Stops: Batu Tering Sarcophagi, Villa Aqila Hotel, Labuan Jambu, Sumbawa and Whale Shark Point in Teluk Saleh, in the shadow of Mt Tambora. (Days 108-109)

The last couple of days I was in Sekongkang, I met this surfer dude from Latvia named Marten at the hotel. He’d been in Lombok and Sumbawa for a couple of months doing the digital nomad thing: website branding at night, surfing all day. We were headed opposite directions, him west and me east, so we swapped info. I was planning to stop at Sumbawa Besar and then Bima, but he told me to stop off between those two for swimming with whale sharks! So, I did. Best decision. Thank you, Marten.

The town of Labuan Jambu is just kind of a wide spot in the road along the shore. Lots of goats wandering around. The fields between Sumbawa Besar were full of little red onions, the size of ping pong balls. The driver, and the driver’s boss, who tagged along, pointed the onions out repeatedly. When I arrived at Labuan Jambu, I ran into this avid motorcyclist Mick, who I had met in Sumbawa Besar. I asked him how his ride was. “You know, they grow a lot of red onions around here,” he said.

I checked in at the hotel late. Well after sun down because the aforementioned driver and Boss had ideas and feelings about the best way to go. We were offline at times, and even when we weren’t, Google Maps was confused–about where were, which direction we were facing, and what constituted a road.

But, let’s start at the beginning. I had stopped by IRA Rental Car the day before to arrange transport. Agencies will rent just the car, or car and driver. I stopped by because I and the hotel staff had tried calling a couple places but nobody answered. In the case, the reason why was all of the guys were busy admiring their roosters. Must be a fight coming up this weekend. Pak Toni, my future driver, apologized for his lack of a shirt and we got down to business. I showed him my itinerary on my phone. He assured me he knew where Batu Tering was, “Ya, ya. Batu Tering. Ya!” and that we could do that and get to the whale shark place in a few hours. He got Boss on the phone. Boss came by. A little haggling. Done.

So, Toni came to pick me up at noon and I hopped in the front seat. Boss was chatting with the hotel clerk. I figured he was staying for business. I was surprised when Boss hopped in the back seat and asked, “Okay?” “Sure,” I said. “I am Mister!” announced Boss as he sat in the usual customer seat and stretched both arms across the seat back grandly. Boss and Toni’s enthusiasm should have been my first warning.

We turn off the main road onto some broken pavement, dirt, and gravel for a while and reach the village of Batu Tering. Toni looks hesitant, but we keep going and soon come to a fork in the road: “Caves or Sarcophagai?” I want the old stone tombs. We turn right towards the Sarcophagai. The road quickly becomes more of a track through bone dry fields winding up into the hills. We still have signal at this point, and Toni announces 13 km. It’s a real boneshaker at this point. We are not in a 4X4, or even a Kijang, just a cheap little Toyota Avanza minivan for running around town or suburban shopping. We keep going.

The smoothest stretch of the “road.”

Whenever we pass a motorbike on the side of the track, Toni toots the horn and tries to get a farmer’s attention. Once in a while, one comes out and basically says, “Keep going. Just follow maps. You can’t miss it.” It’s around this time as we are chatting that I also learn that both of these guys, Toni and Boss grew up in Java. City boys.

Everything is so dry, and hot.

We are getting maybe 20 kph on a few good, flat straight aways, but often down to 5kph when there are washouts, gullies, rocks. Sometimes we just stop so Boss can get out in front of the car to guide Toni exactly how to keep from bottoming out the car. I think if it had been just me, Toni would have called it quits, but can’t fail as driver in front of Boss. This is a skills test. And, despite the obvious damage we were doing to this car, Boss seemed intent on getting there. We carried on until the next fork in the road. Left or right? The dot for the sarcophagi was pretty close to the “road” on the left, so. We carry on a few more kilometers and the connectivity starts to drop in and out.

Getting dicier.

The foliage is growing into and out of the road. We are running down shrubs and the sides are getting scoured by branches until we finally just cannot go any further, but Toni says, it’s just up there, so I hop out to walk the rest of the way. It looks like a pretty hard, loose, rocky scramble up and up and up, but I have decent boots. Boss hops out in his flip-flops to “guide” me. The track narrows down to a steep trail pretty quickly. This was the “road” on Google Maps.

We reach a government sign by the side of the trail, but all of the writing has faded beyond readability. Not unusual for a government site in the far end of a rural area. So, Boss and I keep going. We get a quick hit of Internet as we are well up near the top of a hill when Boss’ daughter Facetimes him asking when he is coming home, and then Toni calls to say come back, we went too far.

So, we double-back down the hill, losing connectivity. When we reach the sign again, Boss decides this must be it and starts bushwhacking through the undergrowth. I follow a little ways. There is obviously nothing here. I’m out of water. Boss didn’t have any. He’s wearing flip-flops ferchrissake, and I do not want to have to get him out of here. This is how people get lost. I’m like, “Dude. Time to just go to the hotel.”

We get a little further down and can hear Toni crying out, “Come back!” When, he said “too far,” he meant we had driven too far. We were of course supposed to turn right at that last fork even though the “road” looked much further way from the megalithic stones. So, we drive down, take the correct fork, and then soon find a gate. The road keeps getting worse and I’m like we can just walk. It only 300 meters, But, no. Boss is going to get me all the way there. It is a running contest of Toni battling the gullies and Boss alternately wincing and urging him to keep going. Boss gets out repeatedly to help Toni navigate really deep ruts and huge stones until we can go no further. We walk. And get to shed and a proper sign and a parking area off to the side–why the “road” was further away from the stones.

Abandon all hope, etc. etc.

The stone tombs were OK. Boss liked them pretty well. Toni was really into them. Glad I gave these guys and excuse to visit Batu Tering for the first time. It’s only the main tourist spot in town.

The sarcophagi. Pak Toni in white. Boss with his t-shirt rolled up.

Then it is time to head back, but of course there is no way to turn the car around. Backing a minivan down a crappy dry stream bed of a “road” full of rocks and holes is a challenge. Boss get out walks behind as Toni laboriously tries to keep at least one wheel on high enough ground to not get hung up in the middle. Lots of spinning wheels, skittering stones, a few stalls, and a couple more scrapes on the bottom. It took quite a while to get back to the gate we could have walked from. We all hop in and it is a pretty quiet, but very bumpy, slow ride back down to the village and the road that at least had some pavement.

It was a beautiful sunny day for a walk in the fields and woods with crickets jumping around, many colorful birds, and unidentified critters rustling about. The surrounding mountains were dramatic and not a cloud in the sky.

A good day wandering around in the hills. Boss is somewhere looking for signal.

We get back to the main road, about ten minutes from where we had started, and Boss says, “Sorry, I gotta go home. Lemme out.” He waves good bye, but being Boss of a rental car company, I’m sure he had someone out to pick him up. With Boss gone, Toni visibly relaxed and got down to the serious business of driving like Jehu.

I get online again, and there is a text from my destination, “Where are you? You were supposed to check in by 4 o’clock!” It was just a couple more hours from there to the hotel in Labuan Jambu. I texted back quickly, “Car trouble.” They held the room for me.

Villa Aqila was great. Just 5 brand new a-frame bungalows on the shore and a big restaurant, which had pretty much gotten ready to close but whipped up a quick dinner for me. Nice people. Best part, for the first time, nobody at this hotel speaks English! If there was more to do here, I should just stay for week to work on my Indonesian.

In front of Vila Aqila. More of a mudflat than a beach. Pretty common shoreline in most places.

Pick up for the whale shark tour is 4 am the next day, so I was really glad I had picked up some instant oatmeal and a bag of good coffee to prepare with the kettle in the room. Time for bed.

Up at three and there is a white horse hanging out in front of my a-frame grazing on the new plantings. A small herd joined her as I had my coffee and oatmeal then they wandered off.

Despite the tour operator, Ridwan, cautioning me repeatedly to be ready for pick up at 4 so he doesn’t have to come knocking on my door, dead quiet at 4. Then, 4:10. I knew where the dock was, so I just walked down the road. Pitch black between hotels. No street lights. No moon. Just stars.

Mick the motorcyclist is down at the dock along with three very drowsy and cranky surfers wondering when we would get going. Ridwan pulled up in the boat at 4:40 and we were off.

The boat with fleece blankets.

The boat was just wide enough to stretch out port to starboard and there were mats and pillows on the deck. Everyone got a blanket and sacked out. Mistake. I was the last one to board, so had the spot closest to the bow with most of the spray, but also at the edge of the sun shade and the best view of the skies. I sat up the whole ride. Once we cleared a couple of brightly lit fishing boats, it was so dark. Bow lights? Nah. Out in the middle of the bay was about the darkest skies I have seen in years. Maybe a bit of Milky Way? But definitely five shooting stars. Just that hour-and-half boat ride was worth it.

Near dawn, we approach Whale Shark Point and a scattering of big shrimp boats. One of these was our destination.

First stop.

Whale sharks are filter feeders. Krill-ish things, brine shrimp, baby shrimp. Small aquatic morsels of all kinds. And, shrimp boats are a good source. Story goes that word got out that if you followed a shrimp boat, you might see a whale shark. So, adventurous tourists followed. They needed to hire boats. Soon, the shrimpers figured they could net more from fishing tourists at IDR 700,000 (about 45 USD) a head than they could from the bay. So, they hang out chumming the waters with buckets of brine shrimp and wait for the small boats to tie up. The next innovation was just spraying food out of a hose of the back of the boat into the waiting gullets of the gigantic sharks. Everybody wins. We see amazing sharks. Sharks get well-fed. Fishermen get well-paid. Perfect.

We pull up to one of the dozen or so boats bobbing around the point. “No whale shark!” Move on. Next one, bingo! Two big ones swimming back and forth taking turns at the chum fire hose or scooping up the escapees.There are already a dozen people in the water, but fins and snorkels on, it is shark time. You were wondering when I would get to the sharks, weren’t you?

The night before I posted to a Slack group, “I’m going snorkeling with whale sharks tomorrow! (They don’t feed on humans.)” and the immediate responses were several “NICE!” a few “Wow!” one “not-yet-they-don’t” emojis, and one very enthusiastic text, “Bucket List!” Whale sharks are definitely bucket list for a lot of scuba divers.

I didn’t have a GoPro with me, but just as well. It was amazing to just be there. Ridwan stopped by later with some videos. They are in a playlist here. I will add a few more once I get around the YT upload limit. You might see a few jellies in there, too.

The sharks were about 6 meters long and we were warned not to touch them, but nobody warned them about touching us. Mick thought one of the other swimmers bumped him–that happened from time to time–but no, it was a shark pushing him out of the way. One swiped my leg with its tail as it swam by. Smooth, not rough like I had expected.

These prehistoric creatures are huge, but lithe and graceful. Alien like. One big swimming muscle rippling through he sea. The patterns on the skin are amazing, too. At one point, one of the sharks swam directly at me. And for a moment before it turned and glided past me, we were face to maw with about a foot or so in between for this close encounter. Truly amazing too see up so close and have them swirl around you.

People took breaks and were in and out of the boat. The crowd of humans thinned a bit as the initial excitement wore off or it was time for their boat to go. We hung around about an hour and a half and then it was banana and nutella wonderbread sandwiches and coffee for the ride back in the morning sun. We just sat there in awe of these things.