Our journey to Indonesia was pretty long and included 17 hours in the air over 3 flights (perfect for two people who really don’t like flying, and before we set off we were definitely questioning our sanity for putting ourselves through this again!). But thankfully (again!) the fear of the flying was much worse than the actual flying (well, apart from the last 2 or 3 hours where we could no longer bear to be cramped in our seats (Admin – who are you kidding, you mean the last 8-10 hours!).
Along the journey to get to our first proper destination we had lay overs in Abu Dhabi and Jakarta. For us, these destinations seem on paper to be a world away from our lives in Manchester and yet, at Abudu Dhabi airport we almost ended up in Costa Coffee for lack of anywhere else to get a caffeine fix and we did end up in a WHSmith (who knew they existed outside of the UK?)! And in Jakarta our airport hotel was the same bland soulless kind of room you’d find in any number of chain hotels in the UK. So we were beginning to wonder at what point we’d start to feel like we were actually in South East Asia! Well, it turns out that point was breakfast the next morning, where alongside the toast and croissants was fried chicken with sambal and egg fried rice and various noodle dishes! Finally! And i must say, I preferred the Indonesian to the western part of the breakfast offering!
From Jakarta we had a final flight to take us to the island of Lombok. And here we got our first real taste of Indonesia. The drive from the airport was the first eye opener. We knew that scooters and motorbikes were a major form of transport here (thankfully not for us and our luggage), but I don’t think we were quite prepared for the madness of the driving! We’d seen some crazy driving in South America, but this was a different kind of crazy! Put it this way, I don’t think we’ll be risking hiring scooters whilst we’re here!
After about an hour long road trip, we finally arrived in the small village of Tetebatu, nestled amongst endless rice paddies and in the shadow of Mount Rinjani. Our reason for being here for a few days, away from the main tourist spots on the island, is to get a bit of a taste of the more traditional sasak culture and way of life.
Our hostel for the next couple of days was rustic to say the least (although what else would you expect for £8.87 per night for two people including breakfast!) with an ‘en suite’ which is totally outside (not sure what’s going to happen if I need the loo during a thunderstorm!) and there are several mosques right next to our hostel making the call to prayer (Lombok is a Muslim majority island) very loudly several times. So things were already feeling suitably ‘foreign’!
Our first full day included a late get up (thank you jetlag and almost no sleep for two days!), followed by a walk to the ‘black monkey forest’. The walk through the village gave us a flavour of local life, with locals herding cows onto pickup trucks, scrawny long legged chickens running everywhere, and people buzzing round on mopeds laden with bundles of grass collect from the forest.
You’ll probably guess that we were headed to the first to try and see some monkeys. Unfortunately, almost the moment we got there it started to spit with rain, making the likelihood of spotting any much slimmer; still we were there so we might as well try! We did spot one grey macaque huddled in a tree, but then the heavens opened and we were left to do our own huddling under our umbrellas! We eventually conceded defeat as the paths turned to rivers and we retreated, sodden, to a local ‘warung’ (a small independent local eatery or shop) for coffee and lunch.
We vowed to return the next morning, hopefully in the dry, to try and sort some of the East Javan Langur monkeys.
Whilst we may not have spotted them today because of the weather, the rain did bring out the frogs. We’re not sure what variety but we think, from their call they must have been ‘lesser spotted sheep frogs’!
Thankfully the next day brought a bit of sunshine and we headed back to the forest where we saw a few of the rare Langurs plus plenty more Macaques. What is nice here is that they are not fed to encourage them for tourists, so if you are lucky enough to spot them, you are seeing them in their natural habitat exhibiting natural behaviours.
In the afternoon we wandered through more of the local village and rice paddies, intent on heading to a local waterfall, before suddenly the humidity shot up and we flagged so cut our walk short and retired to our hostel for an afternoon nap! It turned out to be a good decision as not long after the heavens opened again (and our clothes had only just about died out from the day before)!
I think we may have mentioned in our Costa Rica blog about the humidity there. Well, it turns out you can’t store up acclimatisation to it (as if we ever were!) and so we’re going to have to take things easy for a few days! Still we’re off to the coast tomorrow, so maybe a sea breeze will help (Admin – who are you kidding?)!
Sloth Journeys 