On the road again. Finally heading back to Bali today via van, ferry and another van. Had a great moment when I walked across the road to the beach for the last time and the sarong-selling girl from whom I'd bought a sarong last night and chatting to over the last week called me over to her shop and gave me a scarf as a present for my sister and greetings from Lombok to my family! Amazingly generous and I wished I'd had something to give back. These people really have almost nothing; living in the back of their shops, selling petrol from reused vodka bottles for 65 cents a litre, working from 7am to 10pm. When I'd bought the sarong the night before it was the girl's first sale at about 6pm and she brushed the money over her other goods for good luck.
I think our summary on Lombok after about 10 days here is that it's very different to Bali, poorer, more remote but definitely exotic and worth seeing. There are decent waves here but it's some amount of work to get to them and you need some time to figure out what works on what tide and wind, etc. Surf-wise it seems to be much better set up for the wet season so if I came back it would be in November or something. The people seem to range from wary to hostile but friendly enough once you get the business part of things out of the way. If you didn't smile at anyone you'd think they hated your guts but if you smile and wave first, most people smile back. Even better if you learn a few words of Indo. Overall, well worth it.
So, with boards strung up on the roof (we're going to bring our own decent straps in Central America) we set off for the ferry through hills and rice fields. Turned out to be a bit of a mission to find a spot to sit once on board. All the Euros sat up on the roof deck in the sun (um, do they realise it's 5 hours to Bali) but we camped on the floor with all the locals and read the paper. I actually had a decent sleep sprawled out on my sarong.
Made it to Bali without sinking and had the most horrific van ride to Kuta. The guys were very badly trying to lash the boards to the roof which I supervised and refused to get in the van until I was happy. Then we were crammed in 4 abreast in a little van and the "only 1 hour" ride turned out to be 2.5 hours of pain and did we get dropped at our hotel as promised? No, we were dumped in the middle of Kuta and had to walked 1.5km with our boardbags and backpacks to the hotel. Nightmare!
