Lombok, Indonesia

Finally I'm getting around to posting some pictures from my trip to Lombok, Indonesia I took back in May. The trip started off great but on the second day I came down with some kind of fever or flu and felt horrible until the last day of the trip so I spent most of the time in bed sleeping and with no appetite... After the 4 days I think I lost at least 10 pounds and looked pretty bad. Thankfully I've gained it all back and am once again my handsome self (in my own opinion)! Also, getting soaked in a rain shower and falling into a waterfall probably not only contributed to me falling ill but it also meant that my cell phone and camera weren't working for most of the trip- So most of these pictures are from the island of Lombok on the first day. We also took a boat out to Gili Tranwangan for two nights but didn't get to enjoy any of the snorkeling or scuba diving which I had hoped to. From the boat ride over or even looking out into the surf you could tell how clear the water was. Another of my friends just returned from Bali and the Gili Islands and told me the snorkeling was great and they even saw some groups of giant sea turtles - he grabbed on to one and rode it underwater so he claims. But anyway, the first day of the trip was awesome and we rented a car to drive around the island. Some of the roads on Lombok are not that great and many are really bad. There's also a lot of horse drawn carts on the roads... as well as other animals. On the Gili islands there are no cars at all so besides walking the options are either horse drawn cart or bicycle.


Once out of the city parts of the island, Lombok is full of rice fileds. Mountains rise up quickly from the sea moving towards the inner island and many of the fields are terraced on these slopes as well. In the middle of the island is Mt. Rinjani, at 12,000+ foot volcanic mountain- the second tallest in Indonesia however with the constant clouds surrounding the upper peaks of the island we never even got a good look at it.



While driving out around the island we got hungry and stopped in to what looked like a roadside cafe. We decided to eat outside on the raised eating platforms which are not the most comfortable things you'll ever sit on but the shade from the thatched roof and ventilation though the floor keeps you pretty cool.
looking over the menu we wern't really sure what to order. We saw chickens walking around the ground under us and we saw Ayam Sambal on the menu (should be chicken with sambal or spicy sauce) so that seems like a safe bet Well, we were kind of right, it was chicken but we weren't quite expecting what they brought out for us. One baby chicken for each of us, cleaned and deep fried intact and whole, claws included, and served on some raw vegetables... with VERY spicy sambal on the side. There really wasn't much meat on those little birds at all and we were still kind of hungy after eating them (the before and after pictures don't look so different really, so we tried to just fill up on the rice.

And then the rain started while we were hiking up to see a waterfall...and with no umbrella anything to keep the rain off is better than nothing- Fal tries to use a banana leaf- but in the end it was useless and we were soaked.


This is pretty much what I felt like the whole time on Gili Trawangan (and I swear it wasn't from that beer... )

You can see some other pictures of Lombok and Gili Trawangan from my friend Fal's site http://singbrewer.blogspot.com/2008/05/lombok-indonesia.html
and his flikr site : trawangan Lombok