relax and enjoy Indo-style

There was a really huge swell coming, 7-11 ft are about to roll into Lombok. It was very likely that all the spots were maxed out andwe needed a change of the scenery anyway. After beeing a week in Lombok and we all decided to move up the west coast to Senggigi. It has an exposed and circled reef that offers a right and a left. Most impotently the waves wont be that big and there a rarely surfers, because a lot of travellers to the Gilis or Mt. Rinjani are just stopping by. 

The accomodation Andrew chose was poorly equipped and in a desasterous condition. All we wanted was leaving and get decent sleep. So we asked just for fun at this fancy bungelow resort we were making fun of earlier for staying there. After all I pay €18 for a luxury standard bungalow with breakfast right infront of the beach. There are harder ways to travel. We surfed this really powerful but great chaped lefthander for 4 hours at times and went to dinner every day with huge smiles on our faces while enjoying a air condition and a pool at our place for a few days. 

The food in Indonesia is not very healthy, in fact it is almoat always fried and comes with either rice or noodles. They also don't put in a lot of spices besides making it spicy. Vegetables are usually green beans, onions or some kind of spinach. Still it is very delicious and my plan to lose a few kilos did not quiet work out. To get it as the locals eat it you have to put a lot of Sambal in it. Surprisingly I only had once some sort of food poisening or just ate way too spicy. But you hardly get Indonesian food anywhere else than in Indo I have to eat as much and as often as I can. 

The people in Lombok seemed to be a lot more relaxed than in Bali. Thex don't get stressed that fast and smile almost always you pass them. Even in the very travelled surf spots the kids run towards the street to wave at you or yell Hello and get totally excited about those foreigners that come along their path. They also do not seemed to rip you off. They surely give you a price you have to negotiate with, but other than that we felt not only safe but truely appreciated. One time we ordered Sate Chicken and couldn't get a real angle on the price thinking 1 cost R3000. So we gave him R9000 each which is about €0,65. After he counted he just put enough Chicken on the grill so that he wouldn't have paid too much. He could easily given us 3 instead of 9 pieces. Also sellers who run from one restaurant to the next can be send away with a simple smiling "No, thank you." Also Indo-style often means that something is working, but only sometimes or simply "we get there when we get there, don't worry."

Surfwise we didn't do much exciting in the second week due to the fact that the wind was still wrong for most of the spots and the swell was too big for the others. The average size was about 6-10 ft during the whole week. So hard paddles, steep take-offs, heavy pounding and cautious wave selection was a daily given. We focused more on relaxing, exploring the area and trying new places for food. Occationlly we had a drink or two in one of the few places that were selling drinks and had live music. After all I might come back to Lombok, but the you have to be willing to do a lot of driving to get to the surfspots. Then some don't break on certain tides and most of them only in the rainy season. It's still a mellow and good vibed place to hang out and enjoy beautiful beaches while surfing reefs the whole time.