Nusa Lembongan – Arak Attack

 If you find Bali too stressful and its beaches not quite up to scratch, you’re probably from Tasmania and have an anxiety disorder. However if that is the case, there is an island between Bali and Lombok where you can settle those nerves you frazzled from too much sitting on the beach watching coconut palms by, um, sitting on a different beach watching some more coconut palms. It’s called Nusa Lembongan.

The ferry from Sanur on Bali’s east coast was a 30ft long outrigger with a little outboard motor and bench seats. Just after dawn it putted toward the open beach and grounded in the sand offshore. 30 locals and half a dozen sleepy backpackers waded barefoot to the boat and lurched aboard. Alicia and I, along with the other foreign devils, took advantage of the cool morning sun and climbed onto the roof. Leaning against my backpack, I spent a couple of hours looking at the slow glassy rollers pass under the bright blue wooden outriggers and strumming my ukulele (I know what you’re thinking but that is NOT a euphemism. I actually have a ukulele and frankly you should get your mind out of the gutter). 

See.

            We sailed through the morning sun over coral reefs, past white beaches and pastel-coloured fishing boats before running onto the beach in front of a little fishing village – the only town worth the name on the island.

On the boat we had met an Austrian guy called Stef and a San Diegan, Eric, who told us about a hotel that had been recommended to them. We decided to tag along for a look but the hotel had ignored Eric’s phone booking and had no rooms left. Strangely for an American he didn’t call in an air strike and we each found separate digs right on the beach for under $10, making vague plans to catch up for a beer.

When the tide is out acres of farmed seaweed is harvested and left to dry on the beach.

            Lembongan is an island paradise – pretty beaches, world-class surf breaks, good rooms, cheap food, cold beer and friendly locals. There are no cars on the island and the roads are really footpaths, mostly dirt. Eric, Stef, Alicia and I hired a couple of scooters and surfboards for a few bucks a day and spent four days surfing, eating, drinking and tooling around. By the end our little group had turned into 8 or 9, with Dutch Nynke, Norwegian Jen, the three Germans – know only as ‘the three Germans’ –  and a Canadian guy who we knew as ‘that American guy or whatever, maybe he’s Canadian, who might be with that German girl with the funky hair’. It would have been quicker just to ask his name I guess. After nearly a month on the road first by myself and then with Alicia, it was great to hang out with some new people and Stef, Eric, Jen and Ninke would prove to be great company as we spent the next week or two giggling our way around eastern Indonesia.

Ze Germans had been there for a week already and told us about a little warung, or food stall, run by a lady called Maria where they got all their meals. Maria worked there mostly alone; taking orders, cooking, clearing up and running food for up to 10 hungry backpackers. She became known as ‘Indonesian Mum’, and when she wasn’t open (I guess she had to sleep sometime) or the tiny restaurant was full, we all became quite frazzled and disorientated.

“But… but what will we eat,” could be heard muttered in three languages.

Stef's surf lesson. Great waves but my 12-year-old-girl's arm made the 200m paddle hard work.

A few days before we met him, Eric had lost his bank card in Bali. He had to wait for a new card to be sent from the States and until then he had only a handful of cash to survive on. This temporary destitution coupled with the short-term alcoholism common to backpackers in the tropics is the only semi-sane reason hindsight can provide for the fact that on our second night on Lembongan we found ourselves drinking Indonesian petrol wine.

We’d had a local spirit made from rice and coconut called arak at a restaurant earlier and were impressed by both its price and effectiveness so Eric found a little store that sold it for a few dollars per litre.

“Arak?” He asked.

The old lady lounging behind the counter shrugged. She turned, slung a red jerry-can onto the bench, put a funnel with a gauze mesh into an empty coke bottle, splashed in a quantity of cloudy liquid, took some cash from Eric, smirked and disappeared. The drunks across the road laughed so hard they choked on their reefers and an old lady walking past made the sign of the cross and shook her hands at us.

I’ve had Vietnamese Shiraz and Thai whisky. I’ve been drunk on Korean rice wine. As a 16 year old I made my own Ouzo in a saucepan and mixed it with warm Fanta. Once I even tried American beer. But none of them ever came in a container that met marine safety design regulations and had ‘Petrol Safe’ stamped on it. Expectations were not high.

We retired to the hotel and found a glass. Think of a coconut husk blended with cheap gin and filtered through the exhaust of a two-stroke lawn mower and you’d be about half way there. Even mixed with orange juice it was shit. In the name of scientific inquiry, anthropological observation and tightarsedness the six of us managed to get through about half the bottle over the next few days – enough to prove its short-term effects but not so much to experience its presumed long-term effects, like gum disease and insanity.

Eric, Nynke and I. The local mechanic gave me this haircut which may be why I appear to have started sniffing glue.

A couple of days later the surf died off and we had to admit the arak had beaten us. It was time to leave. After some wheeling and dealing six of us – Stef, Eric, Jen and Nynke, Alicia and I – secured cheap seats on the daily supply boat back to Bali. The boat brought fresh food to the resorts and usually came back empty save for the occasional traveller too poor to get the tourist speed boats. The fact that the boat was a pink canoe wasn’t pointed out to us but the ride to Kasumba was pretty uneventful, if cramped. From there we caught a little open-doored van, called a bemo, to the public ferry terminal in Padangbai. Eric had to stay there to wait for his new bank card in the post. We hoped to catch up in Lombok in a few days but later heard that he had waited a week in sleepy Padangbai before giving up and getting some money wired to him.

The rest of us bought tickets for the public boat to Lembar, Lombok. Dolphins played in the bow wave of the old car ferry and when we arrived late afternoon we each felt vindicated in spending an extra 6 hours travelling to save $20 on the speed boat.

Besides, we’d had an authentic travel experience. Man.

The little pink canoe back to Bali.