A beginner's guide to tourism...

crazy builders
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Mataram, joyous transit site for so many travellers visiting Lombok, was for us just a little bit more than a watering hole.  Having elected to spend the night there we proceded to shock and astound locals at an unfathomable rate be refusing their offers of transport to the Gili islands, Sengigi beach or the nearby Mount Rinjani. "But why are you here?" they would ask us.. surely you wish to see the gili islands, yes? My brother, he has a boat....  A boat, a  necklace production line and even a water manufacturing plant from what we could tell, but no,  we wanted to explore and we were having none of anybody's attempts to convince us otherwise. we even had a nice walk with one man who tried to explain to us we were going the wrong way for the beach, then asked us(as everyone here does) where we were going, then finally realising we were just exploring, let us know how much a bemo should cost if we get lost and said goodbye! Everything was dandy really....that was until we met the dogs....

more crazy builders
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Our approach to selecting accomodation for the night was one which we hadn't    used to date, but certainly fared better than could have been expected. After paying the bemo ride for ourselves and a passing army man  who'd hopped on (nobody was going to tell HIM to pay) we were dropped off on a side street, close to the middle of town. This was because we had refused the offers of everything from accomodation or tours right through to lunch or dinner, and our bemo driver was certainly not going to run the risk of letting any other tout at the bemo centre snap us up if he wasn't getting the commission. This was not a problem, but it was stinking hot and we had our bags so when, midway along the street, Mary said "that place was in L.P." we decided that it'd do just fine! Further down the back alley where it was located we passed a particularly vocal sweatshop and a trendy shop called "rebellion" (i think) where the badboys were congregating and eyeing up t-shirts with moderately offensive slogans on them... so far, so good. but then came the dogs. one of them, a particularly horny male, seemed to be adopting a fairly physical approach to courtship and was jumping, at times with all four legs, onto the back of the female. this wasn't a problem although i confess i was a  little bit amused. but then five other males, snarling and barking and generally scaring the hell out of us came and sprung upon this horny bloke-dog and it all got pretty messy. whilst we snuck past the action and into the hotel, the sounds of medieval justice being served upon mister pooch were overheard for some time. urk indeed....

paddy fields in the city centre
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now the accomodation was dandy and had that great joy of indonesia - free sweet tea! we were extremely content when the man brought out some cake to go with the tea and before long we were on enough of a sugar high to go in search of a map of the island.  L.P. in its wisdom advised that the centre for tourism was a decent place and, whilst something of a hike from the look of the map, we figured we'd give it a bash. after walking past screaming school kids who delighted in saying hello and waving we met another commodity - builders who delighted in screaming and waving! we were really  enjoying the feeling of being a bit more in the wild after our time in Kuta, but when I stopped to take a photo of a bamboo scaffold  up the side of a building site, the guys on it spotted me, screamed to their fellow workers to give a wave and i really worried that with their enthusiasm one might fall to his death! not to worry about that though as before i'd taken my photo there were even louder screams from the left - was there some kind of war on the go? sort of... the builders to my left were performing a crazy sex act with what i think was their stepladder in the hope that THIS was the photographic gem that i wished to take home with me! (and yes, i am quite proud of the shot!). Over their cheers when i was snapping them i heard, to my genuine surp[rise ANOTHER building site behind me, they too were eager for attention.... we took a quick snap and fled!

WHen we finally found the tourism office, out in the middle of the rice paddies, surrounded by very opulent premises, we   found it (apparently) deserted. A beautiful building, it stood more or less empty but for some fairly beautiful hardwood dining furniture and a large cabinet. through the windows you could see clearly off into the mountains over lush green rice  paddies and truly, the place was quite unlike the city from which we'd just  hiked to get our map! that said, the map wasn't looking too hopeful i fnobody was here! finally, we caught a cleaner coming downstairs and asked him if there was a map and he ran off to fetch his mop.  once he'd done that, he then went to get a map. i'm not sure if the two co-incided, but shortly after he returned, very nicely took us through the information he'd rooted out for us and then followed us from the building and locked the gates behind us... it was about this time that we realised we were about two hours out of usual opening times!  poor chappy.....we felt kind of bad!

That night we had  a fantastic feed at a local spot - little  huts, surrounded by hungry cats, located beside the main shopping centre. the food was unbelievable - six dish platter for two of us let us get a taste of all things lombok and we were   both stuffed to the limit by the time we wandered back to the room. on the way though, we stopped to buy some water and had a delighful conversation, conducted completely in indonesian with the shopkeeper ( which we were oh so proud of) in which we discovered he had a friend from scotland named Gordon. ok, not such a revelation, but fun to understand!

In the morning we got up to see what our "complimentary breakfast" was. when we saw it, we both agreed that we weren't quite sure what it was. first thing in the morning, that's always a fun state of affairs. just like  reading the box on your cereal at home, trying to decipher the contents of your jaffle can also be great. after a tentative nibble we knew everything. it was strawberry jam and vermicelli toastie. it was, i assure  you, quite  yummy if, perhaps, a little odd! still, it gave us just the right amount of sugar to get ourselves (and our bags) past the fervently yapping dogs and the friendly (possibly recruiting) sweatshop to hop in a bemo and head to the beach. that, however, is a different story....