Day 122, Year 3: Not Where I Thought We Were
Date: Hari Senin (Monday), Bulan Sèptèmber 8, Pada Tahan 2008
Weather: Beautiful Morning; Cloudy Afternoon with a Little Rain
Location: Teluk Naré (Kombal), NE Lombok, West Nusa Tengarra Province, Indonesia

I thought I was anchored in Teluk Kombal as that is what the CMap and paper charts say. But last night Mark brought a map of the island home, given to him by Mohammad our tour guide and ‘provider’, and it says we are in Naré. Just before leaving on our tour this morning, I asked Mohammed and he said that locally it is called Naré, even though the charts indicate otherwise. So we are now saying we are Teluk Naré. It is good to know where you are.

Our tour today was good but because of a couple of delays we didn’t get to see everything we had hoped to see. Still it was a very full day. Shirena, Scot Free II, and Windbird left with guide Mohammad and a driver. We left just a little late and headed north to a small town called Pemenang. It was a bustling little community with many horse-drawn carts. On some islands they call them ‘ben-hurs’ but here they are called ‘cidomos’ (chidomos). The carts are large enough to hold four people plus
the driver and are pulled by a very well-groomed pony, sometimes adorned with flowers and tinkling bells. They are quite a quant site. From Pemenang we headed west and then south, climbing a mountain. Near the mountain top we started seeing long-tailed macaques running along the road. Soon we pulled off the road and we were in ‘monkey forest.’ The many macaques here are obviously used to waiting at the roadside for handouts. Mohammad gave us each a bag of peanuts and instructed us to open the
bag and put the peanuts in our pockets. We were to dispense the peanuts one at a time. If monkeys see the bag, they grab it from you. And he also warned us not to offer a peanut and then take it back. This could result in a little monkey bite. It was great fun feeding the monkeys and indeed they would politely take a peanut from you. But Mark didn’t follow the instructions. He was feeding them from the bag, and sure enough, the bag was taken from him. Two of the females had babies and they
were irresistibly cute. Then on we went to the city of Mataram. On the way we traveled through villages dedicated to building wood and bamboo furniture. We learned that each village has a specialty and everyone in the village produces the one product. Matarm is the largest city we have visited in Indonesia. Kupang is second with a population of 300,000. Mataram has only 20,000 more people, but the buildings are certainly more substantial. The traffic, however, was not as crazy as Kupang.
Our first stop was at a bank ATM and this really pointed out the differences in the two cities. This bank had at least ten ATM machines and the lines in the bank itself were VERY long. From the ATM we went to a huge bakery that had all sorts of Indonesian specialties to offer.

We then headed further south to Banytumelek. This is a village dedicated to producing pottery. We went to one pottery factory and we were invited to try our hand at making a piece. Mark took the challenge and ended up with a small bowl which was transformed into turtle by adding a head, feet, and a tail. Donna, Gerry, and Klinton were so taken with the pottery that they started bargaining with enough to fill a crate to be shipped back to Canada. I was fascinated with the magic water pitchers.
You pour water into the bottom of the pitcher and then when you turn it upright, the water doesn’t come out until you pour it out of the spout. Pretty neat. I was also fascinated with the designs appliquéd onto some of the pieces. The designs are broken pieces of eggshell glued on to the pottery piece to form the design.

The traditional weaving village of Sukarcara was our next stop. A young woman named Inji took us on a tour of the village. The housing was traditional bamboo construction, but the roof of each little house was topped with clay tiles instead of corrugated iron or traditional thatch. Inja showed us some of the old homes with cow dung foundations. Cow dung and water were mixed to make rock-hard bricks used to construct foundations. Inja also introduced us to the songket weaving done by every woman
in the village. If a woman can’t weave, she can’t get married, so this is a skill shared by all women in the village. Tina, Donna, and I were each given a chance to try our hand at weaving, but we all admitted that the intricacies of the design were way above our level of understanding. Lombok weavers use lots of silver and gold thread, and we all ended up buying pieces after a rigorous exercise in price negotiation.

Due to our delay at the pottery factory, we did not continue to the south coast for a planned seafood lunch. Instead, we headed back north and visited Taman Narmada, the summer palace of the last king of Lombok. This entire complex is designed to look like a mini-version of Gunung Rinjani, the huge volcano that looms over this island. You do climb up and down, but it resembles the mountain only in an abstract way. But it was fun to sit in the king’s house and look down on the pool where his harem
would have been swimming.

The rest of the day involved a stop at Hero’s, the most modern grocery story in Mataram. This also afforded an internet stop. Mark will be going back there tomorrow to do some of the research into future stops while Klinton and Donna go back to the pottery factory to finish their shopping for pottery and to take some items from the boat to be shipped home in their crate. I’ll stay home tomorrow to continue to work on trip planning. I’m looking forward to a day at home.

080908 Day 122 Lombok, Indonesia–Tour of Lombok