We arrived to Lombok at about 4 o clock and once we'd arrived at the hostel it was about 5 so we checked in and went for dinner in town. The hostel was quite cool, full of surfers and skateboarders so we didn't entirely fit in but it was fine. We went for dinner in a Moroccan place in Kuta. It was all really nice. After dinner we headed back to the hostel and went to bed as we were all pretty tired. We'd been warned that Kuta is not somewhere that we should be out in the dark because it is quite Muslim and they aren't big fans of tourists. We didn't have any issues with this at all, we always tried to get back before 7 but we found the people there really friendly, helpful and lovely so there was no problem there.
In the morning to a restaurant on the hill with a fantastic view of Kuta for breakfast. Unfortunately by the time the food came it was more like lunch time and it took so long, but when it did arrive it was delish. I had a tempur burger and chips; Becki, Kate and Kim had chicken satay and Annabel and Amy fish sandwiches.
After breakfast we drove over to Selong Belenak beach where we had an hours surf lesson. For the lesson and all day board rental we paid 200000 rupiah each which is about £10. I loved the lesson and, considering how bad my balance is, I actually wasn't too bad. I managed to stand up a fair few times without falling off so I was a lot better than I thought I would be. It was great. After the lesson we hung around the beach for a while and then it started to look a bit stormy so we headed back to the hostel in the rain. We went for dinner in a place called Krnk and headed back to the hostel for bed.
Since Kuta is so spread out and because the hostel is a while out of town we decided to rent mopeds on the last day. On the previous day we had paid one of the neighbours of the hostel to drive us around but it got quite expensive and wasn't the most practical. Its the only time we've really wanted to rent them even though pretty much every other traveller we've met rents them wherever they are, but the roads there were quite calm so it felt quite safe. It cost 50000 per bike (about £2.50) and we shared them between two. Amy and Becki didn't want to so I had Kim on the back of mine (because she hasn't got a licence) and Kate had Annabel on the back of hers. We drove into town for some breakfast and we are probably the slowest scooters to grace the roads of Indonesia, but we got there eventually with Amy and Becki meeting us after. After breakfast we had a quick dip in the sea on Kuta beach and then biked up the hill to do a spot of yoga at Ashtari on the mountainside which was so cool. It was a 75 minute class of yin yoga where you stay in each yoga position for 5 minutes. We then had dinner at the restaurant of the yoga class which was really nice because the view was so good. I had a Nasi Goreng ( fried rice basically) with vegetable skewers, Becki had a Nasi goreng with chicken, Amy had a Mie Goreng (the same but with noodles instead of rice) with vegetable skewers, Annabel had a green curry, Kim had a burger and kate had a green curry.
After dinner we rode our peds back down to the hostel stopping for some snacks for the journey at the mini mart. The drive down was so pretty because the sun was setting and it was just so nice and not as hot and sweaty as it had on the way up. We were also a lot more confident on the peds so I wasn't as nervous as I had been before.
We left the hostel at 9 the next morning ready for the journey over to Gili Trawangan. The drive took about 2 and a half hours and then there was a 20 minute boat journey which all in all costed us 140000 rupiahs (£7). We arrived to Gili T which is one of the three gili islands at about 2 and walked to our hostel. The gilis are another set of island that don't have motorised vehicles which is so nice but they do have horse and carriages which are just as annoying, if not more, but it did mean that by the time we arrived at the hostel (Gili La Boheme) we were all very hot and sweaty because we'd had to lug our bags for quite a walk.
I'm so glad we went to Lombok because despite what we'd heard beforehand it turned out to be beautiful and full of really friendly people and not too many tourists which made for a nice change and we had such a great time there.
