Little bungalow
This year I wanted to go on holiday to Indonesia. A friend of mine worked there that summer. In august he would have a couple of weeks off duty. We planned to travel together for that period and afterwards I would continue on my own.
I woke up at 7 o'clock to start my trip to Indonesia. I traveled to Schiphol Airport by bus and by train. Around noon the plane left. The plane had a stop in Karachi, Pakistan around midnight. I could sleep a couple of hours on the airport. The next plane was coming from Mecca. There were many pilgrims inside.
Around noon we landed in Singapore for a short stop. The
airport looked quite luxurious. I met a couple of other dutch travellers there,
who had booked their flight from the same agency as mine. Most of them also had
a 5 week trip. From Singapore it was only a couple of hours to Jakarta.
The weather in Jakarta was rather mild. When I had left
Holland it had been extraordinary hot. Here in Indonesia it was much cooler.
When I got my luggage I noticed that my photocamera had been stolen!
I was only gonna stay 1 day in Jakarta, because I had already
booked a next flight to Bali. I first wanted to stay at the airport-hotel, but I
found out that this was very expensive. So I took a bus to Jakarta together with
some other dutch travellers. From the Gambir station we walked to Jalan Jaksa, a
street with many cheap hotels and guesthouses. Soon we found some rooms. I tried
to bargain about the price, because the price of my room was almost as high as
the one of the other 3 travellers. But in Indonesia you usualy just pay for the
room itself, regardless of number of people that use it. And my price of 10.000
rp was already very low, although the size of the room was not much bigger than
the size of my bed. After having dinner and a shower I went to sleep.
Although I had fallen asleep quite easily, I woke up a couple
of hours later, because of jetlag. In Holland it was still early in the evening
now. A couple of hours later I finally managed to fall asleep again.
Next morning I went back to the airport for my flight to
Bali. But this one had been delayed by a day. So I had to go back to Jakarta. My
room of last night was already taken now, but I soon found another one. I spent
the rest of the day relaxing in the garden of my hotel. I didn't want to visit
the city, because I had planned to spent some more days here at the end of my
holiday, and besides I wasn't feeling too well at the moment.
I had dinner in one of the many restaurants in Jalan Jaksa.
There I talked with a traveller from England who had also just arrived. Later a
young and very beautiful indonesian girl joined our table. I first thought that
she came to us in an attempt to make money, so to say. But she was a bit drunk
and just wanted to have a chat.
I spent the morning relaxing again. In the afternoon I went
back to the airport. There I still had to wait a couple of hours. I spent my
time reading and talking with some japanese students. At the end of the
afternoon the plane left. We had a short stop in Yogyakarta. The view on that
city from the plane was spectacular because the city was decorated with many
lights for the upcoming national holiday.
Some time later we continued our flight to Bali. There I went
to my friend's hotel in Kuta, which was very close to the airport. It was a bit
expensive hotel, but it was also very beautiful, especially the garden around
which the bungalows were located.
This morning I got up late and had breakfast on my porch. You
could choose from things like pancake, scramled eggs or toast. And you also got
a fruit salade made from banana, pineapple and papaya, and something to drink.
This is the usual kind of breakfast served in Indonesian hotels. You got your
breakfast as soon as one of the hotel employees had spotted you.
At the end of the morning we visited Kuta. It was a very
touristic town. Kuta was once a small village of fishermen, but nowadays it's
one of Indonesia's main tourist centers, especially populair with australians.
On the outside there were large hotels. On the streets there were many young
guys selling all kinds of stuff, but these were not as persistent as the ones I
knew from India or Morocco. We also saw a big and modern department store. I
bought a cheap photocamera there.
We soon went to the beach. It was a bit crowdy there. The sun
was shining quite fierce. The sea had big waves and there were a lot of surfers.
At night there were very many mosquitos. It was hardly
possible to sit outside on the porch of the bungalow. Inside there were several
small insect eating lizards. These are very common in Indonesia.
This night I was troubled by insomnia again. I could only
sleep for a couple of hours. I spent most of this day in my room, because I
wasn't feeling too well from the lack of sleep.
In the evening I felt a bit better. We went to Kuta to have
dinner, and later we made a walk through the town and visited some bars. At
night Kuta reminded me a bit of places like Lloret de mar (Spain) or Ios
(Greece). It was very crowded with tourists, most of them australians. There
were also lots of streetsellers again, with suitcases filled with counterfeit
watches or clothes and sometimes "magic mushrooms". The streets were still full
with cars and lots of small noisy motorcycles, so everbody had to walk on the
narrow sidewalks. We visited a couple of bars that had live music.
Today we wanted to go to the Gili islands. These are 3 tiny
islands near Lombok with nice beaches and beautiful coral-reefs. The islands are
very quite, without any motorised traffic, and not too many tourists. You can
stay there in small bamboo bungalows. Electricity and running water are scarce.
And nevertheless they do have a nice vivid nightlife.
The public transport on Bali and Lombok is mainly done by so
called 'bemos'. These are small buses which are often very crowded inside. This
can sometimes be hard for tourists, who are usualy much larger than indonesians.
The benches inside are usualy very low and too close to each other, which makes
it impossible to sit straight. The bemos can stop anywhere along the road to
pick up people or to let them out. If you travel long distances you have to
switch bemos often. It's usualy a problem to find out the correct fare for the
ride, and the drivers will often try to overcharge tourists. The best thing to
do is to watch how much indonesians pay.
Early this morning we went by bemo to Padangbai, the harbour
on the east side of the island. There we had to wait a couple of hours for the
boat to Lombok. The sunshine in the harbour was quite hot. The boat to Lombok
lasted about 4 hours. Around 6 o'clock we arrived in Lembar, a harbour on the
west side of Lombok. We figured out that it was now probably too late to go to
the Gili islands today. So we decided to go instead to Cakranegara or Mataram,
the capital of Lombok. It was not easy to find the right bemo in lembar. Some
local people tried to lead us to an empty bemo, which they wanted us to charter,
which would be far more expensive than a normal bemo-ride. But we didn't fell
for that trick. When we arrived in Cakranegara there were again lots of
'friends', but we could easily find a nice hotel on our own.
This morning we continued our way to the Gili islands. On our
way we came through a beautiful hilly area, where you could sometimes see
monkeys along the road. The last few kilometers to the harbour we went by
horsecar. These are common means of transport in Lombok.
After a short trip in a small boat, we reached Gili
Trawangan. We soon found a nice little bungalow, not far from the beach. We had
a (very weak) electric light, but no running water. Instead of a shower there
was a so called 'mandi'; a big open watertank with a scoop. Bathing is done by
scooping the water and pouring it over your body. This is the traditional
indonesian way. Although the bungalow was a bit primitive, we liked it a lot.
Little bungalow
In the afternoon we went to the nearby beach. There we rented
snorkelling masks and fins. The corals were very beautiful and there were lots
of colorful fishes swining around. There was a weak current in the water
parallel to the shore, so you could just hang still in the water and let
yourself float along the coral. On the beach there were several small bamboo
restaurants.
After dinner we spent the evening on the porch of our
bungalow.
This day was much like yesterday. We got out of bed late, and in the afternoon we went to the beach. At night there was a party in the "Excellent" restaurant, the same one where we had dinner today. On Gili Trawangan there is usualy only one party each night, every time in a different restaurant. The restaurant owners use this system to be sure that there are always enough people on the parties. The music played on the party this night was mostly house and reggae (which is very popular with young indonesians). After the party had stopped, we stayed and talked abit with other young tourists. The atmosphere was probably even more vivid than before during the party.
Again, just a day like the ones before. We still liked to spend the day laying on the beach, snorkelling and sitting on the porch of our bungalow. And at night there was another party.
Horse car
This was our last day on Gili Trawangan. Although we liked it here very much, there was of course a lot more to see in Indonesia. We spent the day on the beach again. At the end of the afternoon I went for a walk to the westside of the island to watch the sunset. The island is very small, so it isn't a long walk. The sunset was quite nice, although I had seen more beautiful ones before, like 2 years earlier in Goa. But that one had been very exceptional.
I woke up very early this morning, about just before sunrise. So I decided to take a look at that. The sky was very clear and the Rinjani vulcano on Lombok was clearly visible. Not much later we took a boat back to Lombok. The boat went very slow, because it was overloaded. It had about twice as much passengers as were allowed. On Lombok we went to Tetebatu, a town in the center of the island. This is a very beautiful area on the slopes of the Rinjani vulcano. The last part we went by horsecar again. This went very slow, because it was uphill. But we were not in a hurry.
Ricefields
In the afternoon we went for a walk through the ricefields. We also wanted to visit a monkey-forrest in the neighborhood. It was a very peculiar landscape here. The ricefields were all built on terraces, and the small paths between them formed a kind of labyrinth. Several times we walked into dead ends. We didn't find the monkey forrest, by the way.
Today we left Tetebatu to go to Sengigi, a popular town at
the coast. I would have liked to stay some longer in Tetebatu, but my friend had
to go to Sengigi for his work. In the morning I took a short walk through the
ricefields again.
In Sengigi we found a nice hotel. My friend had been in this
one before. Sengigi had a beautiful beach, but the weather today was rather
cloudy. At night a band was playing in our hotel, but we were too lazy too check
it out.
This day it was a bit cloudy too, but nevertheless a nice day
too go to the beach. At the end of the afternoon we could watch the sunset. This
is often very beautiful here, especially then you can see the silhouette of the
island Bali from here.
At night we ate at e mexican restauran. It was a bit
expensive, but the food was delicious. After that we went to a bar called
"Marina's Pub". This one had a very nice and vivid atmosphere.
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