Lombok

Happy to board the $22 flight to get from Bali to Lombok, (it was cheaper to fly then to take the ferry-crazy!). We decided to stay in the south end of Lombok called Kuta, I had read it was a little quieter then Senggigi (the main tourist area up near the north end), our Bali host told us that Kuta was beautiful and had everything we were looking for. He was right! The moment we arrived I felt the tension leave Johnny's shoulders...it was funny, I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but Johnny just didn't seem himself the whole time we were in Bali, as soon as we got here it was like his body breathed a sigh of relief. Green rolling hills greeted us, a quick 23 minute ride to our hotel and we arrived. We got here a little late so went checked into our villa (Sari Villa- $45/night for a two bedroom) and went out for dinner. Kuta is shaped like a T, with the top part running along the water and the main street making up the bottom half. After a delicious meal off to bed.

Our first site of Lombok coming from the airport

The next day we hired a driver for $40 and he took us to the 3 beaches that Kuta area is famous for, stopping along the way to take pictures of the beautiful sites. 

Tanjung Aan- Crystal clear turquoise water, in a bay surrounded by beautiful hills on either side, for the able bodies (not me) the hike to to top is suppose to be breathtaking. Everyone agreed this beach was the prettiest but a little boring as there were no waves. Perfect for lounging around

Tanjun Aan

                                      

Tanjung Aan

Tanjung Aan

Selong Belanak- the bay is huge-the PERFECT surfing waves, gentle sloping beach with fine white sand. Lots of stalls and places to rent boards ($5/hour). Anneka fell in love with a kitten when we first got here and didnt leave its site the whole time we stayed. This beach was everyones favourite

 Of course Johnny's crazy Spidey sense when it comes to caves, sniffed one out...this one was a huge bat cave. Liv and I opted to stay in the car while him and Anneka explored. He said it was amazing, except for the piles and piles of bat pooh all over the floor, (and their guide was walking around barefoot-BARF!)

Mawun Beach-another big beautiful bay, with literally a handful of people on it. very beautiful, but the best part was all the local children that flocked around us, then ended up staying for a bit and learned how to play Uno. The kids had a great time at Mawun

Uno!

Being entertained by Annekas site words- they all spoke great English

After a very long amazing day we went back to our villa for another delicious dinner and crashed...(forgot to mention, we are fairly close to a Mosque that wakes us up for prayers at 4:30 in the morning- DOH! tonight I will be wearing my earplugs!) The next day we rented our own car ($30 for the whole day) We decided to explore the south and west side of the island a bit and check out a tiny island Gili Nanggu. We headed to Lembar area where we found a guy to take us across- pretty pricey ($35 was the going rate) but we heard the little island had great snorkeling so off we went.

A tiny little picture perfect island, with only 1 restaurant, (it was sub par but you had no other options). The girls and Johnny went for a snorkel I was exhausted from the 4:30 am wake up call (forgot my earplugs) and tried to nap. They said the snorkeling was pretty good, but maybe not worth the time and $$ to get over to this island, when you have such perfection on the mainland. We left Lembar and headed south to go back to Selong Belanak-Anneka wanted to find her |Kitty and Johnny and Liv wanted to surf again. Driving through Lombok GPS took us on some crazy roads, but man what incredible scenery the whole way, we stopped a dozen times to take pictures, it was so beautiful.

On our last morning in Lombok we toured around the little village of Kuta. The beach here is pretty but not the picture perfect beach a little east and west of Kuta. There are a ton of boats in the water and lots of hustle and bustle. Worth a look and you have to walk through the market to get there. 

We were only in Lombok 3 days! We wish we would have planned to stay here longer. This is the problem when you pre book flights....we should have learned our lesson by now, but we have to be in Thailand by the 15th so the girls can go to school. Our driver picked us up to take us up to Bangsal Harbour to catch the ferry to the Gilli Islands (we were heading to Gilli T). Driving along the coast and through Senggigi so we could see more of this spectacular island.

We opted to take a fast boat for $45 (we should have taken the public ferry would have saved a ton of money, only $1.50/pp). and said so long to beautiful Lombok.

Bali- A Paradise Lost

Right now I am sitting in a villa in the Gilli Islands off the coast of Lombok- truly paradise (if you like that sort of thing). Now that I have left Bali, I will try to be as unbiased as possible, many people still love parts of it and flock to Ubud like it's this serene oasis where they can get their yogi on...I have to say, I just don't get it...I thought from Ubud right down to Uluwatu, Bali was as uninspiring as  a garbage dump. The traffic is horrendous, scooters and cars everywhere! There are very beautiful places for sure, but for every beautiful place, if you look a little closer, the trash is unreal and just so sad. I will say that the people are incredible, so genuine, always with big smiles on their faces, (and unlike Central America we never once felt like we were getting scammed). The food is amazing- seriously just about everything I ate was delicious (I am going to come home needing the gym very badly), and so cheap! Definitely worthy of  budget travelers . We splurged a bit and had a two bedroom, private villa north of Seminyak, $100/night was very pricey for Bali (we could easily have found something for $40) but this place was incredible, our nicest accommodations so far. 

I am going to use a post I wrote on Facebook as it is so fitting and written with how I was feeling at the time.... 

As you know we have been to so many beautiful places, it was hard to decide where we would go when planning. We always knew we would come back to Bali, a place we fell in love with 16 years ago. I am so sad to say that so far, this once beautiful island has been a huge let down. The food is incredible, people are so nice, our accommodations spectacular... but this island is so crowded and dirty! It saddens my heart to see every where we look there is so much garbage. The beach in Kuta/ Legion, once beautiful was the most disgusting beach I have ever seen. Hoping on other parts of the island we will see the beauty that once was. 

All those spots you see are all garbage- there was no end to it

We hired a driver for the day hoping to see some of the beauty Bali is know for- went to the Holy Spring Water Temple, through Ubud, the Monkey forest, Tegenungan Waterfall and the Tegalalang Rice Terrace

The monkey forest was awesome, beautiful statues, structures and small buildings throughout the immense property. Most importantly, their were monkeys EVERYWHERE- kids were in heaven.

The Holy Spring water temple was quite lovely, everyone had to wear a sarong to cover your legs

such detail in the wood

The Holy Spring water temple

The Holy Springs Water Temple, was very pretty, the architecture in Bali is incredible, on every structure such intricate detail, you cant help but be impressed even if it's "not your thing" (according to Livy)

what you cant see is all the garbage everywhere

Tegenungan Waterfall was very pretty, huge set of steps to walk down with two separate waterfalls. What the pictures do not show is all the garbage everywhere-there was so much, that no one wanted to go swimming, it was so bad....ruined the experience for us, we all love waterfalls, especially ones we can jump into....

The Tegalalang Rice Terrace was awesome, so detailed and such work involved. My knee prevented me from hiking down, but Anneka and Johnny did and said it was awesome.

The next day it was pouring rain (we were here in the rainy season after all- so off to the 3-D art museum. The kids had a ball, it was a great way to spend the afternoon.

On our last day we decided to take a taxi (uber is super cheap here) and go see one of the amazing temples that are along the coast either Tanah Lot or Uluwatu. We thought we would be able to easily see both, but the traffic is so bad in south Bali it literally take over an hour to pretty much drive anywhere (picture the DVP at rush hour. We decided on Uluwatu as they have a fire show at sunset, and it was close to a place we heard was lovely called Bingin beach (secret beach). 

After a swim

there was hardly anyone around, we had one part of the beach almost to ourselves 

This beach was literally in the middle of nowhere we had to walk quite a ways to reach it, when we got here we thought it was quite pretty, not the beautiful sand beaches we are used to, but the rock outcropping were beautiful and the beach in this section was practically deserted. We wanted to make our way to Uluwatu, so we were trying to find a cab and had to walk to the busier section of the beach, this was when we were hit by piles and piles of garbage...we thought we had escaped it leaving Kuta....we were wrong. By the time we got in the cab, sunset was almost over, defeated we went home (25 km took over an hour and half)

The garbage here was so disgusting, this stretched for miles along the beach

At this point, we were all sadly done with Bali, in defense to this once beautiful island, I am sure there are plenty of parts that we did not see that still have retained its wonderful charm of 16 years ago. I bet plenty of people reading this post will have their own version of what Bali is to them and it could be drastically different then what my opinion is. For now the Lambers' are done with this place and happy to move on....guess they can't all be perfect....