Week 39 - Indonesia
We're settling into life on Lombok. The house and gardens are lovely. I don't love the hot, sticky weather. The mosquitoes aren't as bad as Mauritius and Reunion, they only come out at night, so as long as we close the door when it gets dark it's not a big deal. There is a low risk of malaria here, but we're still taking the pills because we have plenty left. I actually worry more about dengue, because there is no prevention for that other than not getting bitten, which is impossible as far as I can tell. However, dengue mosquitoes come out during the day and malaria mosquitoes come out at night, so we're probably ok.
One hard thing for us that we didn't anticipate is sleeping. We've traveled in Muslim countries before, but not during Ramadan. We love hearing the call to prayer five times a day, but apparently during the last ten days of Ramadan prayers are continuously broadcast from the mosque all night long. We will definitely be celebrating when Eid Al-Fitr comes.
Sunday was a relax and swim day, Monday was our first trip day. The property manager doubles as a guide, which is super convenient because he can arrange all the trips. Today he picked us up and took us to several places. First was a traditional pottery studio. C made a pot, S chose to watch. I haven't seen C get too much into art before, usually big C and S are more interested, so I was glad he really enjoyed it. He said he'd like to try more pottery. I guess we found his medium.
Next we went to a textile weaving place where we got to see people weaving. They dressed us up in the traditional clothing for pictures, and we got to see what the traditional Sasak houses looked like.
After that, we went to a beach restaurant for lunch. I had packed a lunch because we weren't sure we'd find anything open because of Ramadan, since most people are fasting all day, but this place catered to tourists. J was happy with his fish. The kids and I were too hot to eat much, but the view was good. The next stop was a short walk up a hill to look out over the ocean, or kick around coconuts, depending on your persuasion.
The other stops were boring errands. We went to the grocery and the pharmacy, and tried to get the kids' second COVID vaccine. We decided to wait until Australia, because they wouldn't be able to get a certificate since they don't have an Indonesian ID number. I think they're pretty well protected with the first shot, but I do want to get the second so we can reduce the number of PCR tests we have to take. It was a fun and productive day.
The rest of the week was for school, pool and beach. The beach here is one of the most unspoiled we've seen. It's a short walk through a cow pasture.
There are a few cabanas and kiosks, but no big hotels or restaurants. Usually, we have it to ourselves, or with just a few locals. We've not seen any tourists. Another welcome absence is hawkers trying to sell things. The only downside is that it's pretty steep and usually pretty rough so we were told not to swim there.
Also, a river dumps into the ocean nearby, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's a riptide sometimes.
It's a beautiful place for my morning walk, though, as long as I time it after the mosquitoes go to bed and before the sun is too hot. There are some climbing trees as well, and sandcastles are always good.
I know we're here in the off-season, but the beach we ate lunch at the other day was much less peaceful, so I guess not swimming in the ocean is an ok trade off, especially since we have a pool and the kids usually prefer that anyway.
The grocery here is very western in style, a big supermarket as opposed to bakery, butcher, and produce stands as we've seen in other places. I think there are still some traditional markets, but just haven't found them. The food we buy keeps being different from what we expected, though. The kids like potato chips, but here they're only flavored varieties, like fish or mango, no plain potato chips. We got corn chips and they turned out to be beef flavored. I bought what I thought was eggplant and it turned out to be a type of melon. I was planning to put it in spaghetti sauce and the onions and tomatoes were already simmering so I just threw it in. It actually was pretty good.
Saturday was our next trip. We drove to the south side of Lombok, then took a boat ride to a small island where, predictably, I snorkeled, J poked in tide pools and the kids played on the beach.
I didn't really take any pictures on the first island. It was a bit disappointing because there was so much trash in the water and washing up on the beach. We're pretty sure it's coming from rivers on Lombok. We read that Bali has a lot of trash on the beaches, and there was definitely trash in the water at the ferry port. We also read that Lombok was better in that regard, but that's hard to believe. Anyway, the snorkeling was actually really good. You just had to wade out past the trash and swim over a patch of sea grass and there were many types of fish and coral. I saw all the different types of fish I had seen in Kenya, Mauritius and Reunion, plus some new ones. I had a great time. All three guys were demoralized by the trash situation, and understandably, but the underwater world seemed unperturbed.
Next we went to a floating restaurant for lunch. The fish stays in nets in the ocean until the customer comes and chooses it, so J and C got super fresh lobster.
Next, we went to a really tiny island. It was less trashy and more good snorkeling. Not as many fish here, but even more types of coral. I got J to snorkel with me that time.
That was a pretty spot. It started to thunder though, so we had to leave. We had to go to pick up a suitcase that we'd dropped off in the morning for zipper repair anyway, and pick up more groceries so it was a good time to head back. It was a good day to cap off the week.