Beaches of Senggigi

13th October

Monday and I was hungry when I woke up. I had a banana pancake with honey for breakfast, fruit and a coffee. Coffee here is in powder form which they mix with boiling water - so its like filter coffee without the filter - you just wait for the powder to settle at the bottom.

I walked to the beach further up the coast. 'Jalan-Jalan' this is what the locals often say when they see me - it means walking. I suppose I'm often walking - I was tempted to get a grab bike but I just walked & once I was half way there it didn't seem worth it. It took an hour all in all, but it helped burn off the pancake!

At least here they mostly have pavements to use -  some of the kerbs are really high.

At the beach called Mangsit beach I sat on the sand and chatted to Dan, a local who runs surf lessons. He thought himself a bit of a cool dude, I think, he had long hair and sunglasses and was trying to persuade me to take surf lessons. I told him I had tried in Portugal and I was rubbish. He said here the waves were ideal for beginners. I said I was too old! and he said no! 'we have all sorts, any age, we have some really fat ones!' 😂

He also had a guitar, which he couldn't really play,  but then neither could I. 

The tree above had a strange fruit which is inedible, but the leaves are used to make baskets and things. I walked further up the beach, did some sunbathing, went in the sea and read my book for a bit. There are plenty of sellers on the beach, trying to sell bracelets and sarongs etc.

I feel sorry for them. They all say, Dan included, that business is very slow, 'not many tourists'.  The busy time is July and August but even then it was quiet.

It started to rain a little so I headed to a beach side cafe for a coke and then ended up eating there. I had a grilled fish called Baronang, or 'rabbit fish' with rice. It was nice.

In Indonesia the people eat with their hands, and only the right hand. The left is for washing your bum! They don't really use toilet paper, and there are always hoses with a spray tap on the end for washing or a bucket full of water and a large cup, like a jug, inside to scoop up the water. They always have toilet paper too, in public loos for us tourists.

It is considered rude to pass something to someone with your left hand.

Later, a lot of the local young lads were trying to surf. I sat for a bit longer then walked back, catching the sunset on the way. A lot of young Indonesians gathered too, to watch the sunset and take pictures.

The sun sets fast here, due to the closeness to the equator:

Later I chatted to my neighbour, Isa - I thought her name was Lisa but I heard it wrong. She has just graduated and is travelling alone.

14th October

Tuesday, and I just went to the beach more or less opposite the home-stay, so no walking and I had a proper swim in the sea. There was quite a bit of rubbish on the beach at the top near the cafes and huts. I think its a real problem all over Lombok. They could do with a 'clean up' operation.

There were a couple of local ladies who went into the sea for a swim too, except they were fully clothed and had life jackets on......I'm guessing they never learnt to swim.

A bracelet seller called Wok came to sell me some bracelets and as I had kind of decided I wanted to buy one with a little turtle on, which is the symbol for Lombok. I bought a couple. The turtles lay their eggs on some of the beaches here & on the Gilis.

We chatted for a while. Turns out he's more or less the same age as me, he born in '72, and has two kids, a daughter 22 & son 16. So similar but very different lives. It is quite humbling. He said it was tough, again saying there are not many tourists and a lot of competition from other sellers. His parents had died long ago - I think maybe their life expectancy is no where near as long as ours! Life in many ways is tougher for them. As we talked there were some building noises from the hotel under construction behind. He said they are making a swimming pool. 

His daughter, the older one, works in a shop and his son is still at school. He said two children is enough! And one wife! He is from a bigger family of 7 kids.

He was also telling me about the earthquake in 2018 - luckily for him, his house was ok. He said people were screaming and crying and rushing up into the hills because they were scared there would be a tsunami - but luckily there wasn't. He said the earthquake happened at night- time. He pointed out some rocks on the beach further up that had fallen due to the quake. He also pointed out a Hindu temple, which I decided to walk to, along the beach.

The sand on this beach is black in places from the volcanic soil. I kind of like this and find it quite beautiful. It reminds me of when we went to the beach in Castel Volturno (my Dad's home town) in the south of Italy, where the sand was also black, because of Mount Vesuvius.

At the temple there were strange green coloured rocks

While sitting on the rocks near the temple, a lady gave me some fruit from a tree, called Jambu air. A new fruit for me! It is quite watery, but refreshing. She said there were so many. I suppose like apples from trees at home in Autumn.

On the way back I stopped at the rock pool, created by the fallen rocks. There were lots of little crabs and fish in there, it was relaxing to sit and watch them darting out from between the rocks. Some were tiny and really well camouflaged. There was a rumble and some flashes from the thunder storm in the distance

It's funny, talking to visitors, there are all the 'compulsory' or 'must do' activities to do in Indonesia, like Mount Bromo at sunrise, Mount Ijen and the blue fire at night, the Mount Rinjani trek, the Komodo tour........I've done some too of course. 

But sometimes you can get just as much satisfaction from sitting, gazing into a rock pool for half an hour, or chatting to locals like Wok. They do like to chat to you, even after they have sold their wares or if you don't buy anything. For them it is useful to improve their English. This is how Wok learnt as he was never taught it at school. I suppose it's a way to give them a little gift. They really like to know and hear about what it is like in England, the weather, the seasons, the food.

I went back to my room via the supermarket. Sometimes I find the people working in the super markets or posher restaurants almost too polite. Their grins seem almost a bit fake......maybe I'm a little too cynical, but it's like they have been told to be that way, trying too hard. I find the politeness from the sellers and smaller cafes a bit more relaxed.

I had to buy some local mosquito spray, as apparently, the sprays from abroad don't work on the mosquitoes here. I hope this one works, it's called Soffell.

The humidity here sometimes is such that, even after you have a shower - and a cold one is bliss - you need another one 5 minutes later!

My watch has gone a bit weird - like it has slipped into a time zone all of its own! It now says it's the 17th!?

There are so many Dutch people here and many are mixed-race Indonesians, here on holiday or visiting relatives, due to the dutch occupation (although not on Lombok itself). 

I love the way Suzanne, the owner of this place, talks. It is funny as she sounds like the women from my favourite film Fargo - the 'Minnesota nice' accent, 'Oh Ya! Ya'. There are many dutch settlers too in Minnesota USA.

I had to go back to the beach for sunset number two