 |
| Near Kuta, Lombok |
Indonesia is not a country at all. It’s more like a jungly European Union, but with a pleasing absence of Belgians. Sure they have a notional currency and a central government in Jakarta. They even share a language, at least nominally, but all the major islands may as well be different countries. Java is rich, developed, populous and a bit straight – like Germany; while Bali is hot and beautiful with great beaches and too many tourists – a tropical Spain. We weren’t to know it as the old car ferry chugged into the port town of Lembar, but Lombok is Italy. Stunningly pretty with great food, it has the worst roads and drivers in South East Asia. The horse and cart, called a ‘clip-clop’, is still the cheapest form of transport which gives the place a medieval feel and – just like Italy – the locals are all mad as radishes.
Our weary party scrambled off the boat and into a busted-arse mini van which bounced us up the island’s only highway north past the capital, Mataram, and into the coastal resort of Senggigi. Well, I say ‘into’ but the driver actually dropped us ‘near’ town at his mate’s travel agent/restaurant. After half an hour politely refusing offers of hotels, tours, scuba diving and motorbike rental, I loudly requested him to drive us into town like he’d been paid to. The guy looked like I’d punched his mother but finally loaded us back into the van and roared the kilometre into town. Perhaps because I am actually an 8 year old boy, I take endless joy in insulting non-English speakers who annoy me in Australian school boy slang.
“Thanks, knob jockey.” I smiled as we unloaded our packs from the bungee-strapped rear door.
 |
| Dolphins playing in the bow wave on the way to Lembar |
One of my many flaws as a traveller is that I am irresistibly attracted to places with silly names – I will go to great lengths to get a photo next to a sign saying ‘Delicate Knobby Rest Area: No Camping’ or to tell someone I’m on Pho Quoc (pronounced poo cock) island – and something about the name Sengiggy just rolls off the tongue. Also, it’s on Lombok which, if you’ll remember, is where Roger Ramjet and the American Eagles live [Note – During my extensive research (snort) I learned that Ramjet actually lived in Lompok. But then again, shut up]. So anyway the fact remains that just having a silly name does not a holiday destination make, as anyone who has been to Whycheproof knows.
Get your proton energy pill on here
The little guesthouse we found was no less disgusting than the last 5 we had seen but it was hot and getting late so we quickly dumped our bags, got changed and walked through a deserted 5-star resort to the town’s beach.
 |
| A bit of man love between Stef and I |
The Lonely Planet gets bagged a lot among jaded backpackers for sometimes not updating prices and for the occasional inaccuracy but I think it’s generally a good thing and by far the best guidebook around. So when they described the beaches around Senggigi as being ‘hard to top’, I can only think that their correspondent was either stoned or Scottish (in Scotland any beach that you can walk on without losing a facial extremity to frostbite is considered idyllic). The sand was brown and the sea grey. The only other people on the beach were shady-looking guys selling cigarettes, bracelets and marijuana. Swimming out through an invisible slick of rubbish and oil, Stef and I were attacked by stingers and sucked a hundred meters sideways by the fierce current. By the time we’d wiped off the worst of the diesel and tentacles my watch read beer o’clock.
 |
| Alicia practicing her scooter riding on the quiet roads around Kuta |
I only know of two places worse than Senggigi at 4 in the afternoon and one of them is Senggigi at 7 at night. (The other one is Belgium in case you’re wondering.) We picked an empty restaurant from the 17 million other empty restaurants purely on the basis that the staff didn’t scream “Nasi Goreng!” at us as we walked past. Halfway through our chicken curries and Bintangs, the coolest dudes on Lombok set up some busted old instruments and started playing slow, loose reggae. Unamplified except for a booming old bass guitar and a twangy Les Paul, they belted out Marley and smoked cigarettes. There were more musicians than customers and I got the feeling that they would play even if we weren’t there. Some of them were clearly stoned on the local mushrooms that grow wild on the hills all over Lombok – the drug of choice in this largely Muslim island where alcohol is reserved for tourists and the small Catholic population.
They started taking requests and soon we were all up dancing around like tools. The band invited me up to play and, after as much reluctance as I could feign, I grabbed the beaten-up old Les Paul and played the only three songs we all knew. A toothless guy grinned at me as he played bass and a head-nodding Rasta with a cigarette hanging form his lips belted the bongos. We played a bit of 12-bar and worked tunelessly through a Guns N’ Roses song book and then, being far too white and soulless, I ruined a few Wailers tunes. At one stage all nine of us were on stage belting out Oasis’s ‘Wonderwall’. Their guitars were completely impossible to tune (as is my voice) and after a coughing fit during the high part of ‘sweet child ‘o mine’, I called it quits. The guys told me that their Indonesian-made guitars cost about $50 new and the bass amp was just an old stereo receiver and woofer stuck inside a box. That they were able to get such a great sound out of them was amazing.
It was a great night in the worst town in the world and we hummed ‘no woman no cry’ as we waded through drug dealers, pimps and wild-eyed hoteliers back to our guesthouse which, as Jen and Nynke soon found out, was rat infested.
 |
| So out of place |
These were the excuses I gave Alicia but there was also the fact that the waves break a kilometre offshore over coral reefs, which I heard one surfer describe poetically as “shallow as fuck and sharp as shit”. Even from the beach hundreds of metres away they looked sketchy and I’m a rubbish surfer. Also, I have the arms of a 12 year old girl. I don’t mean in a creepy dismembered-and-hidden-under-the-floorboards kind of way you understand, I just have arms like novelty drinking straws. I decided to give it a miss. You might say I woosed out. So what? Wanna fight about it?
Shut up.
 |
| Surfers rent these fishing boats to get to some of the best waves in the world |
No comments:
Post a Comment