach we were treated to the sunset over the rolling surf.

Boats on North Coast of Bali