Stops: Minangkabau Airport, Soekarno-Hatta Airport, Kuta Lombok, Tanjung Aan (Days 87-93)

Lombok is a good way point heading east. Flights from Jakarta to Sumbawa (no direct flights from Sumatra) take you quite a ways east along this oddly shaped island, but the ferry from Lombok drops you right at the westernmost tip so I can go end-to-end without backtracking. It’s also a place I know well, I thought, having visited several times.

Flights where you have to walk across the tarmac to board feel like you’re really going on a journey.

Kuta Lombok has changed. It used to be very quiet and pretty sleepy. There are now two gigantic hotels, an international GP motor sports circuit, and a very broad beachfront road with security guards at each entrance to keep (most) of the locals out. But, some parts of it remain unchanged, while others remain unmaintained.

I finally hit a bump in the road and my hotel karma failed me at first. I booked four nights at Surfer’s Beachfront. It was a nice enough cheap hotel I’d stayed at before fifteen, sixteen years ago. I should have known it had gone to hell when they had availability. It used to be hard to get in. For one thing, it is no longer beachfront. There is a convenience store with a bar pumping out crappy “beats” on the roof out front. The outdoor chairs by the pool were the exact same chairs–and they weren’t new the last time I’d been here. The paint on the walls was the same paint, plus a decade of grime. Dead bugs and dirt on the bathroom floor. And, as a bonus the electricity was out intermittently the first night and the water the next day. To top it off, I finally picked up a companion on my tour. Somewhere on one of these tightly packed planes or vans I acquired the sniffles. Not too bad, but not great, Bob!

So, as soon as possible I moved down to the way to the Kuta Paradise Hotel, which had not changed a bit but in a good way. It has been perfectly maintained all this time. Still very nice and quiet at the end of the road out of town. Most of the surrounding land has been fenced off by speculators for decades, so no adjoining beach bars pumping out oontz-oontz like the first place. Perfect. A good place to rest and recuperate.

Sketch from a photo of my favorite old house along the Mukashi-michi hiking trail in Okutama.

Got back to a little bit of drawing and watercolor after a bit of a hiatus while travelling with Et-chan and then busy, busy travelling in Sumatra. You need time to just sit a bit. More of that elsewhere later. Instead of watching the political extravaganza on TV, I sat by the pool and painted a bit. Unsuccessfully (not shown here) but still better than the alternative and a good learning experience. Still working on it….

Before leaving I went down the coast to Tanjung Aan. This is an amazing stretch of perfect beach. Clear turquoise waters and interesting geological formations. No sharp corals or rocks to watch out for. Unlike a lot of the coast here, it isn’t a surf spot. No massive waves, so it is great for swimming. It was about a six kilometer walk away, so not too bad, and kind of interesting. The villages I walked through previously have been replaced by the Mandalika GP Circuit, so a bit longer than before. Now you get super high end fancy villas cheek by jowl with old shacks and vacant lots. Big things are planned for the area. There is a massive network of divided roads and roundabouts criss-crossing the land after the circuit and near the beach. But, it is like a moonscape. Old patches of concrete. Hard dirt. Abandoned roads from the previous development attempt. But, also buffalo grazing.

Lunch on the beach: Pelecing kangkung.

On the way back, I decided the hell with Google maps and just headed back along the coast, up over windswept hills, and down to little coves along the way. No bush, so not bushwhacking, but just roving along without tracks or paths most of the way. The tide was out, so I gambled that I could make it around the rocky points between beach coves and it paid off. Huge stretches of coast all to myself.

This route took me along a strip of no man’s land between the racecourse and the beach. It is mostly fenced off with concrete panels, but local kids have created access here and there.

Condemned / abandoned bungalow resort behind the Mandalika Circuit.

It was full day out, seven hours and fourteen kilometers walk, so I feel fully recovered and ready for the next adventure, which will be Island Hopping Part Six after a ferry ride to Sumbawa.