We awoke with the sound of rain hammering down on the roof of our bungalow which did not bode well for our 4 1/2 hour public ferry journey across to lombok. Typically the infra structure cannot really cope with the trucks waiting their turn to load parked up in a narrow road with two way traffic. The ubiquitous motor bikes and scooters of the locals didn't help either darting in and out as our coach inched its way to the harbour. Finally made it onto the ferry and found some seats by forcing people to move luggage off benches and sit up.rice and coffee sellers patrol the decks whilst locals sit on the floor and eat their picnics. Once we had set off we decided to go up on deck as the lounges were very stuffy and the rain had finally stopped. It was still cloudy so visibility was not too good but we could see lombok getting ever closer in the gloom.
The harbour in lombok is in an inlet and as we turned into it a smaller local ferry raced past us and took the only landing dock space . So we waited for an hour,a few yards from land,until it unloaded and then loaded up again.Eventually our turn came and we disembarked quite easily making sure we avoided the lorries as they rolled off the ferry. It was much quieter around the harbour with little of the mayhem of this morning. The quietness continued and we made steady progress to our hotel as the land is fairly flat with rice fields and banana plantations with tall mountains on the horizon. We even had the benefit of a dual carriage way and few hairpin bends which made a change from java and bali. We stopped off to visit a sassak village where the tribe still live in the same way as their ancestors,traditional houses made of straw,bamboo with a cow dung floor. They grow enough rice to last a year and store it in raised granaries built into the shape of lombok. We had a demonstration of their fighting stick dance which was quite violent to say the least. It was very interesting and seemed genuine but you did feel as if it was just for tourists but it does seem to keep their traditions alive. In the next village we inched past a weeding ceremony with the bride and groom processing towards the bride's family home accompanied by gamelan orchestras.
Our new hotel is right on a sandy beach but we all chose to have a dip in the pool with a cold beer. At dinner we had snapper cooked in the local way which was in a rich tomatoey sauce and not very spicy.