We left Lembongan on the supply boat back to Padang Bai on Bali, only 7 of us and a pile of bags, on a sailing boat about as big as a small car, but no time to think about the delicacy of this position if a big swell hit, as a wet sail carries us all the way to the mainland with the fish jumping and dancing beside us.
From Padang Bai, we headed across to the island of Lombok. I made the decision to leave the boards behind, no chasing waves, we went chasing a mountain instead.
My physiology makes me good at running fast on flat ground but when it comes to going uphill I am not really inclined (pun intended)
The people of Lombok, who are Muslim, share a laid-back approach to life similar to the Balinese, it is on the big-population centre of Java, where the central government is based, that the most extreme fundamentalist elements plot to destabilise the harmony of the Indonesian archipelago. I find it hard to conceive of this country of over 13,000 islands and around 200 million people with such a diverse cultural, ethnic and linguistic landscape but my little taste of it allowed me to experience the power that faith and family values can bring to a people whose standard of living, in monetary terms, is far inferior to our own, but whose outlook on life is far superior in many ways.
The night before leaving I suggested to my friend that we might climb Gunung Rinjani, the second highest peak in Indonesia at 3,700+ metres, and being an adventurous person, she agreed.
So off we plunged to begin this epic test of endurance and stamina, both of which we had to find along the way. We climbed to around 2,700 metres the first day, gasping for air and hugging trees for therapy, doing whatever it takes to get up there and the reward was a spectacular sunset looking west to Bali, eyeball to eyeball with Agung peak and sitting atop an exceptionally beautiful volcano crater lake.
We wake at two am the next morning and head to the summit, which is alright when you can't see what you're doing but as daylight appears we're not quite there but staring at what seems like more than a fort-five degree slope to get to the top. We pushed ourselves to a point and then sat down to take in the sunrise. My friend waits while I push on, literally hands and heels because the centre of gravity is better that way. When I reach the summit the pain in my legs and lungs doesn’t seem to matter, at this height nothing seems to matter, the world is so insignificant.
My friend gets to the top around twenty minutes later, with that true Irish spirit she says that there was no point sitting there freezing, wondering what might have been. We take a few photos, gather ourselves and make the quick descent back to camp and a well-earned breakfast. (Over three hours up and one hour down is the equation)
Sixteen hours later we finished our day having descended a long way into the crater and then out again and then down again to darkness and rest. I reckon they need to employ a special minister for trekking just so that you know what you're in for, it gave new meaning to the word 'understatement', we still had to walk out for three hours the next day, minus shoes for they were superfluous to our feets requirements. A satisfying achievement, but it took another three days of makan tidur on the island of Gili Meno to rest our battered and sore bodies and to begin to feel sane again.
We headed back to Bali again, for some time in the mountain retreat of Ubud, a great place to unwind, a motorbike trip through the volcanoes of Kintamani and up to Lovina in the north to visit the hot springs (oh so soothing for the weary body) and another run in with the law, another red light, of course I still haven't seen it and this time a hundred and fifty thousand, but at least they took my money with a smile.
We finished our journey at Bingin beach, down the Uluwatu road, almost got wiped out by a French woman lighting a cigarette, taking a corner on the continental side of the road, we were mostly unscathed. We stayed in a hut on the hillside overlooking the beach and I finally dusted the cobwebs off the board and had a few very satisfying waves at 'Impossibles', not Bingin for the line-up was a traffic jam, even a few goat-boats out there, seemingly not drilling the reef but contributing to the havoc of over-touristed breaks.
Before leaving Bali I sold the board for fifty thousand rupiah, no prospective buyer appreciated the big crease on the bottom of it from some heavy wipe-outs, I bought myself one last Bintang, contemplated the sunset and my friend and I flew out the next day on separate planes.
Unfortunately, the day before I left Bali another bomb went off in Jakarta, this time outside the Australian embassy
I was so joyed to be flying through Jakarta the day after another bomb [not] and the day before September 11.
The Balinese I talked to about the bomb in Jakarta were just as dumbfounded as me, they really haven't got the time for it, it's bad for business and they're not an angry people.
Excuse the political angle for just a moment, but I believe our little John got past the post in the October 2004 election by getting mileage out of the fear this generated. A political tactic but perhaps in the poorest taste, but then that is his style after all.
Next Stop Thailand .................
