Day 4 - 16 July - "All Good Things Will Come to an End"

This day was the last of our stay at Nirvana Roemah Air. We finished packing up and were waiting for the local guide to pick us up. Our flight back home was in the evening so we booked another day tour with him. To 'kill' time, we had our last shot at fishing. Lo and behold, we were in for a surprise. Out of a sudden, Grimlock sprang up to his feet and went for his rod. The fishing line went straight and was taut. Hurray, Grimlock got a fish!

Grimlock got into quite a fight with the fish which lasted about eight minutes. The rod went a-bending. I could see it was quite tiring on Grimlock's part. I was hopeful it was a BIG fish, hee hee :) - part of the action was captured on video here:



I stopped recording when the line suddenly was no longer taut. We thought we lost the fish. Grimlock continued to wind in the fishing line and look...

Grimlock got his first fish!

We had no net with us so Grimlock lifted the fish out of the waters.

Quite a nice-looking fish - silvery with light blue lines on the body.

It was not that big a fish so we decided to release it back to the sea. I later checked with my brother who is a fishing enthusiast. He told us it belongs to the snapper family. He was the one who gave us a 'crash' course on fishing prior to the trip, as well as assembled and loaned us the fishing gear.

It was also time to bid Nirvana Roemah Air a fond goodbye. It was low tide again so when we were about 100m away from the mainland building, we had to disembark from the perahu fishing boat, rolled up our burmudas/pants and got down into the water (slightly below our knee caps).

The entrance to Nirvana Roemah Air. The guy in the photo was the staff who attended to us during our stay; very hospitable chap.

The first stop of our day tour was a visit to a pottery village. Either I ate something wrong for breakfast or it was the traveling, the first thing I did upon arrival was to head for the toilet. I felt better after throwing up. Reminder to self: Must buy travel/motion-sickness pills the next time round.

When I finally settled down, one of the villagers gave me (aka her one-time apprentice) a demo on clay sculpting (see video clip below). She had a few figurines for me to pick on for the piece I wanted to make. There wasn't a cat. No surprise then the cat came to mind so I requested for this. I did part of the initial modeling but ended up I was quite contented to have her finish the piece for me (I also couldn't follow her instructions in Bahasa Indonesia).

Well, the Mouse did give the final touches to the cat figurine. The figurine looks more like a piglet instead. I'm glad most of the sculpting was not my doing, hahaha. I find it bears some resemblance of Skoda which Grimlock disagrees on.

I bought coasters as souvenirs for my colleagues, and this placemat for our home. The image is the reptile that we saw while on the gondola ride - it symbolises happiness.

After the visit to the pottery village, we took lunch at a restaurant which the local guide strongly recommended of. The outdoor area is made up of pavilions like this one - we took our lunch here.

A water pot beside each pavilion for patrons to wash their hands. You need to put out the small stick at the bottom and the water will flow out.

Clockwise (from top left-hand corner): Chilli kangkong (vegetable), four-dish lunch with rice, ayam taliwang (chicken), tauhu goreng (fried beancurd) with a dip, coconut juice with honey (very nice!) and grilled fish.

Then the guide brought us to the Monkeys' Mountain. He bought groundnuts for us to feed the monkeys. Monkeys are very smart creatures. In one of the photos, you'll see the leader of the pack - he picks his groundnuts and won't eat those that are spoilt. The guide handed out a mineral water bottle, with some special conoction that he wouldn't tell me, and the Alpha took it from his hand and gulped down the content.

After the Monkeys' Mountain, we headed for the Senggigi region, the main tourist strip of Lombok. The drive took close to 1.5hour and the road was quite winding. I was feeling nauseous again and this time, I might have eaten too much for lunch too. I kept falling asleep during the traveling - I'd have managed better if the guide left me to snooze (normally this is what I do during such traveling) but he kept trying to "help" me stay awake by making small talk (uurrgggghhh). We made a few stopovers to take in the views along the way:

After getting off at Senggigi, I went straight for the toilet - 'merlioned' again :( We were only given 30minutes to look around. By now, I had enough of the sea, beaches and the place is too touristy for my liking, so we settled down in a bar for drinks and a light snack. After Senggigi, it was time for us to head for the airport. This wrapped up our Lombok vacation.

To sum it up all, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. It had been quite a while since I last travelled to a rural place for a vacation. The main experience was akin to going back to the basics, not just referring to going off certain modern conveniences for the few short days, but more of a re-weighing and refocusing of priorities and motivations. The people depend on agriculture and fishing for their livelihood. The area is rich in produce such as rice, maize, cashew nuts, bananas and even gold. They may not have much materialistically or they 'make-do' with what they have - but they are no less happy, and maybe even derive a different sense of contentment or satisfaction altogether.

I'm thankful to Grimlock for the thoughts, time and efforts in making this vacation possible.