Tour de Lombok

At five o'clock yesterday morning, we hauled ourselves out of bed to a waiting car and an amazing breakfast box prepared by the manager/owner couple of our villa and headed out east on dark roads.

Destination: a small fishing village on the far east coast called Tanjung Luar where we had heard a great fish market runs daily. After a two hour drive during a gorgeous sunrise (which is the first I've seen in a while), we arrived at the very busy and crowded village and and were rewarded with a fish market like no other. I'll let the photos do the explaining:

There were bigger fish:




Smaller fish:




Tiny fish:



Sharks:



Sharks:





And more sharks:





Scary teeth:





Less scary without the head:




Manta rays:




Kids fresh from swimming in the sea:




And a few characters eager for a picture:








Yes, his hand is covered in blood because they gut and sell the fish right off the market floor. Not a lot of ice around... Although this guy had some:




There was just a huge amount of fish!!




Was it as awesome as it looked? Hell yes it was!! Definitely worth the trip if you're in Lombok and you don't mind a bit of fish stink and guts. It actually didn't smell too bad considering - you do have to watch your step unless you want to end up sliding through fish guts.

Next we headed to a village where the local women use traditional ancient looms to weave The most fabulously elaborate designs. One piece can take up to three months - what patience. While it is a tourist attraction, the women really do this all day and according our guide are not permitted to marry until they can show they are competent at weaving... Is that not the point when you think perhaps marriage is overrated?




The goods they produce are amazing and we left with a blue piece woven with gold thread.

Our next stop was a couple of adjoining waterfalls, which were a reasonable walk combined with a fair bit of scrambling over large hillsides, but totally worth the effort. This is the first one, which was completely deserted:




The second one was used as a giant bathing pool for local people to wash, swim and generally frolic around. From tiny kids to elderly women, the place was full of people in various states of undress having a really good scrub under the falls and in the water. It wasn't easy to avoid taking photos of all the nude people, but I think we're good with these shots:







It felt a little like intruding on people's bath time, so we didn't loiter too long.

Next stop was to look at Lombok's famous pearls which are harvested from both fresh water and sea water. Gorgeous... But a little too pricey for people on an extended trip!

Today is our last in Lombok - tomorrow morning we head out to the gili islands for a couple of days of concentrated snorkeling.

I hope we don't run into any sharks...

- Posted using ink from a manta ray's tentacle

Location:Jalan Raya Senggigi,Gunungsari,Indonesia