In Reply to: Enjoyable read , thanks, more on Lombok posted by Balimagic on Friday, 5. May 2006 at 11:20 Bali Time:
Seeing as you asked soo nicely....
We tossed up whether to fly or catch the ferry from Padang Bai...chose to fly!
The flight takes about 10-15 minutes the Ferry takes the best part of the day.
Flight with Merpati was Aus$103.00 return. We phoned Alang Alang Resort and asked them to pick us up from Mataram Airport, and arranged for our Hire Car People to meet us on our return to Bali...too easy.
Merpati flight was delayed for 8 hours till the evening flight, so we arrived in darkness. Couldnt really tell what Lombok was like till daylght! Roads from the airport to Sengigi were nice and wide and very very quiet...a culture shock compared to Kuta!!!! Alang Alang is located 3kms north of Sengigi, and is in a dreamy location next to a headland right on the beach. Our room faced the ocean which was about 40 steps away and you are lulled to sleep with the sound of waves filtering through the coconut trees...get the picture! Very pretty and peacful. 2 smallish pools which were nice and cool and shaded by the palms are just a few metres from the oceans edge. one of them has a big rock outcrop with a cave hidden by a waterfall...inside the cave is a spa!!!
We spent out time laying in the sun and swimming in the pools and the ocean...Kuta seemed a million miles away! On day 3 we organised a boat to the Gilli Islands for some snorkellin and hopefully surfing...snorkelling was great surf was too small but showed promise. We visited Gilli Trawangan, the largest Island, and snorkelled for a while then lay in the sun to tan up a bit, then headed to Gilli Meno for another snorkel anl luch at a warrung on the beach... I think the word Idyllic is appropriate!!!! We then headed around the 'front' side of Gilli Meno hoping for some waves...too small for surfing, so we had another snorkell and swim and dozed on a deserted beach! An afternoon storm came through and made an 'interesting' return trip to Alang Alang. Lombok seems much more mountainous than Bali with big green coconut covered hills extending right to the beacn. The views from the boat were spectacular to say the least! You can drive to a boat harbour right by the gillis, but we opted to leave from Sengiggi for a much longer 1.5 hrs adventure. That evening we took the complimentary shuttle from the hotel to Sengiggi and had Dinner at Papaya restaurant. Very nice meal and highly reccomended...the waitress was very cute too!!! sorry kim [wife] Live band playing requests all night were really good, but had trouble with the Sex Pistols - I did it my way. Top day!!!
Next day we asked a taxi how much to take us to Monkey Mountain...1200000rp he said. About 1.5hs round trip///1.5hrs for $20.00 seemed like a good deal to me! Beautiful landscapes and scenerey and more monkeys along the roadside than you could poke a stick at. We stopped and fed the buggers with peanuts which the taxi driver kindly bought. On the way back we stopped at a local market and bought some palm sugar - 50cents a block! Lombok around Sengigi is very picturesque and we will definitely return for an extended stay and a look further afield. Alang Alang is a beatiful hotel in a to die for location, but there are lots of other options. If you have not been to Lombok you should have a look... Incidently, the Taxi quote of 120000rp was out a bit, It cost 123500rp. I think that maybe he had done that trip before!!!!