Lombok and Bali Update
30 September 2022 | Lovina, Pulau Bali, Indonesia
Alison Stocker | Photo: A traditional Balinese dancer
Indonesia continues to stimulate and surprise us. The rally is still allowing us to see and do things that we would not necessarily have managed on our own and it continues to keep us very busy, as the increasingly lagging blog posts testify. The size of the rally is rapidly decreasing, however. In moving from the Medana Bay Marina in Lombok, we have lost several boats as they leave to make the crossing of the Indian Ocean, forge ahead, or stay behind to enjoy Lombok and Bali more slowly. Several more will stay behind when we leave Bali. The reason for this is not hard to see as Lombok and Bali are popular with tourists and ex-pats, especially from Australia and so are somewhat "easier" for us to find things and services that we are used to, and they are both beautiful, mountainous islands.
From Sumbawa, with its extraordinary buffalo races (several younger rally members successfully remained standing on the wooden A-frame attached to a yoke between two Asian water buffalo as they thundered and splashed through a flooded field), we had a fairly slow, rough crossing to Lombok. After a night at an anchorage on the east end of the Island, we had a delightful passage around the north side, enjoying spectacular views of Indonesia's second tallest volcano Gunung Rinjani (3,726 m or 12,224 feet), to Medana Bay Marina. Here we took a mooring for a week, enjoyed an organized tour of the southwestern part of Lombok including a visit inside a huge mosque, snorkeled, and took a daytrip to Senaru, the village on the northern slope of Rinjani that is the start of many treks to the summit. We deferred from that two- to three-day experience and enjoyed a more relaxing hike to see, and cool ourselves in, two impressive waterfalls.
On leaving Medana Bay, we added to our snorkeling adventures by stopping at the nearby Gili Air. As advertised, the water on the east side of this small island was crystal clear and the corals and fish were abundant and flourishing despite a huge number of tourists. Strong winds in the afternoon deterred us from going ashore to explore the village with its many cafés and hostels.
A spectacular sail took us across the Wallace Line (famous to biologists) to the east coast of Bali at the base of the volcano Gunung Agung. Instead of stopping at Ambat Bay as we had intended, we were making such good time that we continued westward to anchor just before dark off Lovina. This allowed us to join a rally tour the next day crossing the mountainous backbone of Bali to visit a temple in beautiful gardens by a lake, and receive traditional greetings in a small village southeast of Ubud (a famous city for artists featured in the book and film, "Eat, Pray, Love").
It was a long day on a bus, but we did get a very good look at the interior of Bali with its many steep-sided ridges, extensive, terraced rice-paddies, and innumerable ornate shrines and temples. Unlike the rest of Indonesia where Islam is the dominant religion, the vast majority of Bali's population is Hindu, leading to a much different appearance to the villages, women's dress, rituals, and ceremonies. Because of all the tourists, here we are much more likely to be accosted by touts trying to sell us something than excited kids shouting, "Hello Mister".
On Monday, we are renting a car for two days to drive back across Bali so that Randall can visit a dentist that specializes in crowns and implants to get at least a temporary cap for the crown that he lost when we were at Tifu Village. We will spend a night in a nice hotel near Ubud and take different routes there and back to see as much more of the Island as possible. After that, we may stay a few more nights in Bali before heading north again on our way towards Kalimantan (Borneo) where we plan to take an overnight boat trip to visit wild orangutans in Tanjung Puting National Park. We are excited about that prospect, but that is probably still quite a few adventures into the future.