I had only recently returned from East Lombok. Even though I had been to Lombok often, visiting remote areas and the islands around it, I had never made it to the islands off the eastern coast.
If you want to travel to the more isolated parts of Indonesia, your best bet is to find a friend who lives there. To be honest, East Lombok is not that far out of the way, but after searching on the internet I was surprised to find there was not much information about this part of the country. The noncommercial places are the ones that interest me most, especially when they are categorized as protected areas.
It's been a while since I spent some time in a quiet village without any of the modcons and amenities we so take for granted. Because the aim of the trip was diving in a location that was not well known, I got in touch with a diving instructor friend, Boen, in Mataram. I asked if he could arrange a full board package for three divers and a snorkeler, gave him measurements for the diving gear (we were only carrying backpacks so didn't want any extra weight), gave him the dates, and asked him to keep it lowkey.
We piled into the little minivan driven by Topan, who also doubled as our Dive Master, complete with all our diving gear, a dozen or so tanks and a compressor, and set off on the twohour drive to East Lombok. Because it was already lunchtime and the tide was getting high, we headed straight to Dusun Dadap and the home of the owner of the boat, Pak23 Rohimah. In this area, the name of the father is passed on to the eldest child, so it came out as something like "the father of Rohimah". The road taking us there was still a dirt track, passing between rice fields, little ponds where buffalos cooled themselves, and, amazingly, signs instructing villagers to "Use the bathroom if you need to defecate" and "Good citizens don't defecate in the forest!"
We were staying in a little village called Labuhan Pan dan. Our host was to be Pak Saleh, owner of the Wulandari warung that also fed workers on a nearby pearl oyster farm. Every day, morning, noon and evening, we ate fish caught fresh from the sea. It was a good thing everyone liked seafood, especially with the amazing Sambal Beberok (Lombok chillies, tomato, and shrimp paste ground together with a pestle). Because I still had a stomach problem, I could only eat a few drops of the sambal, but even that was enough to find out how incredibly hot it was. Even better was the Lombok coffee. One time Pak Saleh treated us to "coconut coffee" Lombok coffee made using coconut water. Delicious!
We were staying at the office of the Mangrove Forest Management Office. Like the toilet at Pak Saleh's house, the office had a squat WC, but this one was on top of a 75cm block of concrete that was almost as high as the water tub used for washing and flushing so you were scared you might get pee into the clean water if you were not careful. In the evenings the electricity was hit or miss, apparently there was a limited supply. When it was on, every available plug was used to recharge phones and cameras.
Staying in a quiet village, after dinner our evenings involved hanging out, chatting, eating nuts, counting the croaks of the tokek24 (apparently it was still a young one; it's voice was cracked and sounded more like the quack of a duck), laughing at my cousin Ezra's imitations of the TV presenter, listening to music and watching videos on iPod, playing games and browsing the internet on our cell phones (the GPRS service was fast we were probably the only people in Lombok using it).
But it was when we went to bed that things got tricky. If we didn't shut the doors and windows we were attacked by mosquitoes, but with everything was closed it was far too hot. Repellent lotion had no effect, so we tried slathering on some Rheumason mentholated balm.
For three days we went diving around the islands of East Lombok which includes 3,210 hectares of coral reef to explore, with the cloud covered Gunung Rinjani in the background. Looking over the side we could easily see the coral reef through the crystal clear waters. Pak Rohimah's boat, with the two canoes tied to the back, was perfect for the eight people on board.
Although the fish here were not that unusual, we still saw stingrays, white tip reef sharks, moray eels and sea turtles. What was really amazing were the soft corals it was like being in a Tuscan vineyard at harvest time! Vast fields of coral in shades of light brown, yellow, pink, red and purple. With the opening and closing of its tendrils the reef was lit up like a Christmas tree and in the ocean swells seemed to be waving to us. Breathtaking!
At lunchtime we would find desert islands or play with the canoes. It is rare to find such clear blue seas, white sandy beaches, mangrove forests and mountains all at the same time. I also found out that Gili Sulat and Gili Lawang have forests containing 17 different types of mangrove and are the fifth most varied in the world. Gili Petangan, Gili Lampu, Gili Bidadari, and a certain Gosong (a sandy island with no vegetation) make great places for taking photos leaping around or just floating in the water. Gili Trawangan has nothing on this!
Quote of the day: the harder a place is to get to and the fewer the people who visit it, the more beautiful the environment will be.
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