How: by flight
Type: beach tourism
With: my husband
Total spent: 8780k IDR for two persons, including:
- transport (flight, airport taxis, rent car, fuel, etc.) 3800k IDR;
- meals-snacks-drinks 700k IDR;
- hotel 2800k IDR;
- souvenir n others 1500k IDR
1 USD is about 12,250IDR when I write this.
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| Lombok tourism map |
My travel to Lombok was planned for months, ever since we got promo price for flight tickets. So I had plenty of time to do my homework: find out all about Lombok and what to expect there. I made all the itinerary for this trip, and made notes about several places that we can skip if we spend too much time in other places.
Day one:
We arrived in Lombok International Airport (BIL) at noon, around 12, on Sunday. This airport was first operated in October 2011. It is located in Praya, Lombok Tengah (mid-to-south of Lombok). The first impression of the airport when we just walked out of the plane was that it was nice, new, modern. But right when we entered the terminal building, it became huge dissapointment. There were only two immigration officer working at that time so the queue was very very long. The building was new and clean, the toilet was also clean.
After we passed immigration and customs, when we went outside, the situation was very crowded. Many people sat everywhere, waiting for their families maybe. There were also people moving around selling food/beverages, offering car rental or transfer service to other parts of Lombok (to Senggigi, or Pelabuhan Bangsal-port to Gili islands, or Mataram, etc.), Very untidy for an international airport.
Right in front of the building we can see airport taxi stand and airport public bus (Damri). I read from blogs that taxi to Senggigi takes about 200k IDR or 150k IDR to Mataram, transfer service from car rental takes about 250k-300k IDR to senggigi. I only came with my husband, each of us only carrying a backpack, so to be efficient we took Damri bus. It takes only 20k IDR/person to Mataram and 30k IDR/person to Senggigi. Most people taking this public bus are locals (all locals when I took it), and most of them alight in Mataram (only 1 person was going to Senggigi at that time other than my husband and I). The travel from airport to hotel took about 80 minutes.
We stayed at Sunsethouse Lombok (http://sunsethouse-lombok.com/) because it has a good review on Tripadvisor, affordable price with special price for early book, located on beach side in Senggigi, n beautiful (based on other travelllers photos and pro photos on their web). The damri bus route to its Senggigi terminal is passing by this hotel, so when I asked the bus driver about this hotel, he put us down right in front of the hotel. The hotel turned out to be as good as expected. My husband loves the place so much that he said that all of our trip to Lombok that time wouldn't be as great if we had stayed in another hotel. We will definitely stay here again if we go back to Lombok someday. We stayed here for three nights, in its deluxe pool access room. The hotel only has three deluxe pool access room, which shares one private pool. The bed was very comfortable, clean, cool AC, many selection of TV channels, nice sofa, fridge, has spacious bathroom with hotwater shower and bathtub, big mirror, etc. The overall design of the room was romantic. This room is perfect for couple. Another room they have are superior garden view, deluxe seaview (also a good deal, showing view of the hotel's main swimming pool and the sea), and standard room (I wouldn't recommend this room because it is located across the street of the hotel's main building). Our three nights there was about 1,800k IDR.
Right when we entered the room and my husband saw the private swimming pool, he suddenly took of his clothes, changed to his swimsuit, and swam. The weather was good, sunny but cool at 3 p.m. when we got there. After that we realized that there were two or three flies in our bathroom so we called the cleaning service. The response was fast and efficient, the cleaning service sprayed insect repellent and mop the bathroom floor. We didn't find any other issue after that. When we asked the staff about the closest minimarket, he offered to take us there. This was an exceptional service for me. All the hotel staffs were friendly.
We found out later that the hotel location was very good, on less crowded Senggigi beach area but only about 1.7m from the main Senggigi area (taxi ride 10-15k IDR) where there are lots of cafes, minimarket, ATM, art market, etc. Taxi pool is only about 100m from the hotel, or just wait outside the hotel, there's a lot of taxis passing by. Across the street there is a fastfood fried chicken if you need a low cost meal, there's a famous seafood restaurant located only about 1 km from the hotel, or simply have meal in the hotel's restaurant. It offers range selection of delicious menus (local, seafood, western) with affordable price (65k IDR for ayam taliwang package, 130k IDR for NZ steak, 15k IDR for juices, etc). The food in the restaurant are truly delicious. For breakfast (which is included in the room rate), they serve nasi (rice) with one dish of meat/chicken/fish/squid/shrimp, two dishes of vegetables, kerupuk, fruits, toast, made-to-order eggs and pancakes, salad, tea/coffee, and juices. The restaurant is located on the beachside so we can enjoy sunset while having dinner, or watching the shores while having breakfast. The hotel provides many bale (hut) with beach chair so the guests can lay back while enjoying the beach.
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| View of Pura Batu Bolong from our hotel |
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| View while having dinner at Sunset-house's restaurant |
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| View of Mt. Agung (Bali) from Senggigi |
We had breakfast at 8 a.m. then at 8.40 a.m took a taxi to Bangsal Port. The taxi driver used to work in Malaysia, so other than Indonesian and local Lombok language, he could speak Malay and English well. His name is Marzuki +628175701880. During our one hour ++ journey, we chatted about beautiful places in Lombok, we stopped a few minutes at Bukit Malimbu I and II (Malimbu Hill) to take pictures (from here we could see the three Gilis - Trawangan, Air, Menu), stopped at minimarket to buy bottled water (he said it would be very expensive in Gili, so better be prepared) and at an ATM. The taxi cost was 100k IDR.
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| View from Malimbu |
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| View from Malimbu |
From the car parking area to Pelabuhan Bangsal (the jetty port), we need to walk about 500m. We could just walk but we decided to alight the taxi about 1km from the port and took cidomo (horse cart). It cost 15-20k. Some people think that it's expensive for less than 1km ride, but I didn't mind. It's not much, but it makes the locals happy because it is one of the source of their daily income.
We went to the official ticket counter, paid each 13.5k IDR for public boat to Gili Trawangan, and wait for a while. There's announcement each time the tickets were sold, the boat departed after 30 tickets per boat were sold. There's also option to rent a whole boat if you don't want to wait or share boat, but it was expensive. Besides, we didn't have to wait long. The public boats are filled not only with tourists, but also locals who brought supplies to be sold at Gili.
The boat took around 20 minutes to arrive at Gili Trawangan. It is the most crowded Gili among the three. There, I was amazed by the color of the sea. We can see dark blue sea at the distance, followed by blue, blue turqoise, and light sky blue, then touches the white sand beach. Perfect!
Near the port in Gili Trawangan was crowded with bike rental, cafes, and lodging. Fyi, the only transportation allowed there are bike and cidomo. The cost of taking cidomo around the island is 125k IDR. The cost of bike rent is 15k/hour (not linear, could be 25k/two hours or 50k/day as well, negotiable). We rented a tandem bike for 50k IDR/2 hours and rode it around the island. It took 1.5 hours, including several stops to take pictures. In some places, we could not ride the bike because of the sandy road. We passed by several expensice resort on the beachside, a lot of expensive cafes n restaurants (expensive for Indonesian standard). Cheaper lodgings (50-150k IDR per night) are also available if you walk into the alleys. In some places, there were small stalls selling nasi bungkus, these might be the only cheap foods in the islands. Most of the time, foreign tourists are all over Gili Trawangan while there are only some domestic tourist.
Other interesting activity you can do in Gili Trawangan are snorkeling (there's also snorkeling package around the three gilis for 100k per person, started at 10 or 11 a.m for around 4-5 hours), diving, island hopping with glass bottom boat, etc.
We did not plan to spend night in Gili Trawangan, so at 2 p.m. we took a boat back to Pelabuhan Bangsal (another 13k per person). The last boat back to Bangsal is at 4 or 5 p.m.
In bangsal, we walked about 500m to parking area and took taxi from there. To get back to our hotel, there are two alternatives. First one is alongside Senggigi beach (our route to Bangsal), the second one is through the Pusuk pass (where we can see cute monkeys on the side of the road). We chose to go back taking the second route. It was a winding road. The taxi using this route was also cost us about 100k IDR.
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| Monkeys at Pusuk Pass |
It was about 4 p.m. when we arrived at the hotel. We actually could use the time to travel around Mataram city, but we decided to swim and play on the beach.
Day three:
Before we arrived in Lombok, I had arranged a car rental via email (lomboktransport.com) to deliver a car to our hotel at 10 a.m. this day. We rent an estillo for two days (from our third day to fifth day in Lombok) and would give back the car at the airport. Total rent cost (self drive, no fuel) was 700k IDR (250k IDR/day x 2 days+200k extra charge for pick up the car in the airport). We paid as we received the car. The car was delivered on time, with half full fuel, and in a good condition (just a bit scratch here and there, the interior was not too clean, but overall was fine, no big issue). For these two days, we add 200k IDR for the fuel, and later gave back the rented car with more than half full fuel. I estimated total about 150k IDR fuel was actually enough.
Our plan today was going to waterfall in north Lombok (mount Rinjani area). The road to Rinjani area was similar with the one heading to Bangsal port with additional one hour drive (total about 2 hours drive from Senggigi). The sign was okay and basically there was only one main road so you won't get lost even if it's you first time driving in Lombok. Besides, you can always ask someone for directions.
There is an indigenous village near Mt. Rinjani called desa Senaru. The people from Senaru has religion of Wetu Telu (three times sholat per day, unlike most Muslims who sholat for five times a day), and some other unique local traditions which I can't speak much of because I didn't go to the village. If you want to go hiking in Mt. Rinjani, this village is usually the starting point. Mount Rinjani is the second highest volcano in Indonesia (3,726m high). It took at least 2 nights-3 days if you want to hike Rinjani (including one night stay on the foot of Mt. Rinjani before hiking).
We came to see the waterfall, but our car missed the main entrance. So we park at another entrance which is not yet operated by the government official. Some local guides in the area convinced us to just use that entrance (they said the main entrance path was steeper than this one, that they were also official staff but not yet given uniform because the entrance was new, etc.) We knew they were not telling the truth about being official because later on they gave us used tickets for foreigner tourists. But anyway, we paid 100k IDR for a guide and go seeing the waterfall.
The pathway to the first waterfall (air terjun Sendang Gile, about 35m high) was already cement flooring, made like a stair and has handrail, it took us only about 15 minutes downhill. It was only us there when we came. The waterfall was beautiful. We only took pictures here because there was still another waterfall to see. The journey to the second waterfall (air terjun Tiu Kelep, about 42m high) was a bit more difficult, it took about 20-25 minutes from the first waterfall. You might need a guide if it was your first time here. About 10 minutes before arriving at the second waterfall, you will have to pass some rocky small river. The water was very clear that we can see the bottom of the river. We saw an elderly foreign tourist decided not to continue her journey to the second waterfall because of this, which was too bad.
It was not a long journey at all and the waterfall was even more beautiful than the first one. Here there were several other tourists swimming. My husband also swam here, I only sat on a rock playing with water and enjoying the scenery. The waterfall was high and the water pressure was very high that if you go anywhere near it, you will feel the water smashing.We spent some time here and then go back to where we parked the car. The journey back to the car was exhausting for me (who never do any kind of sports for such a looong time) because it was climbing up the stairs.
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| Air terjun Sendang Gile |
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| Air terjun Tiu Kelep |
On our way back to Senggigi, we saw a bakso Solo (meatball) stall and stopped over to eat. It is actually not a Lombok culinary specialty (Solo is a place in Java), but bakso has always been my husband's favourite. After that, in an area named Tanjung, we pass several places selling satay. We stop over and tried some. It was fish satay (sate ikan pusut), also known as Sate Tanjung. It was delicious and cheap (only 10k IDR per 10 skewers). We also tried pepes ikan pusut (10k IDR per 7pcs), but we didn't like it.
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| Sate Tanjung |
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| Pepes ikan pusut |
Upon arrival in the hotel, we took some rest and went out again. This time was to Mataram city, the capital of Nusa Tenggara Barat province. It was only 30 minutes (16km) from our hotel. We used waze (some android GPS app) to navigate us around the city. If we had more time in Lombok, maybe we would check out Pura Lingsar, Pura Suranadi, Taman Narmada, etc. in Mataram. But since it was already dark, we just drive around the city, and stopped by a pearl store to check the price.
Day four:
We had to check out from Sunset house because we planned to see south Lombok beaches on day four. The plan was to go straight to south Lombok after we check out in the morning (around 9 a.m. after breakfast), but we had to change our plan.
We went to Mataram first to buy some souvenirs. The souvenirs from Lombok are usually kain tenun songket Sasak (woven cloth, usually can be found in Sukarere area or in traditional village Sade), pottery, rotan, or bamboo handycraft, seaweed dodol, sea pearl, etc. One of the local market which sells souvenirs of Lombok is Pasar Cakranegara, Mataram. Actually in Senggigi and around Mataram city there are also a lot of souvenir shops, but I found them expensive. We decided to buy pearls as souvenir. Indonesia is the world's biggest sea pearl supplier, and Lombok is the biggest seapearl producer in Indonesia. The best place to buy pearls in Lombok is in Sekarbela area (Jalan Sultan Kaharuddin). The pearl price in shops in Sultan Kaharuddin street is much cheaper (could be 5 times cheaper, or more) than those in gem shops/boutiques in Senggigi. The shops are not only selling sea pearls (because these are expensive), but also freshwater pearls (more affordable ones). The pearls are made jewelry, combined with gold or silver or stainless/rhodium. Even in Sekarbela you should walk around first to find the best price.We finally decided to buy pearls in IKHLAS jewelery shop (toko emas dan mutiara "Ikhlas"). The price varied from 10-30k IDR (freshwater pearls-rhodium brooch), 50k IDR (freshwater pearls, rhodium set of earrings n necklace), 60k IDR (freswater pearls-silver bracelet), 350k IDR (seawater pearl, silver bracelet), to million rupiahs for gold+grade AA seawater pearls jeweleries.
After buying souvenirs, we had lunch rice with ayam taliwang, plecing kangkung, tahu goreng, and sate sumsum. Total spent was128k IDR for this lunch. There are a lot of ayam taliwang restaurants in Mataram, just pick any. Actually I wanted to try nasi balap puyung, sate bulayak, and sate rembiga, which are also famous in Lombok. Too bad I didn't make it, maybe on our next Lombok trip.
After lunch, about 1 p.m., we went south. On our way to Novotel Lombok, our hotel for the fourth night, we passed by Desa Sade (traditional village of Sasak people), but we did not stop over because we were already behind schedule. Thanks to waze, it is not difficult to find Novotel Lombok. I got promo room rate 40% discount when I booked the hotel weeks earlier, so the room rate for this one night stay was around 1,000k IDR including breakfast for two persons. The hotel was designed beautifully and has its own beach named pantai putri Nyale (also known as Mandalika)- which has round white sands like pepper. The service and facilities were Novotel standard, which is good, so no complaints. The food was expensive, and the hotel is located quite far from everything else. I'm a bit dissapointed because the have pork on their menu (I expected halal food since local people of Lombok are mostly Muslim, and the island is well known as Pulau Seribu Mesjid-island of 1000 mosques).
We arrived at the hotel at 2 p.m. so it was already too late to go to other beaches. The beach on Senggigi has blach sands, the beaches on south Lombok (Kuta or Selong Belanak beach) have white sands, on pantai Mandalika and Tanjung Aan have white pepper sands, and in east Lombok (Pantai Tangsi (also known as Pink beach), near Tanjung Ringgit) has pink sands. We thought we would still have time to see Pantai Tangsi, but the hotel staff said that it took 2.5 hours to go there. I read in some blogs that the road to Pantai Tangsi is not too good (in undeveloped area) so it's better to leave the area at 4 p.m. at most. Since we did not have enough time, we decided to just enjoying the resort. It is a beautiful resort anyway. But due to its price and location, I would not stay here again if I go back to Lombok.
Beach on this area are called Pantai Mandalika or Pantai Putri Nyale because of a local myth/legend. Long long time ago, lived a beautiful princess named Mandalika. Because of her beauty, all of the neighbourhood princes intended to marry her. She was worried, because if she ever chose one of them, it would cause chaos and even war in Lombok area. So he invited all the princes and their people on a specific date to a beach in south Lombok. She arrived, said that she chose everyone of them, and jumped off a cliff. No one could find her. After a while, in the water around the area appeared some colorful worms (cacing nyale) which were believed to be her incarnation (some said it was her hairs). The locals celebrate this event every year on Festival Bau Nyale, where they perform drama about this story, and then catch, cook, and eat those nyale.
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| Legend of beautiful Putri Mandalika |
Day five:
We had breakfast at 8 a.m. The menu selection was quite varried (including some non halal food too). When we had breakfast, we can see a man guiding two cows (or buffalos?) pulling a plow for levelling the sand. On the cows' necks there's a small plate saying "good morning". It was a nice show for the hotels' guest, some (including me) took pictures of it.
We check out from the hotel at about 8.50 a.m. and go straight to the airport. The airport is actually not far from this hotel (the day before we also passed by the airport, it took less than 30 minutes). But in this morning, we took around 40 minutes to the airport because of the morning traditional market. We arrived around 9.30 a.m at the airport, and the rental agent had already waited there. We actually planned to meet at 10 a.m, but he waited for us since 8 a.m. because he did not want us to wait for him in case we arrived early to the airport. How nice of him.
To go to on our next Lombok trip:
- Mataram city: Pura Lingsar, Taman Narmada, etc.
- Traditional village: Senaru (in north Lombok) and Sade (in south Lombok)
- explore all the south Lombok beaches and especially pink beach (Tangsi) on East Lombok
- other Gilis (Gili Nanggu etc. in West Lombok, Gili Air and Gili Meno near Gili Trawangan)
- waterfall, Senggigi, and Gili Trawangan
- Sekarbela and Cakranegara for shopping
- etc.
To do on our next Lombok trip:
- enjoying all the beautiful beaches
- taking hundreds beautiful pictures
- tandem biking in Gili Trawangan
- snorkeling and island hopping
- trying all famous local food: ayam taliwang, nasi balap puyung, sate tanjung, sate bulayak, sate rembiga.
- etc.
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