Our last day and night in Sumbawa Besar, we booked into the Hotel Suci but was not impressed.
Next morning started with an early call to Allah at around 4am, we were adjacent to the local mosque, perfect for Keith to record the incredibly loud decibels, and obviously the locals are hard of hearing. Should planning permission be granted in your area for a mosque just click onto Keith's blog to hear what you will hear, your neighbours, your neighbours neighbour etal for the next mile or so.
By 7am we were on our way to Poto Tano, what a difference a day makes, the road was almost perfect, we covered the 91km and embarked on the ferry all by 9am. One and a half hours later we reached the island of Lombok. We headed for the capital city Mataram again the going was easy, and for a change there was some semblance of road directions, much better than trying to ask the locals "ke mana Mataram" which I had hoped meant "which way Mataram" but the locals didn't quite understand, so took to showing them on the map whenever we didn't know where we were (which throughout our previous travels was often as our map was very basic and almost unusable - give me an OS map and I would have been a lot happier) the GPS wouldn't load any of the Indonesian maps hence a lot of grumbling took place.
The mosques came thick and fast along our route throughout Indonesia, just like our corner shops and pubs only more so, any new building going up seemed to be more mosques. In our travels the opulence and lavishness spent on the mosques and churches seemed to me to be grotesquely obscene against the poverty of the people and their living conditions.
The farther west we travel we see less and less of the bamboo huts with their palm leaf roofs and the shiny tin shacks, both in Sumbawa and Lombok, in their place we now catch sight of brick and block buildings a good number also rendered, looking more like proper houses the island looking reasonable prosperous. The schools have large parking areas for the hundreds of scooters and small motorcycles that the students use to travel to their lessons, we have even spotted 'three up', this was not unusual, no helmets of course, but they were wearing footwear, I suspect that it is one of the school regulations.
We arrived in Mataram in good time, the roadside stalls along the way laden to overflowing with row upon row of freshly picked yellow/green pineapples and huge piles of coconuts. Rather than stop in the city we headed along the coast to Senggigi and booked into the very posh Puri Bunga Beach Cottages for two nights, click on their website to see www.puribungalombok.com, we had a good deal and ended up in one of the de-luxe bungalows for the first night. After our long ride we were sweltering in the heat - our cottage was up the side of a mountain (well it seemed like a mountain) around 100 steps or more, luckily the bell boys carried most of our luggage, as we were wearing our bike ensemble we were hot and exhausted by the time we reached the top. Our room was perfect and looked out over the sprawling bay and the white sandy beach to our left. There were elaborate brightly carved and painted shutters for the door and window, no glass, a mini bar, and a spacious terrace with comfy armchairs in which to relax and take in the view. After I had changed I retraced my steps back down to ground level and threw myself into the enormous warm swimming pool - mmm mmm. We both showered in hot water (again) and felt quite human particularly after a Bintang to quench our thirst - mandatory. So yesterday we moved to a slightly cheaper standard room which doesn't quite have the vista of our de-luxe room, but is only on the third level of steps has a sea view, and nearer to the pool, we have decided to stop on for a further night in these luxurious surroundings. The pool is the largest that we have seen, and is surrounded with coconut palms and green mango's drip from the trees, sun loungers and umbrellas surround the pool, perfect.
The hard riding had certainly taken its toll on Keith, he has deserved his well-earned rest and recuperation, not to mention that he has caught up on the blog: keithoops4.blogspot.com, take a peek and see our journey so far.
We are travelling south tomorrow to Kuta, another popular surfing hot-spot, where we know we will be able to book into yet another stunning hotel. Perhaps we will have a two night stopover; we will decide when we get there. Then we catch the ferry over to Bali our final destination before we fly home on 14 October.
The internet here is very fast also it is free in our up-market hotel - makes a change, hence the flurry of catch-up emails.
Could be a blot on the horizon, Indonesian officials have raised the status of one of its most dangerous volcanoes, Anak Krakatau, to a "standby" or level IV- the highest level. On 2 October there were 2,745 recorded seismic events the swarm of tremors although small, 2 on the Richter scale, are cause for concern because they are felt constantly - hmm. Watch this space!
Further news when we next have a good internet connection.
Have a great day