10/18/04: The trials of Lombok

Well everyone -

After three days in Singapore (about as much as we needed I think) we took a flight to Bali and found ourselves in Kuta...one of the main resort towns and also the sight of the 2002 bombing - it was a bit sobering to walk by the monument. Bali has been hard hit by the tragedy and some of the surrounding islands have dried up completely as tourism has declined.

Our hotel was about 15 minutes from the beach. Just long enough to assess whether you want to buy every single knick-knack known to man. Deanna now has braided hair and I am the proud owner of a genuine Frolex watch...no seriously, the hawkers are very aggressive - it's really irritating but understandable. One of the locals we spoke to mentioned that he made about 20,000 Rupiah a day (less than $3) so I guess when you buy that sarong for 50,000 Rupiah, it's a big deal. Never have I felt so rich and so suspicious of everyone that talks to me...hopefully the feeling wears off.

The real adventure was our day traveling from Bali to Lombok (just west of Bali). Woke up early and then started the trek to the bus station - this was the first time we've actually had to carry our bags over any distance...ouch. Halfway there, we stopped to talk to some of the cabdrivers and "negotiated" a fare. Basically him calling out prices and us saying no, walking away, him calling after us, him running after us, us turning around, saying no, and finally settling on a price.

When we got to the ferry (about 2 hours), we're rushed into a "ticket office" where the price list had just been "updated". You could literally see that the price for the place we just happened to be going had been freshly changed in the last 5 minutes. And of course the ferry was leaving in 5 minutes and the next ferry wasn't leaving until four hours later. Forty-five minutes later we left. And found out the boat wasn't going where we needed to go. And that Deanna is THE most fascinating sight to the locals that they've ever seen with her blond hair. And that Deanna gets sea sick. And the only thing we had were these Dutch pills (no English instructions) that we thought were for seasickness (thanks Tiffany and Michael). This was slightly challenging all-in-all...but we made it and it turns out the ferry goes only to one port and then they pick you up in a bus.

We were quite relieved, until the bus stopped in a "tourist bureau" where we got the soft sell, hard sell, guilt-trip sell, won't find a better deal sell for a trip to the top of Mt. Rinjani, an active volcano we expressed interest in. Anyway, we ended up passing on the trip from this operator and they begrudgingly took us to our hotel. The hotel is awesome. It has an essentially private beach..from our bungalow you can see the Ocean and walk down in about 30 seconds. It's perfect...except for:
a. the cockroach
b. no water
c. no lights
d. all of the above

d is the correct answer. But overall, I felt really good after yesterday like we were "legitimate" travelers. We also found a wonderful local cafe (with no lights) where we ate by candlelight and talked to the owner and the server a bit. I told the owner that I was Chinese...unfortunately then he wanted to speak to me in Chinese...quite the experience with my 25 word vocabulary. But, it was definitely the best day (in my opinion) that we've had so far.

Next up:
Senaru and Mt. Rinjani
Giles Islands (possibly)
Back to Bali (Ubud) which is the crafts/cultural center.
10/28 Back to Singapore to meet Deanna's friend Mercedes for a few nights and then on to Malaysia!