After loading all of our luggage on top of the car, we left Senaru and made our way to Bangsal, so Alex could get his boat to Gili Trawangan. To say the journey there was a bit hairy is an understatement! Although we had experienced the driving skills of the people of Lombok before, this driver was taking it to a whole new level. He raced down the roads overtaking everything wherever he felt and franticly beeped at everything that vaguely got in his way. Although we were quite relaxed about his driving, as you just kind of have to accept it as how it is, it was a bit of a worry that we had no seat belts. To be fair he was doing us a favour by driving this quickly as we were all so tired we just wanted to get to our hotel as soon as possible, but alive would be nice, especially after the 3 days we've just had. Melanie on the other hand wasn't quite as relaxed about it all as she covered her eyes several times as oncoming lorries and bikes headed for us as we were on the wrong side of the road, she even asked him so drive slower 3 times saying that we didn't all want to be killed but this didn't deter the driver. It turned out he was rushing to make sure Alex got the ferry at 6pm as it was the last one to the Gili islands, so at least he had good intentions but that doesn't really make it much better. Once we dropped Alex off, with 15 minutes to spare, he agreed to drive slower and head on to Senggigi where Melanie, Andrée-Anne, Luke, Matt and I wanted to stay for the night.
 
Once we arrived in Senggigi, we had the dreaded task of finding somewhere to stay as none of us had booked anything . After our hard few days, we had a set of demands that had to be met. The most vital demands were hot water showers, a western style toilet and free Wifi. Of course that wasn't all, it also had to be nice and clean, have air con, include breakfast and have 3 rooms available. It seemed like we had turned into a set of divas up the mountain! Everywhere seemed quite pricey and none of us were in the mood to shop around or barter! In the end, Melanie, Andrée-Anne, Matt and I decided to go for a little bit of luxury and booked a night at a lovely place which had everything we wanted plus a big swimming pool but cost IDR500,000 a night! Luke wasn't so keen to spend that much as he was on his own so he went off in search of somewhere a little cheaper but we arranged to meet for dinner later on.
 
When we got to our room, we discovered it was, in fact, a suite with joining doors! It looked absolutely beautiful with a huge comfy bed and was everything we had hoped for! Matt and I had always planned to stay 2 nights as we figured we would need at least that long to recover from our hike and we were very pleased when Melanie and Andrée-Anne said that they too had decided to delay their plans by a day and have an extra day with us in Senggigi . Our excitement didn't last long though as, when we got in the shower, we discovered there was no hot water as there hadn't been any power on in the room so the tank hadn't been heated! A cold shower was better than no shower we figured and it was such a lovely feeling to be clean again, more importantly though for the first time in 3 days our toilet wasn't a bush or a hole in the ground. Luxury!
 
At 8pm we all gathered in the hotel lobby, including Luke's friend Matt who was also Canadian, and went for dinner. We walked along the main road looking at each place before deciding on the Taman Restaurant. We all opted for Western food as we were pretty fed up of rice and noodles and it was delicious! While we were eating, Luke's friend Matt decided to take over from the band and serenaded us with a song about climbing Mount Rinjani and a song he has written called Sexy Zombies! It was very funny!
 
It was then time to say farewell to Luke as he was heading back to Bali in the morning to meet up with his Dad before we made our way back to our hotel and climbed into our amazingly comfy beds for a much needed sleep!
 
The next day, we were so excited to finally have our first hot shower in 2 weeks neither of us wanted to get out! Leaving it until the very last moment, we all met downstairs for a delicious big breakfast before going for a walk along the main road to take our laundry in and have a look in some shops . While us girls were looking in a shop, Matt got chatting to a guy outside who was selling necklaces and it turned out one of the designs represented Mount Rinjani! It was meant to be as he had 4 so, after some serious haggling, we bought one each as a souvenir of our achievements! We popped along to a spa we had spotted the night before to book in for some treatments before heading back to the hotel for a swim to help relax our muscles!
 
At 3pm, we made our way back to Orchid Spa for some pampering! Matt had a 1 hour traditional Lombok massage while us girls opted for a 3 hour package including Lombok massage, body scrub, body mask, manicure and pedicure! The massage was just what we needed but it was so painful! It was very funny hearing Matt giggling and trying to cover up his pain as he had asked for a strong massage! The body scrub and mask was the weirdest thing I have ever experienced in a spa as they made us lay on our backs with just our knickers on and rubbed on the scrub before painting on the mask! I felt very exposed and pretty silly! It was lovely though to be pampered after such a hard few days!
 
By the time we left the spa it was gone 6pm, so we got ourselves ready for dinner and headed out to find somewhere to eat, After consulting Melanie's Lonely Planet, we decided on Cafe Alberto which is a beautiful Italian restaurant on the beachfront! It's quite a long way from the town centre though so they pick you up and drop you off in an open backed truck which was quite an experience! Even though we had all had our massages we were all getting funny looks as we still walked liked we had all wet ourselves and steps continued to be tricky to manoeuvre!
 
On the way back from dinner, we picked up our laundry before climbing back into that gorgeous comfy bed! Our idea of having a few early nights hadn't really gone to plan as both nights it had been gone 11pm when we even headed back to the room!
 
On our final morning, we were awake a little earlier so we showered, got dressed and met the girls downstairs for another big breakfast. It was then time to pack and have a couple of final photos before saying farewell for now to Melanie and Andrée-Anne, before one of the hotel porters gave us a lift to the fast boat office.
 
Our stay in Senggigi was exactly what we needed after our hike and it was lovely to get to know Melanie and Andrée-Anne better. I really enjoyed practising my French and Matt enjoyed listening to us all even though he didn't really understand what we were saying! We are very much looking forward to meeting up with them again in Ubud in a few days!