In at the deep end in Indonesia

Lombok 

Not knowing a great deal about Lombok, we flew into Kuta and stayed there for a couple of nights. Kuta is in the south of the island and is apparently a mecca for surfers. 

View from Kuta Lombok beach

One of the livelier towns in Lombok, it was still very quiet but had several restaurants along the main road, all of which seemed to close around 10pm, but that may have been because it was still Ramadan. We hired a scooter and spent the day visiting some of the island’s waterfalls which were about an hour and a half away near a place called Praya. The journey was pretty painful (numb bum time) but very scenic. Lombok is much more untouched than its neighbour Bali, and tourism is still fairly low in comparison.

Waterfall in Lombok

When we got to the waterfalls, we paid to see all 5 that were open (I think there are 7 there but 2 were dry at the time). We had a local guide and we had to trek up and down through some jungle to get to all of them which we didn’t expect because as usual we had done very little research. We were able to swim/shower in all of the waterfalls if we wanted to but one was a 10m jump and we bottled it.

The next day we drove up to Senggigiin the East, to spend a night there, then to get a boat across to Gili Air, a small island off the coast of Lombok. Senggigi is another of the busier towns and I wouldn’t hurry back. It was convenient for the harbour to take the boat but every time I stepped foot outside of the hotel I was harassed and followed by persistent locals wanting to sell something. Baby D didn’t bother leaving the hotel until we left to take the boat, and maybe if he had been with me it wouldn’t have been so bad.

Loverly Lombok

 We had heard horror stories about people being ripped off when buying shuttle bus and boat tickets to the nearby Gili islands, and then being conned at the harbour by people taking their tickets and making them buy new ones, or guys snatching tourists’ luggage and demanding money for carrying it. We ended up paying 60,000 Rupiah each (£3) for a 45 minute shuttle bus and the boat to Gili Air and we had no hassle at the harbour. Maybe we look unapproachable. The boat ride was uneventful, it was a local boat full of vegetables, a few tourists and several local people, and the journey was about 25 minutes.

Boat from Lombok to Gili Air

I’ve made Lombok sound not too great, but it was nice, the scenery was beautiful and we liked the sleepy laidback vibe there. I wish we’d had a bit longer to get a better feel for the place.

Gili Air

Ah Gili Air, I miss you. What started as a 3 night booking soon turned into 7. Gili Air is one of a chain of three small islands off the coast of Lombok; the other two being Gili Meno and Gili Trawangan. Gili Meno is the quiet, honeymoon island, Trawangan is the party island and Air is somewhere in between. None of the islands has cars or scooters except e-scooters, and the usual way to travel is on foot, on a bicycle, or on a horse and cart. Gili Air is probably not much more than a kilometre long and about the same wide so we trudged up to our hotel with backpacks on rather than pay the extortionate £5 horse and cart fare. 

Gorgeous Gili Air at sunrise

There were loads of restaurants and bars along the way but we didn’t pass too many tourists. Our hotel was lovely, with the friendliest staff who even shared their iftar with me one night (their dinner to break their day’s Ramadan fasting) and we were a couple of minutes’ walk from the beach. 

Gili Air

We caught up with our pal Marina whom we’d met in Vietnam, then again in Kuala Lumpur. She’d been on the island for a few days doing a yoga retreat and she talked us into doing some yoga classes with her. I ended up doing 5 including a meditation class, and Baby D did 4, taking the opportunity to spend some ‘he’ time one morning, getting pissed on large Bintangs while we were at yoga. Our week on Gili mainly consisted of beach, swimming in the hotel pool, yoga, eating and drinking and watching sunsets and a couple of sunrises. Oh, and a bit of work chucked in for me. 

Gili Air beach

After off-loading a few kilos of our (my) crap onto Marina who I’m sure was regretting offering to take some stuff back to the UK for us, we said bon voyage to her, and Baby D and I went across to Gili Meno for the day to see what we were missing. We took the boat there and back for 70 Rupiah (£3.50) and the journey was around 20 minutes. When we got there, we headed straight down the beach to the turtle sanctuary where turtle eggs are collected and the babies are kept for a while until they are big enough to fend for themselves and released back into the wild. 

Baby turtles on Gili Meno

After that we walked to the lagoon in the centre of the island. We walked round the whole island (getting lost in the jungle for a while) before stopping for coffee which cost about £15 for 2. We spent the afternoon snorkelling and relaxing on the beach and looking for somewhere cheap for lunch. 

When we first arrived on Gili Meno we were a bit annoyed with ourselves for not spending a night or 2 there as it was beautiful. By the time we had walked the whole way round the island and seen the prices of food, we were glad we had stayed put on Gili Air. Food was much more expensive on Meno, probably because there was less choice, so less competition. 

Gili Meno beach

Reluctantly we had to say farewell to Gili Air as we were off to Amed in East Bali where I had signed up to do the PADI Open Water Divers’ course.

Bali, Amed

Amed is a well-known diving spot on the East coast of Bali and is actually a string of fishing villages. I had talked myself into doing the scuba diving course there and after some thought, Baby D decided not to do it with me. When we arrived at the dive centre Bali Diversity, the day before the 3 day programme started, to meet my instructor Mel and go over final details, Baby D changed his mind, deciding to do the course, and we were both nervous and excited about what was to come. 

Mel talked us into starting the course there and then, so we sat for 4 hours watching the video which went over all of the knowledge we needed to have for our final exam. The Open Water course is normally over 3 days, and ours included 4 dives and one session in the pool. We had to successfully carry out several practical exercises and on the final day we needed to take a 50 question multiple choice test.

Me and Baby D learning to dive

As soon as we arrived the following morning, we kitted up in wetsuits and we were off to the beach for the first dive. In at the deep end quite literally. We thought we’d be in the pool first, but no, that’s not how Mel does it and after instruction from her we were soon 5m down in the ocean. We swam around for 20 minutes or so finding our feet…or fins, and getting more at ease with being underwater and breathing through a regulator. 

We were both getting the hang of it fairly well until I inflated my BCD to go up a tiny bit (buoyancy control device which is like a waistcoat that you can inflate/deflate to adjust buoyancy), the button got stuck and I shot straight up to the surface. That was a bit scary on my first dive in 9 years, because we had already talked about the dangers of decompression sickness (the bends) when not going up slowly enough. Luckily we weren’t too deep and decompression sickness is not really an issue at that depth. Trust me to get the dodgy gear! (NB this was not because of poor quality kit, this could have happened to anyone and I have since spoken to a few divers who've had it happen to them!) Not part of the course, but after that, Mel made sure we knew exactly what to do in the unlikely event it happened again.

Undeterred, we headed off to the pool to practise removing and putting back our gear in case we got entangled under the sea; taking off and putting on our weight belts safely; and the tasks that every novice diver hates - emptying a mask full of water, and the ‘no-mask’ swim. Baby D had the water-filled mask down pat, but on my first attempt and missing the point completely, I tried to drown myself. I soon mastered it after that. 

The no-mask swim was a case of mind over matter. We had to sit underwater and slowly remove and then replace our masks, which would obviously be full of water by then, so we had to get rid of the water too. Once we had got that sorted, we did it all again but with a maskless swim chucked in the middle. Baby D, who had earlier easily removed his mask underwater without being told to, struggled a bit under pressure, but we were soon quite comfortable with it.

Amed sunset

We did 4 amazing dives (not counting the aborted dive when I broke the air nozzle), including the Liberty shipwreck, and the Coral Garden where there is a statue of a reclining Buddha. The day before the test we did a mock exam, and it was obvious we needed more revision, but we sailed through the test and that was it, we were qualified to dive together (and even without an instructor if we wanted to), to a depth of 18m. It was an amazing experience and we can’t wait for the next dive. 

Legian

Legian surf

Onto Legian for our last 2 nights in Bali, and in fact our last 2 nights in Asia. We’d been to Legian, a lively beach area near to the airport before, and it was an easy couple of days. We spent a couple of hours on the beach on our last day, I got another tattoo and my hair cut and we were soon off to the airport to fly to Perth in Western Australia. Both of us were sad to say goodbye to Asia as it was our home for 7 months, but new adventures await on a new continent. 

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 #gilimenoturtlesanctuary