After taking a speed boat from Nusa Penida to Bangsal, Lombok, we were ushered to a van which dropped us off at our AirBbnb just south of Sengiggi. On the way our driver asked if we would want to rent a scooter from him, so after he dropped us off, Bryan went with him to get a scooter. When Bryan came back, he told me the scooter had no license plates, but he had expressed his discomfort with this to the owner who had assured him that the license plates were coming in 2 days. Spoiler alert: They never arrived, but we did have a letter signed by the police with us the entire time which allowed for the lack of license plates. There were many scooters on Lombok without license plates, and we were never even pulled over the police while there. The scooter was brand new and a lot nicer than the one we had on Nusa Penida. After running around, we were both fairly exhausted and had no energy to look for supermarkets, so we kept it simple for dinner—instant Nasi Goreng, apples, and snacks for dinner.

The next day we ran errands and found some grocery stores our AirBnb host told us about. HappyCow had only 1 vegan place listed on all of Lombok, so we knew we would need to cook—or I would that is. While out on our errands, we also tried to go to Lombok Pottery Centre, a women run pottery business that works with international companies to sell their products abroad (companies such as Ten Thousand Villages in the US). After finally finding the correct address, we realized it was closed and tried to call to figure out their hours, but nobody picked up. A local had noticed us outside the gates and started talking to us. He told us it was a holiday, so the Centre wouldn’t be open for another few days. I emailed them to hopefully schedule a tour. They replied the following day saying they were closed for a meeting until the 11th of April. I emailed back explaining that I appreciated them replying, but unfortunately we would be gone by then. She then emailed me the next day saying they could fit me in on the 10th, but we had already booked an AirBnb on the Gilis at that point. She sent me back a lovely email explaining their business model and the meeting had been to split the profits for that month among the women working. Should you be in Lombok, I would encourage you to support the center by scheduling a visit or looking for their pottery

The next day my stomach wasn’t doing all that great, so we made it a work day. Around late afternoon, my stomach seemed to have settled, so I decided to jump on the giant trampoline in the backyard of our AirBnb. I felt like a child again doing flips and jumps—it was great. Our AirBnb was behind an art gallery, hidden from the main street, so it felt very safe. The kitchen was big and the air conditioning worked wonderfully. The only thing that wasn’t so great was the giant mosque next door that was SO LOUD and broadcasted 45 minute long calls to prayer at 4:45 am.

The next day, after watching UVA beat Auburn in the NCAA Men’s Final Four (GO HOOS!), we attempted to go directly to a pottery village. It was a 45 minute drive out there, and when we arrived, it looked closed. We stopped in a few pottery shops, but they all seemed dusty or factory made. I was disappointed. We went back and worked on the blog a bit more.

The next day we watched the NCAA finals. When UVA won I was so excited, I couldn’t help but bust out the Good Ol’ Song. Afterwards, we packed up our bag and rode the scooter for 2 hours to do a waterfall hike. We took the coastal roads and rode past gorgeous pockets of tropical coastline, palm tree forest, and sleepy fishing villages.. After about an hour on the scooter, both of our butts went numb—that seat wasn’t too comfy. The last hour we were just counting down the kilometers until we reached our destination.

Once we arrived, a guy pointed us to where we had to park, which was conveniently in front of a tourist center.. The group of men sitting there told us a guide was recommended because the trail was dangerous and the guide could help us cross the streams. Bryan and I were skeptical, but we were in a giving mood I guess. The price wasn’t too bad at 150,000 IDR ($10.64 USD) for the both of us, including the 20,000 IDR fee to enter the park. We parked our scooter and went with our guide. He didn’t speak English very well, so we didn’t talk much. The trail was easy and mostly paved. We arrived at a fork in the path and veered right to go to the furthest waterfall first, Tiu Kelep. At this point, the trail was clearly in pieces, ruined by the 2018 earthquake. The stream crossings were easy, and the hike wasn’t in the least bit difficult, but I ended up happy going with a guide because the original trail was impassible due to fallen trees and thrown rocks from the earthquake. Our guide took us on an unmarked alternative route. We arrived as close as we could get to the waterfall, but it wasn’t nearly as close as you could get pre-earthquake. Before us laid a huge amount of rubble and fallen trees from the landslide the earthquake had caused. Behind that, the waterfall. We then backtracked to the fork in the pathway. On the way back, our guide pointed out a large concrete stream conveyance that went underground along the side of the mountain. He said before the earthquake you could actually ride the conveyance like a waterslide!

We then went down the stairs to the powerful and almot 200 foot high 1st waterfall, Sendang Gile. There we met 2 German girls who were getting ready to trek to Lombok’s highest point (12,224 feet), Mount Rinjani. Mount Rinjani is an active volcano with the last eruption occurring in 2016, so I wasn’t too keen on trekking it myself. We chatted with them for a bit about their travels, and they said we should go stand under the waterfall. Our guide joked it was a good back massage. I watched Bryan from a safe distance cautiously get closer and closer to the roaring cascades of water. He went under the least powerful part of the waterfall and got thoroughly soaked. I then asked one the girls to hold my camera and go in as well, but I was too afraid to go all the way underneath the column of water—I still got soaked though don’t worry! We talked a bit more with the girls before returning to our scooter. On the drive back to our AirBnb, we were treated with sunset views along the coast.

The next morning we woke up at 6 am and packed for our overnight excursion to the Gili Islands! There are 3 islands making up the Gilis—Gili Trawangan (or Gili T, for short), Gili Air, and Gili Meno. Gili T is known for being a party island with nightly beach parties and as a college student that would’ve been my first pick of the islands to visit. Gili Air is a more relaxed and family friendly island, and Gili Meno is the smallest of the 3 islands nicknamed the “Honeymoon Island” because it’s quiet enough for newlyweds to enjoy some alone time on the beach. Bryan did his research on these islands and planned for us to do a day visit to Gili Meno, spend the night and the following day on Gili Air before returning back to Lombok. We rode our scooter to Bangsal port and parked it in a place we could securely leave it overnight. We then went in search for the public boat. We got stopped almost immediately and pointed to a tourist information stand. From there it was an onslaught of locals pitching us tours and speed boats. We stuck to our guns and requested the public boat. We paid 50,000 IDR for the both of us, about 20,000 more than if we had gone directly to the boat, but we had an hour to kill before it was going to leave, so we were fine with the up-charge if we could stay out of the hot sun while we waited.

I got out my journal from my backpack, and Bryan retrieved his book to kill some time. Every so often, the guys running the stand would ask us a question followed up by a sales pitch. It started to get on my nerves honestly. Then, the owner came out and talked with us about his daughter and how she likes to journal as well. I thought he was buttering us up for another sales pitch, but he just walked away after the conversation, a pleasant surprise! It wasn’t long though before his guys tried a last minute pitch for an upgrade. “Family boat, leave now, just another 50,000.” His friend standing outside watching the boats come into port yelled, “No! 80,000!” I finally looked directly at them and asked them to stop trying to sell us things. Our answer was always going to be “No. We’re going on the public boat. We don’t mind waiting an hour for it to fill.” But just as I finished saying that, another guy came and told us the boat was ready to leave. Bryan looked at his watch—we were leaving 30 minutes before the scheduled departure! The boat had filled up early. We figured the other guys had heard an announcement and tried to get more money out of us last minute before we found out. This is a common exchange we had while traveling in Southeast Asia cheaply. I didn’t mind it at first, but as we had been dealing with this constantly for the past 3 months, I found it exhausting and frustrating. I get that we are more well off than these locals, but at that point we had no jobs or income and a strict budget. I don’t mind getting the Westerner tax, but locals continually trying to rip you off wears on you. Anyways, I was happy to be on our way to these little islands of paradise.

We were the only non locals on the boat, which I found hilarious. It was a half hour ride, and Bryan and I were the last ones on the boat so we got the seats in direct sunlight—talk about hot hot hot! The boat was filled up with food goods to bring to businesses on the Gilis. The other thing about Indonesia, is that many of the boats don’t pull up to a dock. They merely wash up to shore or close enough that when you jump off the boat you land in shallow water (usually only up to your knees) and walk up to shore. Dipping my feet in the water felt really refreshing after that boat ride! After we arrived in Gili Meno, we walked around the island towards the turtle sanctuary. We almost walked right past it because of how small it was. No one was watching the tanks; you could literally walk right up to the baby turtles swimming around. There were 7 tanks, which were really just man made pools of water with tons of baby turtles in each pool. A sign explained the rescue hatches the eggs in a protected area away from predators. They then take care of the turtles for 8 months until they’ve grown enough to fend for themselves. Each pool is a different age group of turtles. They were absolutely adorable. Many swam around playing with each other, and it was quite amazing to see how much they grow in 8 months.

Afterwards, we walked in search of a bathroom for Bryan. I saw a stand with some of the ripest mini pineapples I’d seen in Indonesia, so I bought one to snack on. The lady selling them cut it so I could eat it like a popsicle, with the steam as the stick. As I was eating it the juices were running down my chin—it was so deliciously sweet. We stopped at one restaurant to see if they had smoothies as Bryan was craving one, but they didn’t and their bathroom wasn’t working, so we continued our search with a little more urgency. The next restaurant did have a bathroom, so Bryan made a beeline for it while I awkwardly ate my pineapple and pretended to be interested in a smoothie. Finally, Bryan came out and ordered a smoothie, while I threw away my pineapple scraps. It was then I noticed the corners of my mouth, above and below my lips, and my lips were burning! Like if somehow I’d gotten a rug burn on my mouth. My tongue felt like I had taken a spoonful of hot soup and burned my tongue on it. I thought I was having a mild allergic reaction, which had never occurred when eating pineapple before, but later I found out it was the enzymes int he pineapple core reacting to my skin. A week after eating the pineapple, I still had some sores in the corners of my mouth and the skin right below my lip was even chapped and scabbed up! And that was the last time I ate a pineapple core haha

Back to Gili Meno. After Bryan finished his smoothie, we walked on the southwest side of the island. I should mention here are NO motorized vehicles on the island of Gili Meno. If you need to get anywhere fast—you bike. The island is only about 1 mile in length, so it really doesn’t take long to get anywhere. It was nice to be able to walk on the pathways without feeling like you were gong to be run over by a scooter. There are no hawkers on the beaches, and the sand is soft and bright white. The ocean is a gorgeous light turquoise and perfect for snorkeling. In fact, that’s exactly what we did next. We found a snorkel gear rental stand and rented fins and masks for $3.50 each for the entire day! The stand has some Lil Wayne blasting from its speakers, and I couldn’t help but bob my head and dance a little while the guy running the stand got our gear ready. It had been so long since I’d heard “A Milli,” that before I knew it, I was singing some of the lyrics much to the guy’s amusement.

Masks and fins on, we then went into the water from the shore. At first all we saw was sea grass, but the deeper the water became, the more coral was there and tons of beautiful tropical fish. We avoided a few triggerfish too (in Flores we would learn the triggerfish in Indonesia aren’t aggressive like in Thailand). Right beyond where we were snorkeling the ocean floor dropped off, so we made sure to stay away from the edge. After about an hour of exploring the southwest side of the island, we became hungry. I was a little disappointed because this was supposed to be an area with tons of sea turtles, but we hadn’t seen any. As we had just decided to go in however, Bryan spotted a turtle!! The turtle was giant and just scooting along without a care in the world. We followed him for a bit, keeping a fair distance so as not to frighten him. He went up for air a couple of times which allowed us to observe him from another angle than just looking down at his shell. I have to mention that there were literally no other people snorkeling with us, so it was a rare moment to observe nature without hoards of tourists to navigate around.

After we had our turtle fill, we went in and began our mission to eat at the only vegan restaurant on Gili Meno. Bryan was confident in his man sense that day, especially since there were only 4 roads on the entire island. He was convinced he could find the restaurant from memory and didn’t need his phone, even after I asked if he wanted to take one little peek at a map before we set out. I will admit Bryan normally has as good of a sense of direction as I do (he would argue he has a WAY BETTER sense of direction—this may always be a subject we agree to disagree on), but uhhh—sometimes he’s way off. This was one of those times. We left our phones with the rest of our stuff in the locker at the rental stand and set off. What we didn’t account for were the many dirt roads that don’t show up on the maps branching off from the 4 main roads. We asked several people, and they all had never heard of the restaurant and would tell us, “but you can eat at my friend’s restaurant,” and would point down the block. An hour of searching and getting frustrated with each other I spotted a tourist with her phone out. Jackpot. I asked if she could look up a place on her phone for us, and she was unsure. She asked if we had seen a hostel, and I looked at the wooden post next to where we were standing and saw a sign with the hostel’s name on it and pointing in the direction down the road from where we were standing. All the road intersections were decorated with these wooden posts with 20 or so signs nailed precariously to them pointing out directions of various businesses. Unfortunately, not one of them had a sign for the restaurant we were looking for. The girl thanked us and then looked up the restaurant on Google Maps. It popped right up! Bryan looked at the map and off we went. When we finally found it, the restaurant appeared closed. I could not believe it, mainly because I was so hungry that I was determined to eat there whether it was open or not (and there were no other restaurants in sight). Bryan finally found the owners, a British couple who told him they were open! We sat down and ordered. The food was expensive, but they had falafel and hummus which I had been craving and unable to find in a sea of restaurants only offering vegan options of fried rice and fried noodles. The food took a long time to prep, but it was delicious. The seating area needed some cleaning, but I didn’t care. Afterwards, we asked them where the underwater statues were. These statues are Gili Meno’s other claim to fame. We walked to the beach on the southwest side. the beach here was made up of sharp little dead corral pieces. We saw a few boats with daytrip snorkelers gathered around one spot, so we strapped on our masks and fins and swam towards them figuring the statues would be there. We were right! The circle of statues are comprised of naked men standing behind naked women—scandalous for the normally modest culture in Indonesia! We were also surprised to find a huge variety and quantity of tropical fish there as all the corral in this area seemed to be dead or dying.

We took the long way back to the rental stand by walking along the south shore, taking in the gorgeous white sand beaches. We also spotted the comfy resort we joked our parents would stay in (accommodation on this island is comprised mainly of bungalows, which in actuality is more of a camping experience). After returning our snorkel gear, we bought a ride to Gili Air on the private boat of the same guy running the snorkel rental stand. He does it all! A Swiss couple also rode with us. At Gili Air, we checked into our AirBnb and reveled in the amazing AC of our bungalow. We then went to an Indian restaurant for dinner and realized the main ATM was out of money. The next closest ATM was also out of money. We made a plan to ration the cash we had to make sure we had enough money to buy a boat ticket back to Lombok the next day!

The next day we dedicated as a pure beach day. Our AirBnb served us breakfast during which a cat decided it was going to be my new best friend and sat on my lap the entire time we were at the table. After breakfast and saying goodbye to my new kitty friend, we finally found a working ATM and pulled out some extra cash. We then walked to the Northwest side of the island where the beautiful bright white sand beaches were and parked ourselves on some beach loungers under an umbrella. We spent that day swimming, relaxing, and had lunch and drinks right there on the beach! It was a perfect day to soak up some rays. In the mid-afternoon we caught a large speedboat back to Lombok. We returned our trusty scooter and packed up to move on to our next destination in Indonesia—Flores!