Brooke's continuing adventures

Charles and I were pretty severely ripped off on our boat ride from Bali out to Gili Trawangan, so when it was time to leave we caught the local boat back to Lombok. We had to wait a few hours, but it cost roughly 40 cents and restored our backpacker credibility. When we got to the other side, we tried our best to avoid the touts and finally found a van to take us to Senggigi, (Lombok's major tourist beach resort town) for a reasonably fair price. The road to Senggigi hugged the coast, passing rice patty fields and palm tree lined coves with aquamarine water. A little bit of reggae on the stereo compliments of the driver, and I was happy to be on the road once again.

We finally hit Senggigi to find all the cheap guest houses surprisingly full, despite the fact that there didn't seem to be any tourists in town. We finally settled for the cheapest place we could find and discovered later that night that it happened to be above a night club. Good thing I'm a heavy sleeper!

Once we were settled, I decided to go for a walk on the beach to check out the scene. There were lots of surfers out at the point, lots of boats on the beach, and lots of touts. Much like Kuta beach, the sand was a dirty brown color. Although it wasn't nearly as paved in trash, it wasn't exactly the Indonesian paradise I'd imagined it to be. As I was walking back, a local tout asked me how to pick up western women over the internet.  He told me he wasn't having much luck trying to chat with them on MSN. Luckily another backpacker he knew caught up to us and the topic of conversation changed to pirated dvds.

Charles and I went to dinner that night at Café Alberto's, an Italian restaurant on the beach. The setting was great, with tables in the sand, tiki torches, crashing waves, and a string of lights in the distance from the fishing boats lined up on the horizon. It was fun to watch the crabs come out of their holes in the sand and run around confused when a large wave shot up the beach. There was a really cool atmosphere about the whole setting. That is, until a DVD vendor came up to our table and tried to show us his stock. I couldn't' help but laugh. I was glad I wasn't there on my honeymoon. It would have been quite a mood killer! 

There didn't seem to be any reason to hang around Senggigi, so the next day, we hopped on a couple of motorbikes and went exploring. We drove north, passing beautiful beaches, canyons full of rice fields, and sweeping views of jungle that stretched across vast plains and crawled up the base of Gunung Rinjani, Lombok's major volcano.  

That night we stayed in the little town of Senaru, the starting point for volcano treks. For us, however, it was just a place to crash for the night.  The rainy season meant the mountain was basically closed as the trails become muddy and often impassable. We were going to hike to a nearby waterfall, but it started raining so instead we picked up different colored rocks and pebbles for game pieces, and sat on the porch of the guesthouse playing chess on a piece of paper I’d drawn squares on to, and eating rhambutans (those red hairy looking fruits).