Sengiggi:
I'm so glad we started Indonesia with Lombok, specifically Sengiggi. Sengiggi was explained in "the book" (aka Lonely Planet) as having Indonesia's most beautiful beaches...a bit suspect. While I wouldn't agree with that, there are some untouched beaches and bays just outside of the small town that we saw when wandering on a motorbike. Even without a beautiful beach, we ended up liking the small beach town for both its slightly seediness and definite friendliness. What really helped was our American expat friend Jack who we met in Kuala Lumpur during our tour of the Petronas towers. He and his wife are retired from California and moved to Sengiggi a year and a half ago and he hosted us like an old family relative. He even let us crash at his place on two nights that sandwiched our hike and trip to the Gili's. Surprising number of expats in this town...mostly Australian, few Dutch and others - they all thought Jack was CIA since very few Americans travel to Lombok and NONE have ever expated there before...so us being from VA, home to Langley, really solidified their conviction. :)
So back to Sengiggi....it's a small, black sand beach. This was my first experience with a black sand beach and Senggigi was more grey than black. Between that, the slight trash issue and all the boats parked on the sand, the beach was not that beautiful. That said, the water and the bay were breathtaking. Lombok has incredibly mountains, lush and green island so all around is stunning. We found good coffee, cheap beers, saw the sunset and ate really good food so yea, we had a good time in Senggigi.
Rinjani:
Lombok is home to Indonesia's 2nd largest volcano, called Rinjani. We could see it clearly from the Gilil Islands and all the west coast areas of Bali we visited. The peak is 3,726 meters (12,224ft) high and we decided to hike from the bottom all the way to the top! Great idea! I'm being a bit sarcastic but in reality it was a really great, rewarding experience. It was a 3 day, 2 night hike, with a start at 2am the last day to climb to the peak to watch the sunrise. We lucked out with a great group of people to spend three straight days with - all of us around the same age, mostly couples, with very similiar interests in travel, life, etc. :) It helped to have good people because the company we signed up with was a bit disorganized but didnt ruin any part of the experience. The weather was on and off with clouds and a bit of rain but we also lucked out with that, getting to see all the "sights" and no rain in sight the day of the climb to the peak.
All three days were tough! The first was steep and UP the whole way, about 8 hours of hiking (and we were a "fast" group compared to the average, our guide told us later). The morning of the second day we got to the edge of the crater. Although I dont know the exact history, Rinjani is millions of years old and has blown in a way where the original cone is gone and is instead a giant crater with a lake inside. Within the lake is a "baby" cone that erupted as recently as 2010. The volcano is still active, evident of the smoke we saw creeping out of the baby cone while viewing the incredibly blue lake from the crater (perfect weather that morning turned into a sprinkle and dense fog as we started climbing back up - lucky!). We also visited the hot springs that day - our only "shower" in 3 days! We finished that day with a steep downhill and almost as steep back up to the ridge taking about 5-6 hours. That night one of our trip mates who was from Hawaii did a fire dance on the ridge...pretty spectacular!
Day 3: The next morning was the 2am "Wake Up! Wake Up!" from our guide. In the dark and WIND and COLD, we "hiked" through what was basically sand - one step forward, about 1.5/2 steps slidding back down - for close to 2.5 hours. Then sat hudled all together (literally hugging each other) behind a rock waiting for the sunrise because we climbed a little too quickly. I dont think I've ever been so cold in my life. The wind was torture and the temps were below freezing and we had on all that we brought with us - a pair of leggings, scott had wind pants without a lining, we each had a tshirt, long sleeve shirt and a rain jacket and two pairs of socks (at least we had good socks, thank you darn tough!) - no hat, no gloves. This made the reward of reaching the top and seeing the sunrise, pink and red through clouds, that much more rewarding. I Think I even teared up a little. No sleep and cold will make you that much more emotional! Besides just the sunrise, we could see the entire island and other islands close by. It was pretty surreal. We'll post some pictures but as usual, it doesn't do the entire scenery justice. Then we had to get ALL the way down the 3,726 meters. It was downhill so much easier in one sense, but brutal on the quads by the end of the 9 hour day (in total). One of the best and most rewarding hikes we've done together!
Gili Air:
After the hike, we were dropped off by boat to Gili Air. Gili refers to very small islands (easily walkable in a few hours tops), usually just off the coast of the bigger islands. There are three off the northwest coast of Lombok (and more in the south). We chose to stay on Gili Air, which is like the mama bear of the 3 gilis. Gili "T" is the largest, most developed and known as the party island - besides being full of beach bars, there are no police on the Gili's so you can imagine all the other things present {the island is known for it's mushroom colada, advertised on all their signs...no, we did not try it}. Gili Meno is the smallest and least developed island, we heard great for families. Gili Air is in the middle in size, has a good number of beach bar and restaurants but a large chunk of the island is still undeveloped so you can find peace and quiet as well.
The slow, island time pace was PERFECT after the hike. We laid out on a small part of the beach with a quiet restaurant so lunch was brought to our beach chairs (love this!). One day there, we went diving. It was our first of many dives in Indonesia and just INCREDIBLE diversity of coral and sealife. We saw about 10 sea turtles on our first dive, some of which came right up to us and swam with us for a bit. Besides the diving, just being on the boat in turquoise water riding between the 3 Gilis was awesome. We planned to stay on Air for 3 days and then make our way to the south of Lombok where friends said that the most beautiful beaches in Indonesia really were, but we fell in love with Gili Air and stayed all 5 days we had. We did a bit of snorkeling and paddleboarding and road our bikes around the island a few times, but we most enjoyed just taking it easy and seeing the sunset every day! :)
Colorful fishing boats
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