Arriving in Lombok

The Silk Air flight to Lombok reminded us of the time we flew Air India from Mumbai. What do I mean? I mean that practically all of the other passengers weren't used to flying and broke all the rules that I thought everyone knew. People tried to sneak cigarettes when no one was looking, talked on mobile phones during take-off, and unbuckled seatbelts just before landing in the attempt to be the first off the plane. At least we didn’t have to fill in everyone’s immigration cards like we had to on that Air India flight (they needed them filled in in English). The poor flight attendants - I wonder if it's like that everyday.

We landed safely in Mataram Airport and as we disembarked, we were hit with the real smell of Asia: the smell of pollution mixed with the smell of burning wood. It was a lot less humid and hot than Singapore which was just as well as there was a long queue for visas. We stood outside the terminal building with the other foreigners watching little geckos congregate on the “Entrance” sign.

We got a taxi to the hotel we had booked and it was so dark that we couldn’t see anything along the way – quite a change from Singapore. We seemed to dodge an awful lot of motorbikes and bicycles without lights and even the odd horse-drawn cart.

We had arrived at a ghost-hotel. There were extensive grounds lit with lanterns but not a soul in sight. A ring of the bell at the outdoor reception brought the receptionist and we were soon shown to our room. The room turned out to be a cottage – we had been upgraded! Probably because there were no other guests… There were signs of life in the Sengigi strip outside however if the sounds pumping out of Club Tropicana across the road were anything to go by so we went out to explore.

The strip comprised of about 30 bars all competing for business. That business has been slack lately. Poor Indonesia. Tourism was already suffering since the bombings and now with all the natural disasters, things are very slow. We picked a small bar with one table of locals in it called Matahari. We ordered a bottle of Bintang beer which came with two frosty glasses. We chatted to the waitress, Achi originally from Sulawesi. She’d arrived in Lombok in 1997 at the height of the tourist boom. One of the locals was the amiable Denny who told us a bit more about places to see in Lombok. Another local, Charlie, tried to sell us ganja.

On the way home we passed a lot of travel agencies selling trekking tours up Rinjani Mountain. We had already arranged ours which would start the next day.