Travel report #21

Indonesia - Bali and Lombok

May 24-26, 2001

We flew into Denpasar, Bali at noon. Headed directly for Kuta beach! After one night in a rather dull place, we found a really nice, cheap hotel called Kedin's Inn.
We did not do much more here than in Bangkok, shopping and beach life :-) Fantastic beach here, only a bit too many people... Bjarte played football on the beach with locals and other tourists!

Sunday May 27, 2001

We set off early in the morning, heading for Gili Air on Lombok. A long day with travel, first minibus, then ferry for 5 hours, then another minibus, before we eventually took a small boat to Gili Air (Gili means small island - Gili Air is one of three small islands just off the Lombok island). The worst part of the travel was all the stops, full of locals that had to sell you something... Sad also to see all the begging monkeys on Lombok; NEVER FEED WILD ANIMALS, unless you want to destroy them...

Gili Air was fantastic. No cars, no motos, no nothing. Only horse taxis! We walked and found a nice bungalow with a hammoc out front. We later found that we had a large gekko in our room...

Had a fantastic, romantic :-) dinner by the sea. Nice, quiet, really good food! Wonderful!

Monday May 28, 2001

We were dreaming of the perfect beach, but not here. All around the island there was continuous beaches, but they were full of coral stone remains. But we enjoyed the remoteness, not many tourists here. Walked arond the island in 30 mins. At night we got to see stars and lovely moonshine as we walked along the beach.

(Sunset on Gili Air)

Tuesday May 29, 2001

Signed up for a day of snorkling in a glass bottom boat. Fantastic and fun! Saw lots of interesting fish and corals. And huge turtles!! Had lunch on one of the other islands and got to know some other travellers. Had BBQ fish for dinner in the evening. Unbeliveable experience!!

Wednesday May 30, 2001

We loved Gili Air, but with no nice beach to go swimming we had to move on. Next stop would be Kuta, but this time on Lombok. Kuta Lombok turned out to be a place with at least as nice beaches as Kuta Bali, only we were the only ones there!!!
Transport to Kuta was by bus, only that we were the only passangers. Gili Air was remote with few tourists, but Kuta was deserted in comparison. We found a very nice (but rather expencive) hotel with a swimming pool (Matahari Inn). Walking around here was weird. Lots of hawkers trying to sell everything, but we seemed to be the only customers!! Luckily they were really nice, even when we did not by anything...

Thursday May 31, 2001

Our hotel promised us free transport to a fantastic beach 3km away. We belived it to be a bus full of people, but again, we were the only two! Arriving at the beach, we were completly alone!! And what a beach - fantastic!!! Several hundred meters, all to ourselves. After a while we could see one or two other people around, some local fishermen, 2 boys selling cold drinks and a group of boys selling souvenirs.
We stayed here all day and started working on our nice tan :-)

Friday June 1, 2001

This day we hired a motobike to explore even more remote beaches. And we found them. About 10km the other direction we found the most perfect, beautiful beach!! Unbeliveable. Perfect sand streching several kilometers from one end to the other in a nice bay. We were practically alone, up to 7 other tourists were there at the same time as us. Two men selling refreshments and one man guarding over our motobike!

Saturday June 2, 2001

Spent most of the day at the perfect beach!
In the afternoon we sat of to explore some of Lombok. Mainly a muslim island, plenty of mosques around, easy to hear them. The people here are absolutely fantastic. They smile all the time and are really friendly. Whereever we went on our motobike we were met by smiling, waving locals along the road. Some places we stopped to "talk", and they laughed as we practiced our Bahasa Indonesia :-)
Got to see a Sasak village and learned how they lived here before European influence.

(IA waiting for the bus, Kuta, Lombok)

June 3-5, 2001

With a very nice tan, we left Kuta Lombok, returning to Kuta Bali. Sad to leave, we could have stayed here very much longer...
Did some more shopping, and surfing and football on the beach. Had a motobike for one day and got to see the capital and Ubud. Nice to look around, but not the same as Lombok. All of Bali is full of people, and we are just two of thousands of tourists... And the traffic is bad...