Last summer I wandered about a rainforest, saw wild monkeys, swam in the warm (!) Ocean, and observed a culture vastly different from my Norwegian one. I was on the other side of the earth, on the island of Lombok, Indonesia.
It still feels almost like yesterday when my parents, sister and I took a plane from Oslo to Munich, then to Singapore and finally to Lombok. It was my first time in Asia! The 12 hour flight from Germany went by surprisingly fast as I had the window seat and could see the mountains in Afghanistan, enormous cities in India lightening up the sky and beautiful sunsets. We flew With Singapore Airlines and got a personal mini-tv that had all kinds of tv series and movies. While browsing around I found the British ITV historical drama Victoria, starring Jenna Coleman and Tom Hughes, and completely completely in love! I watched the whole first season that flight, only interrupted by some occasional meals and my parents persuading me to sleep a couple of hours (which was probably for the best).
We had to wait ten hours at Singapore airport, where we got some more sleep after wandering about for a few hours trying to find a place to sit (my father actually had to look up Trip Advisor to find the resting place). I will write a seperate post about our little adventure in Singapore another time. The trip took us about 34 hours all together, and it’s fair to say that we were exhausted afterwards.
We stayed at the Sheraton Senggigi Beach Resort (Hotel website) and loved everything about it! The staff were really nice and helpful, and actually tried to remember our names! As we stayed for two weeks, we aqtually got to get to know some of them fairly well, as they were always up to a conversation when they had the time. They offered movie nights at the beach at least once a week, Indonesian dinner nights with traditional music and dancing, spa treatment, diving lessons and tennis among other things. You could choose to be by the swimming pool and bar where there were a bit more life and noise, or to lay on the more quiet beach, under a palmtree, reading a book (as we mostly did).
It took me a while to get used to the food. Especially the smell of it at breakfast, as noodles and curry isn’t something I usually consider breakfast food, and I have to admit that it made me a bit nauseous in the morning. I usually eat a slice of bread with cheese or some ceral at home. It’s not exactly better or worse (when I got used to it), just different. Luckily they also served delicious crepes, omelettes and fresh fruit. The tiny bananas were adorable! They also had a chocolate fountain, which was a bit cool. The dinners were wonderful! Local Indonesian food consists mostly of rice and grilled meat with different sauces, somewhat similar to Indian food. The only problem were the gigantic sizes of the portions (aka. American) so I was rarely able to eat everything and felt so bad knowing they had to throw it away. The fresh fruit is insanely delicious! Especially the pineapples and bananas, which they also make heavanly freshly squeezed juices of. I drank about three a day! Also remember to drink A LOT, or else you’ll get dehydrated which isn’t very nice. Trust me, I’ve tried it…
The people of Lombok were so kind and actually genuinely smiling, and always willing to help! Yes, of course there were some pretty annoying sellers as there are whereever there are tourists, but they weren’t aggressive as some others have been. My mother became friends with some of the hotel staff, and we had some really interesting and educational conversations about our cultures. In most cases we had to explain where Norway was and that we had different seasons, it wasn’t summer all year. They became really surprised when we told them that we couldn’t grow anything in the winter. That we basically just have grain, apples, pears, potatoes and forest berries growing in the summer, whereas they have all kinds of exotic fruits growing all year. Some of the tour guides were most willing to discuss politics and the local culture with us, and despite their lacking English, we learned lots of new and interesting things.
Some things I saw along the roads were a family of four pressed together on one scooter, none of them wearing helmets and their baby sitting in a basket, monkeys, beautiful rice fields, children running around in their school uniforms, a marching band wearing orange turbans (or a similar kind of hat) pressed together on the back of a lorry, a horse-drawn carriage, a volcano, a thousand scooters, a busy marketplace, cows and the rainforest.
On one of our last days we arranged a trip to the waterfalls in the north with help from the hotel staff, and it was an exciting two hour car ride, where we got to see most of the things I mentioned above. Of course we had to lend a driver, as the Indonesian traffic rules are somewhat nonexistent, at best chaotic. The monkeys loves peanuts by the way! We saw hundreds of them that day, sitting at the side of the road and climbing the trees. We had to walk about half an hour into the rainforest (with a young guide) to see the magnificent waterfall, but it was absolutely worth it! From there my dad and I crossed a river with the help of a dozen young local boys joking around and posing for pictures, obviously having fun! We walked to a second waterfall which I am pretty sure I have seen a lot on Instagram after that too. There were actually some other Norwegians swimming in the water below, which was a bit surprising as we were in a jungle on the other side of the world.
I wish we could have explored the island a bit more, because the day in the rainforest was one of the most exciting days in my life so far! But my family really loved just relaxing on the beach in the sun, which we don’t get to do a lot at home because it’s too cold. This also meant more reading time to me!
During the two weeks I was there, I read two and a half books. The first one was Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli which I could not put down! Seriously. I read while I walked, at the beach, when we were waiting for meals at a restaurant, in my bed. Everywhere! I have not been so caught up in a book for a long time. The second book I read was All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. This is a beautiful story following a French blind girl and a German orphan boy during WW2, which have stayed With me ever since, much like The Book Thief . Those two books became instant favourites! However, the Third book was a bit more dissapointing. I really enjoyed the first half of The Life of Pi by Yann Martel, but by the middle of the book I found it to be slightly repetetive and boring, so sadly I lost interest and put it down. Maybe I’ll try again sometime in the future, as I really liked the writing and concept.
Fabelastic Books 