Indonesia

Gili Meno, Lombok, Bali

By Heather & Pravin

July 19^th, 2018

Gili Meno

After an amazing but exhausting two months in India, we couldn't have been more excited to get to Indonesia for some long-awaited beach time - especially since Sarena, Pravin's sister, was meeting us there! We arrived late and spent a quick night on Bali, then first thing the following morning, we hopped on a water taxi to the tiny, secluded island of Gili Meno.

We had five nights in a cute-but-ramshackle bungalow on the beach - it certainly wasn't luxury, but the beachfront location meant that we didn't spend any time inside apart from sleeping at night! Each day started with Lombok coffee and pancakes served under one of the bamboo shelters on the beach, and then the rest of the day involved reading, snorkelling, swimming and drinking icy-cold Bintangs, the ubiquitous Indonesian lager. We would venture out to one of the nearby beachside restaurants for lunch, and spent lots of time chatting and catching up over refreshing fruit smoothies.

The snorkelling on the island was phenomenal, even right from the beach. I was lucky enough to see several turtles just by snorkelling out from in front of our bungalow! We also did a glass-bottom boat trip one day that took us to several different snorkelling spots, including one with tons of turtles, and another with a really cool underwater sculpture garden to explore.

One of the highlights of each day was the sunset happy hour! We ended up going to the same beach bar almost every night, as the food was tasty, the beer was cheap and cold, and the sunsets were spectacular.

lombok

tetebatu

Once our uber-relaxing time on Gili Meno was up, we hopped on a boat to take us to the much-larger island of Lombok. Our first stop was Tetebatu, a lush village nestled among rice paddies on the slopes of a great volcano, Mount Rinjani, that dominates the skyscape and dictates the weather.

We stayed at a small, family-run lodge, and slept in a cozy bamboo house that kept us nice and dry during the afternoon rain showers. The food prepared by the women of the lodge was unbelievably good - everything was freshly prepared from scratch and so tasty and flavourful. We organized some activities through the lodge, one of which was a guided waterfall hike. It started off with a wander through some of the local fields, where we saw almost every edible plant imaginable growing - rice, tomatoes, beans, corn, hot peppers, tobacco, macadamia, cacao, coffee, vanilla, nutmeg, and so much more. It was amazing to see how every centimetre of available space in the fields is used, and how all the planting is organized perfectly according to the level of water and sunlight required. We even got to try our hand at harvesting sticky rice!

After we crossed the fields, we made our way deeper into the forest and eventually took off our shoes for a river crossing. We didn't end up putting them on again for quite some time, as the trail quickly petered out and we found ourselves walking up the river toward the waterfall. Sarena and I couldn't pass up the opportunity for a swim, so we braved the muddy currents and took turns jumping off the rocks of the falls.

Since we had already worked up a bit of an appetite, the next stop was a local woman's house, where she prepared us an amazing drink of cacao, vanilla and coffee - all from her garden. So many different spices and herbs and other delicacies grow all around her house, and she harvests and dries them to sell to tourists passing through. Once we left her place, we set off in search of black monkeys, which can be very difficult to spot. As we were climbing up through terraced fields, the skies opened up and a torrential rain began to fall. Despite our makeshift banana leaf umbrellas, we were soaked to the bone within minutes, and all had a good laugh as we splashed and jogged through giant puddles on the hour's trip back to our lodge.

Another activity that we organized through the lodge was tour of some local handicraft workshops. Many of the people in the surrounding villages still make their living off of traditional handicraft arts, so we hopped on scooters and set off to visit a few workshops. It was really neat to see the artisans at work, and finding out how many hours of work actually go into a lot of the handmade products that you see for sale in Indonesia gives you a bit of a pause about how low the prices are.

kuta lombok

After the cooler temperatures of lush Tetebatu in the highlands, we were blown away by the intense heat at our next coastal destination, Kuta Lombok. The town of Kuta is getting built up very quickly, and you can see several huge-scale resorts that are under development by foreign-owned companies. It's still a charming place, but the smaller restaurants and guesthouses are quickly getting displaced by hip bars and trendy eateries with prices that are closer to what you would see at home than what you would except in Indonesia.

The guesthouse that we stayed at was off a quiet street, and was run by a super friendly young guy that operates it on behalf of his aunt and uncle. Breakfast each day was served with bottomless pots of Lombok coffee and plates piled high with tropical fruit. We rented scooters through the guesthouse at an unbelievable deal of $6 per scooter per day, so we had two between the three of us for the duration of our stay. The best beaches were all outside of town, so having our own transportation was key. We had an amazing time cruising on the scenic, winding roads, and ending up at world-class beaches with crystal-clear turquoise waters ringed by tropical foliage. We also took surfing lessons one day, and although Sarena and Pravin had gone a couple of times before, I had only tried once in Nicaragua, and never even managed to stand up! Luckily this time was much different, and it's definitely something that I want to do more of in the future.

Bali

jimbaran beach

Once our time on Lombok was up, we hopped on a short 25-minute flight back to Bali. We had been looking at our options for taking a boat, but with taxi rides and boat fares, it was starting to add up quickly. Weirdly enough, it never occurred to us to look into flying until the night before, and we were able to find flights for the next morning for under $25 each! We were so excited to get back to Bali, as we were meeting up with Pravin's parents, who were on their way from Canada for a holiday. They had picked a gorgeous resort with beautiful rooftop views of the surrounding hills, and we had an amazing week together, indulging in hours-long breakfasts at the poolside buffet, fruity cocktails at the swim-up bar, and sunset happy hours on the rooftop. It was so good to catch up with everyone after so much time away!

uluwatu

We did some great day trips from Jimbaran, including one afternoon out to Uluwatu Temple. It has an unbeatable location, perched on cliffs high above the sea, and offers unbelievable views of the sun setting into the ocean. Each night they perform a Balinese dance to a Hindu epic, and it was a beautiful spectacle. The dancers, costumes and music were amazing, and as the sun set and night fell, flames that were part of the performance gave the whole evening an otherworldly feel.

ubud

Another memorable day trip that we took was to Ubud, which is a couple of hours by car from Jimbaran. We stopped at a gorgeous Hindu temple on the way to Ubud, and it was so interesting to see how different the Hindu art and sculptures are in comparison to India and Nepal - you almost wouldn't even know that it all stems from the same religion, given how differently the cultures developed due to their geographical separation.

Next we met to Ubud's Monkey Forest, which is a beautifully lush and landscaped area just outside of town where a ton of monkeys live. They were generally pretty tame and didn't harass people too much, but I was still a bit on-edge after accidentally looking one too many monkeys in the eye in India and getting an aggressive, loud hissing and jump in return!

room 4 dessert

The highlight of our day in Ubud came in our evening dessert experience at the highly-acclaimed Room 4 Dessert restaurant. Pravin found the restaurant after seeing it featured in a Netflix trailer for the upcoming season of Chef's Table, which featured Chef Will Goldfarb and his Ubud restaurant. He quickly made a reservation for us, and it turned into a night that we'll never forget! We all shared the 9-course dessert tasting menu, Sarena ordered the 9-course mocktail tasting flight, and Pravin and I opted to share the 9-course cocktail tasting flight. Fortunately the cocktails were only half-portions - if they had been full drinks, I'm not sure if we would have remembered the evening!

The desserts were so unique and inventive, and the service was timed perfectly so that we could linger over each course and take our time so that we didn't feel rushed. It probably also helped that we didn't eat dinner in preparation! About halfway through the courses, the chef came out to introduce himself, and offered to take us on a tour of the restaurant gardens. They grow almost all of the produce and many of the ingredients themselves, and almost all of the staff are local young people that he has hired, trained, and moved up through the ranks. It was really nice to see a foreign-owned business that was actually taking the time to give back to the community and prepare its local staff for long careers where they can take a leading role in high-end restaurants, instead of just using local staff for untrained and low-paid labour. The food was so memorable and creative, and it was a great way to taste local ingredients used in new and inventive ways.