Day 2 - 14 July (Part II) - Looking Beyond

Grimlock took up a Honeymoon package (yah, I know we've been married for five good years but this is what the resort termed the package as) for our stay at Nirvana Roemah Air, inclusive of two-night stay (we extended by one more night), daily breakfast, one romantic dinner at a nearby island and a day tour. On day 2 (14 July), a local guide picked us up for the day tour of the town area.

The first stop was to take a ride down part of the Meningting river on a gondola (bamboo raft). We had some glimpses of the Sasak people who have set up their homes (ie villages) by the river. There are those who depend on the river for their livelihood, others who take their baths and draw water from it, some who use the river as a form of transportation, and many whose livestock flourish because of it.

The pollution was quite bad. With the lack of a proper refuse disposal system in place, the river and its bank are being used as dumping grounds. This trip was altogether an eye-opener for an urbanite like me.

This group was transporting back some grass that they just harvested for their cattle:


See the reptile that is perching on the bamboo? This species can be widely seen here.

After the gondola ride, we were taken to a restaurant for lunch. The very word lombok means "chili pepper" in Bahasa Indonesia. The dishes you see below aren't quite as spicy as one might expect, except for the chilli condiment in the Gado-Gado dish ('shiok' is the word to describe - my nose cleared up after eating it).

The bottled tea that Grimlock had. The bottle design speaks of nostalgia...


Gado-gado vegetable salad (simple but quite nice):


A well-known local dish, ayam taliwang - chicken coated with a rich red sauce flavored with galangal, turmeric and tomato. The meat is quite tasty - just too bad that kampung chicken is being used so the meat is very little and chewy.


Another popular local dish, grilled fish. Very little or simple seasoning is being used, yet the dish is actually quite nice (one can taste the freshness of the fish meat).

After lunch, we proceeded to another village known for textiles weaving using traditional looms to produce traditional Ikat and Songket fabrics. This is a traditional handicraft of the Sasak, the pre-dominant cultural group in Lombok (85% Sasak - Muslims). The girls start to learn how to weave from about the age of eight. Once a marriage proposal has been made, the girl would have to make three pieces of textile - one for her mother-in-law, one for her husband and one for herself.

A weaving demo by one of the villagers; she is considered to have attained an intermediate level of skills. The more complicated the designs, the greater the number of thread looms.

We bought two pieces of textiles (Rp35,000=S$5.07) - these will make lovely sofa throws :) for our home. The visit to the weaving village wrapped up the day tour.

The structures you see in the photo, taken from the mainland bulding, are the two floating villas of Nirvana Roemah Air. Ours is the one on the right.

We spent the rest of the day catching our first sunset at Lombok - we took in the view from right on the deck. And when the night finally descended, the skies were laced with stars; something one won't get to see back in Singapore, not unless if you get to a very remote, not well-lit area.

I browsed through the villa's guest comments book and saw that guests who stayed here previously came from all parts of the world - Australia, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany and a few others. I had the honour of being the first from Singapore to leave word in the book, which I did with much gladness.

We were supposed to go to one of the nearby islands for a candlelight dinner on the shores (also part of the Honeymoon package). There was some delay by the staff in getting the things ready and it was getting too dark (and we couldn't gauge the currents). I didn't feel safe taking a boat under such circumstances so we settled for dinner on the deck instead. Given the surroundings, the dinner was romantic nonetheless.