Senggigi, Lombok Island, Indonesia. What is worth seeing in Lombok? Secluded holiday on the Gili Islands
Lombok Island, is located in Indonesia between the islands and Sumbawa, and is part of the Lesser Sunda Islands group in the Malay archipelago. City Mataram is the main administrative center of the island. There is an international airport 40 km from it, although the number of foreign flights is less. They fly to and. The distance from Mataram Airport to Senggigi is 55 km. You can get there by Damri Damri buses - it’s convenient and inexpensive. A new international airport was built in the city of Praya Praya - this is to the south.
There are two seaports on the island of Lombok, one in the southwest of Lembar port, the other in the east of the island. You can get to Lombok from other islands, Sumbawa, Flores by ferry or ship (more on this in the next article). There are also private boats and boats that also provide transportation.
I bought a ticket for 159 thousand rupees, and not 200, as the hostess’s husband asked. Travel tip - never give money up front. The girl with whom I was going to the ship warned me that there would be a lot of people and I needed to take great care of my things, which of course worried me and did not allow me to relax.
My budget for two partial days.
Got from the port to Senggigi for 60 thousand rupees + accommodation with light breakfast 65 thousand * 2 nights = 130 thousand rupees. During all this time I spent 50 thousand rupees on food, including cake and coconut. I got back to the port for 50 thousand rupees.
Continuing my “great” journey through Indonesia and Southeast Asia, I went further east to see the volcano on the island of Flores. swam on
– an ideal place for a secluded holiday and exciting diving.
Lombok is called the little brother of Bali. Until recently, tourists came from there mainly on excursions. After the opening of the international airport, getting to Lombok became much easier and the number of vacationers increased significantly. The tourism infrastructure is gradually developing. Compared to Bali, there are much fewer tourists here, but the holiday is more calm, secluded and exotic.
Lombok is located in the Malay Archipelago and administratively belongs to Indonesia. Lombok is located between two islands - to the west of it is the island. Bali, from the east - . Lombok is slightly smaller in area than Bali. The population of the island is 3 million inhabitants, the capital is Mataram.
How to get there
Just a few years ago it was possible to get to Lombok only from the island. After the Bandara Internasional Lombok International Airport was opened on an island near the city of Praya in 2011, tourists had the opportunity to use direct international flights connecting Lombok with Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. The airport accepts domestic flights from the islands of Java and Bali.
There are up to eight flights a day from Bali to Lombok, but it is extremely difficult to buy tickets online in advance. Therefore, it is better to purchase them in Bali at the airport or travel agency. The flight takes 25 minutes. From the new airport, regular buses run to the city of Mataram and the resort of Senggigi. A taxi ride is much more comfortable, but will cost five times more. All official taxis are equipped with meters. Boarding a taxi is carried out after paying a service fee at the airport ticket office.
You can also get to the island from Bali by ferry. Compared to air travel, the ferry option is almost 10 times cheaper. Ferries depart around the clock every hour, the journey time is about five hours. In case of bad weather, flights are cancelled. Ferries run from Padang Bai pier (Bali) to Lembar pier (Lombok). From Lembar you can take a taxi to Mataram or Senggigi.
The best way to get around the island is by minibus, which is called Bemo here. You can also make intercity trips on these passenger buses for a small fee. It is possible to rent this transport, which is beneficial for tourists traveling in a group. An ordinary taxi will cost more and cannot be found everywhere. In tourist areas, it is common to rent a car or motorcycle.
general information
The northeastern part of the island is mountainous and is home to the Rinjani volcano. The south is dominated by limestone plateaus, covered in places by hills. There are very beautiful landscapes here - deserted roads run through green hills, clean beaches, quiet bays. The tourist infrastructure is developed in the western part of the island - in the area of the Senggigi resort, where beach holidays predominate, and on the southern coast - in Kuta (not to be confused with), a favorite place for surfers. In general, Lombok is more suitable for lovers of wild tourism. By car or bike you can travel along deserted roads, visiting secluded exotic places.
Senggigi is a resort town located along the coastal route. There are all possibilities for relaxation - hotels, expensive and cheap, cafes, restaurants. The main entertainment here is a relaxing holiday on the beach, massage, snorkeling.
Kuta Beach is attractive for surfing. Although there are few hotels and only a few cafes, there is a surf school and rental of surfing equipment. Many tourists rent a scooter to get around the resort. The largest hotel in Kuta is Novotel, which has 2 restaurants, a spa center, an indoor beach, and outdoor swimming pools.
Weather
The climate on the island of Lombok is tropical and hot throughout the year. The tourist season lasts all year round, but its peak occurs from March to August. The rainy season lasts from October to April. The greatest amount of precipitation falls in December and January. The driest months are July and August. The average annual air temperature is 28-29 °C, water temperature is 27-30 °C. In the northern mountainous regions it is noticeably colder than on the coast.
Attractions
The island of Lombok has plenty of attractions, both natural and man-made. Although they are quite modest, they have not yet been promoted, “untapped” by numerous tourist groups. You can get to local attractions by taxi or rented transport. The most convenient and cheapest option is to join one of the group excursions. If you decide to travel on your own, you can order an experienced guide from a travel agency.
Mount Rinjani volcano is the most significant landmark of the island. Not many people can boast that they have visited the crater of a volcano. When in Lambok, it's hard to resist traveling to Mt. Although it has gentle slopes, the height is quite impressive - 3726 m, so the climb takes a whole day. Every healthy person can master it, but traveling alone is not recommended.
Volcano Rinjani
Trekking group trips with porters and a guide are organized for two to three days. By paying $100–200, tourists receive accompanying persons, food, tents, and sleeping bags. In the crater of the volcano there is a huge lake where you can swim. After relaxing and admiring the unique views, those who wish can climb to the highest point of the mountain.
– another attraction located near the coast of Lombok. Three of them - Meno, Air and Trawangan - are the most popular. The tourist infrastructure here is quite developed: there are hotels of different price categories and several diving clubs.
Gili Islands
Holidays on the Gili Islands are a great opportunity to sunbathe on clean sandy beaches or go snorkeling and diving. The largest of them is Trawangan , most populated by tourists, it is a party place. Lovers of diving among corals come here.
On about. Meno , on the contrary, it is quiet and calm. There are hotels here, but not very many, and all entertainment is concentrated only on their territory. The beaches are beautiful and clean, but there are fragments of coral in the water. Meno is a suitable place for people who want to be secluded on a deserted island.
Eyre is the smallest and greenest of the three islands. There are many locals here and there are bars and restaurants. The shore and water are clean. A great place for those who want to sunbathe and swim, but boring for partygoers.
Narmada Water Park , built at the beginning of the 19th century by one of the local kings, it was used by members of the royal family for recreation. There is a Hindu temple, a swimming pool, springs with clean water, and lakes. The park is beautiful and cozy, the area is carefully cleaned.
Mayura Water Palace – witness to the history of the island. At the end of the 19th century, a fierce battle took place on the territory of the palace between the Balinese and the Dutch, as a result of which the palace was damaged. Statues, cannons, and altars installed around the lake remind local residents of distant battles for independence.
Pura Meru – Hindu temple built in 1720. Believers are invited to the ceremony by beating large drums located on its premises.
Pura Lingsar – a temple complex consisting of two temples - Hindu and Islamic.
Solitude and Lombok are practically synonymous words. Tourist infrastructure is most developed in the western part of Senggigi Island. There, tourists will be able to engage in idleness and shopping with complete dedication. The island is famous for its pottery, silk and textiles with gold and silver thread, handcrafted by local artisans.
Excellent surfing can be found on the other side of the island, at the resort of Kuta (not to be confused with the resort of the same name in Bali).
Search for flights to Denpasar (the nearest airport to Lombok)
Rules of conduct and safety
If you decide to visit some remote rural areas on your own, it would be prudent to look for a local guide. Often the residents of such places do not know not only English, but also Indonesian, so it will be possible to communicate with them only in Sasak.
In addition, some places in Lombok have quite strict morals. If you plan to visit rural areas, religious sites or government offices, it is better to wear something more modest. For women traveling, it would be a good idea to have a pareo with you - you can throw it on if you decide to leave the beach for a while in just a swimsuit, and it also perfectly protects from the sun and wind.
Be careful with local alcohol. On the island, things are not particularly favorable for him, so if you think that you feel worse, it is better to consult a doctor just in case (however, if you feel slightly unwell the next morning, you probably do not need to go to the hospital).
Be sure to bring insect repellent with you. It's unlikely that you'll be bitten by malarial mosquitoes if you're vacationing at one of the popular resorts, but it's still pretty frustrating to be itching for the rest of your trip because of one small mistake.
And, as for local traditions, in Lombok it is customary to take off your shoes when entering someone’s house (and even into the reception areas of some companies) and it is not customary to offer your left hand or pass something with your left hand to someone with whom you are not too close. Failure to comply with these two rules is considered very rude here.
Holidays on the island of Lombok
Shopping: shops
Pottery, silk and woven items with gold and silver thread, handcrafted by local craftsmen, are the main souvenirs from Lombok.
Beaches
The island's best beaches are in the Sendjigi area: they are wide, clean and with blessedly little sunbathing or steaming. A distinctive feature of the Lombok coast is the beaches with grains of sand the size of black peppercorns, gray-beige in color. A handful of such sand is another important souvenir that is taken away from Lombok.
Kitchen
The word "lombok" is translated from Indonesian as "chili pepper", but the local cuisine is generally not as spicy as one might think.
One of the island's most popular dishes is called ayam taliwang. Locals cannot agree on which recipe should be considered authentic, but the most common variation of the dish is chicken in a rather spicy tomato sauce with lots of spices. Its taste can be both mild and very spicy, so it is better to check when you order.
One of the things you shouldn't miss when you're in Lombok is the local traditional massage.
The main food of the island's inhabitants and a mandatory item on the menu of any cafe is rice with various additives. In terms of the amount of rice consumed, the islanders are hardly much inferior to the Japanese, and the additives are quite varied. In addition to vegetables (this is a mandatory part of the program), nuts, fish, chicken, meat or tofu can be added to the rice, and as a seasoning you will probably be offered sambal sauce, which is based on ground red pepper.
Prices in restaurants and cafes in Lombok greatly depend on their location. Lunch at a restaurant in one of the popular resorts will be quite expensive, and the dishes offered there will be adapted to European cuisine. In other places you can find many small restaurants called warung, which are aimed more at local residents. If you are interested in traditional cuisine, they are exactly what you need.
Alcoholic drinks can be bought almost everywhere, but since the majority of Lombok's population is Muslim, some areas (particularly Praya) have a ban on the sale of alcohol in bars and restaurants. Plus, alcohol is heavily taxed throughout Indonesia - it's quite possible that a bottle of wine will end up being the most expensive item on your order.
Popular hotels in Lombok
Entertainment and attractions in Lombok
There are interesting excursions to the Rinjani volcano, Sendang Gila waterfall and Lake Danau Segara Anae. In the sea nearby there are three coral islands of the Gili (Gili): Gili Air, Gili Meno and Gili Trawangan, with snow-white beaches, bays with clear water and coral reefs. The nearest one is a 15-minute ferry ride away - an ideal place for picnics, diving and snorkeling. In addition, the island has several museum villages of the Lombok aborigines - the Sasaks.
One of the things you shouldn't miss when you're in Lombok is the local traditional massage. To do this, you don’t even need to go anywhere; you can get a massage right on the beach, to the relaxing sound of the waves. In addition to being extremely pleasant, this massage is believed to have an excellent therapeutic effect. It is still one of the main methods of treatment for many diseases among Sasak healers and is very popular among all segments of the island's population.
Another traditional entertainment on the island is fishing. There are many places where you can rent a boat with all the necessary equipment and go fishing in the sea - for a day or longer. It's very relaxing, but be careful - keep an eye on the weather forecast and don't swim too far.
And if you want a more active holiday, there are excellent cycling excursions on the island, where you can stretch your muscles after lying on the beach and listening to the guide’s stories about local attractions.
...In the morning I quickly had breakfast with a cup of coffee and a pancake, scanned documents at the hotel reception (two airlines canceled a couple of my flights in the Philippines in April and offered extremely clumsy replacements - in the end I had to cancel the paid reservations and return the money to the card. And for a refund they demanded a copy of my passport and the card used for payment) and downloaded Balinese music onto a flash drive - I have a hobby of collecting the music of the peoples of the world and their national instruments. Then there was a checkout, a trip on a bike with a suitcase to the center of Seminyak to return the bike - that’s where I once again kindly mentioned the fact that my suitcase has not only wheels, but also backpack straps. The office where I bought a combined tour to the city of Senggigi on the island of Lombok is located next to the bike rental and I got there in a few minutes. The bike owner complained to me for some time, saying that I didn’t buy tickets to Senggigi from him, but he was with me with all his heart.. But this bloke didn’t offer me normal tickets, he just tried hard to persuade me to use him as a taxi to the pier in Padang - and this transfer would have cost me 300 thousand local money without a ticket for a boat or ferry... Still, they were greatly spoiled here with free earnings.
I didn’t have time to settle down to continue breakfast with yoghurts purchased in advance when a transfer minibus arrived - 40 minutes earlier than I expected. I was his first passenger, then we went to some pretentious hotel, where we waited another half hour for a couple of leisurely Germans to come out. At some point I got tired of waiting and went to the all-inclusive restaurant of this hotel to have some coffee. Then I caught a local girl dressed in bright Balinese folk clothes (she’s there at the reception, like a live attraction for tourists) and took a photo with her on the iPad as a souvenir. When I drove the bus, when I learned that I was from Russia, the first thing I said was that “Russia is waging a war against Ukraine in Crimea” - that’s what they told him on TV...
At one o'clock in the afternoon the speedboat set sail from Padang Bay towards the Gili Islands and further to the island of Lombok. For some reason, Canadians dominated among the passengers, judging by the maple leaf stripes on the bags. I wonder what is the reason that there are so many of them here? It’s clear why there are a lot of them, for example, in Cuba - relatively close, the best beaches in the world (IMHO), inexpensive by their standards, Americans have not been allowed there for half a century (it seems that now the situation has begun to change..) - so the Canadians stand out numerically there. Or why there are many Australians in Bali is also understandable - on a fine day and with some luck, you can sail from Australia to Bali by boat... But the Canadian phenomenon is still unclear to me, especially considering that Canada has a sparse population (all of Canada is like two superfluous to Moscow).
This fast boat sails really fast - but in my case, the advantages in speed were offset by the route: first we sailed to Gili Travanan, one of the three paradise islands of Gili, located almost off the coast of Lombok, and lost half an hour there unloading and loading passengers and luggage; then history repeated itself on Gili Air, and in the very last place the boat sailed to the island of Lombok, losing about an hour on these Gili. As a result, the sea part of the journey was about 3 hours on a “fast boat” versus the declared 5 on a ferry - the gain in time is not as significant as the salesmen in travel agencies describe it, motivating their desire to charge you a price of more than half a million local money. At least, they swore to me in two different places that it would take about an hour and a half to sail to Senggigi by fastboat. We didn’t really eat, but we didn’t tell the truth in advance - I got off the shore of Lombok at 16:15, the total travel time was 3 hours 15 minutes.
As usual, taxi drivers surrounded me on the pier, tormented by a burning desire to take me somewhere. The price they announced for my Ressa Homestay hotel initially sounded like 120 thousand, but after a couple of minutes of haggling it dropped to 50 thousand. By the way, it was a fairly long drive by local standards - 6-7 kilometers towards the city of Mataram.
After checking into the hotel, I asked about renting a bike - they didn’t have any bikes. I went on foot to the nearest cafe - after a diet breakfast in the morning in Bali, I really wanted to eat something. In the cafe, in addition to dinner, I agreed with a local boy that, after I had eaten, he would give me a ride on his bike to Senggigi for a symbolic 10 thousand (less than a dollar). In Senggigi, I rented a bike for 50 thousand a day without any problems and swam a couple of times near the pier.
Beaches of Lombok Island
I woke up at 8 am, had breakfast at the hotel with a cup of coffee and a sandwich and went for a ride around the island of Lombok. First, swimming and taking pictures in suitable places on the coast:
In this way I reached the town of Bangsal and checked the price and time of departure of boats to the Gili Islands - this information will be useful to me tomorrow. Then from Bangsal we drove inland through the Pusuk Pass to Mataram.
Now impressions of Lombok:
first, the pros: firstly, the roads (at least the road along the coast from Mataram to the northern tip of the island) are simply of ideal quality, I would envy such a road.
Secondly, this road is very picturesque - the terrain resembles a roller coaster and almost every rise offers wonderful views of the surrounding beauty. Thirdly, the crystal clear sea. Fourthly, the people are very welcoming and friendly
Adults smile at you and willingly try to help you if you turn to them, children along the roads wave to you. At Pusuk Pass there are a huge number of monkeys sitting along the road; you can apparently feed them if you wish.
Disadvantages: firstly, almost all the beaches are densely littered with local people (there are not a lot of tourists on the island of Lombok yet, you shouldn’t sin on them). That is, on almost every beach, if it is located near some village or town, along the edge of the surf there is a smooth strip of empty bottles, pieces of paper, cigarette butts, etc.
Secondly, the sand on all beaches is either gray or almost black (volcanic). The color of the sand varies from this:
to this:
In itself, this is not so much a minus - nature is nature, but I would like to ask the authors of Thomas Cook’s guidebook “Bali and Lombok”, who in their book repeatedly use the phrase “snow-white beaches” in relation to the island of Lombok - have they even been there? Or did they write on the ball, like this will do? I repeat, this is not a complaint about Lombok, this is a question for the authors of this guide. The black sand didn’t really bother me; I would have gone to Lombok anyway. Thirdly, the exchange rate between dollars and rupees in Lombok is worse than: 11,300 for 1 buck versus 11,400 in Bali. So it makes sense to change money either before Lombok or after it, depending on the route.
The island of Lombok is a place with a predominantly Muslim population, and after Hindu Bali this immediately catches your eye: firstly, there are many women in hijabs, there are often mosques along the roads, the muezzin woke me up in the morning.. As a result, the architecture in Lombok is noticeably duller than that in Bali is just houses with no frills and just functional mosques (and many of them give the impression of being unfinished) - white walls without much decoration, a green dome, a couple of minarets with megaphones, and that's it. In this sense, the architecture of Bali is cooler than that of Lombok, in much the same way as the Bolshoi Theater is cooler than some regional philharmonic society.
Lombok photo:
Life hack: how I save on hotels and insurance
In addition to traditional and well-known tools - such as Booking or Hotellook, new online services have recently appeared that make the life of a traveler much easier and pleasantly protect the thickness of his wallet. One of them - Roomguru– I use it myself all the time and recommend it to all my friends and acquaintances. This service compares prices for an object in 30 booking systems at once and offers you the most interesting options. In addition, it tracks discounts and special offers.
As for good working travel insurance, it was not easy to find before, but now it has become even more difficult due to the constant jumps in the exchange rate of the ruble against world currencies. For the last few years, I have been purchasing insurance for my travels through an online service - here you can compare the products of different insurers and choose what suits you best:
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Lombok is Bali's neighbor and is usually visited for two reasons: surfing at Gerupuk Bay and a three-day climb to Mount Rinjani. And the southern coast of Lombok is very beautiful (IMHO much more beautiful than Bali) and people go there for semi-wild tourism and picturesque tropical beaches. I even had it on my blog a few years ago, I was such a fan of this place myself and went there to surf with friends almost every month.
In recent years, my personal opinion about Lombok has changed a lot and I stopped going there. I can’t even remember how many years ago I was last in Lombok. (The only exception would be two trips to Sumbawa, when we crossed Lombok just to get to the ferry to Sumbawa, but we did not stop at Lombok itself).
I have never blogged about my personal adventures in Lombok and my reasons for stopping going there: I didn’t want to create panic and spread horror stories. (One was enough for the whole world to start thinking that Bali will soon be wiped off the face of the earth :)))
But recently I received a letter from blog readers who told me about their terrible incident in Lombok. And since this is not the only story, I decided to raise this topic. So that every person going to Lombok knows what hypothetically awaits him in this place if the circumstances are unfortunate. And ideally, people would stop traveling to this place altogether, so that the Lombok government would finally deal with this situation.
I also have my own horror story about Lombok and I will tell it today too. My story happened in 2012, but since then the situation in Lombok has not improved, although there have been an order of magnitude more tourists. And yes, I understand that it is everyone's personal choice whether or not to go to Lombok, but I want to take the time to encourage everyone reading these pages to “ban” Lombok from visiting. Because only when tourists begin to avoid Lombok en masse will the local government begin to do something about the attacks and crimes that occur on this beautiful but very violent island. I don’t want to support the economy of the island, where the government for so many years has not found a way to deal with the bandits, and simply turns a blind eye to everything that has been happening for years. Lawlessness to one degree or another, of course, exists everywhere, even in Bali, but the form in which it flourishes in Lombok is truly brutal. And although I miss this island terribly, and am constantly eager to go there again, it’s still not for nothing that I deliberately did not go there for many years. And I won't go. Not because I'm scared, but because it is my conscious choice to boycott Lombok. Now let's move on to the scary stories from Lombok.
Story one.
From a letter sent to me recently about the attack in Lombok.
"Good afternoon!
I don’t know where to turn, we had a problem while on vacation. Today, my boyfriend and I were attacked right on the road by two local guys. We stopped in Kuta [there is also a Kuta in Lombok, approx. from me], rented two scooters, and drove around the area for the second day. After lunch at a local cafe in a small fishing village on the shore of the bay (Pelabuhan Ikan, Teluk Awang, Lombok Tengah) we drove back to Kuta.
A few minutes after leaving the village, a steep climb began, at the end of which two guys stood. I was driving in front, my boyfriend was behind me. The speed on the ascent was low, 10-15 km/h. As soon as I caught up with the guys, one of them began to swing a large stick at me, the second had a machete in his hands. I didn’t immediately understand the intention, and when I realized it, I started screaming. At that moment the guy hit me on the back with a stick, I fell and started screaming.
My young man at that moment was just driving up the hill where everything was happening. He heard my scream, but saw everything when I was already lying on the ground. When I fell, I immediately jumped up and tried to run away from the attackers. My boyfriend rushed to save me and threw his bike. At that moment, the first attacker had already grabbed my scooter, and the second ran towards my friend with a stick and waving a machete. We ran back, the attacker got on my boyfriend’s bike and we both rode off on our bikes. We ran after them, screamed, called for help, but it led to nothing. Everything happened in 10 seconds. The road was empty, people appeared only after 30-60 seconds.
We had phones in our bike pockets, documents and money were in my boyfriend’s backpack, the robbers didn’t take it. Everything was on a busy highway, we were just unlucky, and at that moment we found ourselves there completely alone. After that, local residents took us to the nearest police station, and we spent another five hours with the police. First we went to the crime scene, where there were pieces of the broken headlight of my bike and the stick with which they hit me. The police also took us to the local hospital, where they recorded wounds and bruises, of which there were many after the fall.
During the process, it became clear that they had not previously recorded such cases [which is not true, since attacks in Lombok happen regularly - another note from me], but in the same village three days ago, bikes from other tourists were stolen. They were stolen from the parking lot at the pier, the bikes have not yet been found. It is unknown whether these are the same robbers or others, but the crime scene is the same. I would like to warn vacationers that a gang or even more than one criminal is operating close to the tourist area of Kuta. It is unknown how their attack will end next time, but they are unlikely to stop there. Our phones are obviously more expensive than bikes, but lives are priceless. Please warn people about this danger in Lombok! Such chaos, associated with a threat to life, should not go unnoticed.
Ekaterina K.”
Even for me, a person who has lived in Indonesia for a long time and has seen everything, this story is terrifying. And as I wrote above in the notes in square brackets, this is not the first attack in Lombok and attacks on tourists regularly occurred in the Lombok Kuta area. It’s difficult for me to say how often, because most of them simply do not come to the surface, and only news reaches about the most severe cases, when after an attack people ended up in the hospital in a very serious condition.
By the way, the story described above did not end there; I learned its continuation from the second letter, which I also present below.
“Stella, hello!
Continuation and ending of the story
Our villa manager Amin was very worried about the scooters because they were not his. The next morning there was a conversation that we needed to return the money for the scooters. We replied that the police should deal with this matter, let them look for the scooters, we didn’t lose them, but we were actually attacked, and no one in his beautiful country will compensate for our losses. We did not sign any lease documents. He only replied that all tourists in our place would pay. And he went off to pick up the owner of the bikes.
The owner of the bikes, who looked like just a bouncer, announced that he needed 15 million rupees per bike, which corresponds to $1,150. Naturally, we didn’t have that kind of money, and this is just robbery. We, of course, refused, but the owner of the bikes simply smiled. He said that until we pay, we will not leave here. Around the same time, we read that in Lombok, among incidents with tourists, robbery is a common occurrence, followed by extortion from owners of stolen scooters. It turns out that the police deceived us when they said that this does not happen to them, only the theft of parked scooters.
At that moment, we really feared for our lives, because not one person, but two or three, came to deal with us, and there were also some other people sitting at the exit of the villa, in general we were surrounded. We didn’t want to talk to the owner of the scooters, because he didn’t care about our problems, he was going to fully compensate for his losses at our expense. We called the villa manager Amin for negotiations; we were ready to pay everything we had to be released from this hell. Amin said that his owner, although we thought that he was the owner, was ready to compensate 10 million, but we would only need to give 15 million. But the owner of the bikes said that he did not agree to 25 million, and he needed all 30. At the same time, the owner of the bikes called some kind of boss to agree on a reduction in the price, but he refused.
Thus, we had to give 20 million, and we only had 15. We said that we don’t have that much money, and we can’t give it all, otherwise we will be left completely without money, but they didn’t want to listen to us. They said the last price was 15 million for two scooters. We changed the money, gave it to Amin (and not like the owner of the scooters), at that time there were already seven people at the entrance to the villa. We were happy to get out of there. We believe that they were all just scammers and deceivers.
Naturally, the owner of the villa (I think the owner was invented) Amina will not compensate for anything, this performance was only for us, we were deceived, intimidated and robbed of our last money. This did not bother these people at all; they did not care at all that we were left in their beautiful country without money.
Later we learned from local residents that the market value of such old scooters is less than 7 million, and new ones actually cost 15 million. The speedometer on one of the stolen scooters did not work, which generally prohibits the use of this scooter, but they rented it out and even earned it. I don’t know if it was possible to get out of this situation with fewer losses.
We had thoughts of turning to the police so that they would help us, they would judge somehow, and 30 million is actually some kind of space. But then we changed our minds, the local police were at the same time with them, we would have only lost time, and the ending would have been the same. Now I understand Amin’s words that everyone in our place would pay. There is no other way here...
Catherine"
The second story.
My personal one, although a little old, is very revealing; it is also about an unpleasant adventure in Lombok.
Horror stories about Lombok have been circulating for a long time. And if someone, having read the story above, suddenly thought that he would definitely “not let himself be scammed like that” or “would have defended himself in front of the bandits,” then I will tell you my story. How we defended ourselves.
Our story happened back in 2012. My friends and I went by car to travel around Sumbawa and Lombok. We arrived in Lombok late in the evening, it was August and the high season, so we could not find accommodation for a long time; in Kuta (Lombok) there were still very few guesthouses at that time and everything was booked everywhere. We were driving around Kuta in the evening and got into a small accident with a scooter.
My version of the accident: two scooters were driving towards us, one suddenly crossed the road diagonally and ended up in the oncoming lane, we would not have been able to pass without a collision, the car swerved to the side so as not to hit the one in the oncoming lane, and at that time the second scooter, I didn’t look at the road, but looked somewhere to the side, so I couldn’t avoid our car. What’s important is that as a result of the accident, the second scooter passed our bumper tangently, which left scratches and a slightly cracked headlight. All. That is, it was not a hellish accident, it was an accident at low speeds (I think about 40 km/h) with mutual damage to the plastic. No harm done. In any other situation in Indonesia, everyone would simply leave (there is no compulsory insurance here) or exchange a small amount of money and go on business.
But we, just like the guys from the story above, found ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was Independence Day, which the whole country celebrated; there were crowds of drunk local men on the streets. So literally in a minute a crowd surrounded our car and began to threaten us.
Since I then thought that “we are in the know and they won’t scam us,” I followed the old advice that if something goes wrong, you just lock yourself in the car and under no circumstances get out of it. And so they did. They beat up our car, they showered us with abuse and threats, they tried to open the windows and break down the doors. I don't even want to go into details right now. The main thing is that there were a lot of them and we understood that we couldn’t escape. And most importantly, the crowd grew and became more violent. And all this happened in Kuta. Nobody tried to stand up for us, everyone just joined the crowd.
Of course, I don’t even want to remember all the details of that evening and that night, because even now, when I write these lines, fear for my life, hatred for such savagery and an understanding of complete powerlessness in front of this crowd are again seething inside me. I’ll just say that all of us sitting in the car at that time (and they were mostly girls) were scared because 20 adult angry screaming men were rocking our car and banging on the windows, demanding that we urgently get out of the car “to talk."
This hell lasted for several hours, it seems to me. At some point, there was a “helper” outside who spoke more or less passable English and promised that he would help us resolve the situation. The settlement meant translation from Bahasa to English that we just had to pay only five million rupees for the “repair” of the bike (at that time it was $500). We were talking about an old antediluvian moped, not even an automatic one, which, in principle, at that time cost half the price requested for repairs. Considering that our bumper was scratched and the headlight was cracked, the scope of repairs to that scooter was clearly not worth the money. Therefore, we stood our ground and replied that we were ready to cover the real cost of repairs, discuss everything calmly with the owner of the bike, and not with a crowd, and that extortion and threats would not work with us.
And now to the question of the police. In the story above, Ekaterina correctly writes that there is no point in contacting the police. It's a waste of time, and in most cases, the police will just get their cut, so they will be even more interested in extorting something from you. Welcome to Indonesia.
At some point, we informed the locals who were rocking our car that we would not get out of the car. They began to scare us with the police, to which we (naive even then) said that yes. Give us the police, that's exactly what we would like to see now. The police arrived. They forced us all to get out of the car, put us in a police car, and took us to the police station. At that moment, the girls and I exhaled, anticipating a speedy deliverance from all this hell. Naive.
The same crowd that was rocking the car poured into the station with us. Now only between us and them there was no body of the car. They yelled and screamed throughout the entire area, they shouted curses at us, something about how we were “dont respect for the country” and that they would deal with us now. And although we demanded order from the police and that all leftists be kicked out of the station, the police didn’t give a damn. They continued to extort money from us and we realized that the police not only were not going to “understand” our story, but it was also unclear whose side they were on.
This madhouse lasted for several more hours. During which we rapidly lost nerve cells and faith that we would get out of this area. But we didn't give up. At the same time, we tried to find out the emergency numbers of our embassy, the telephone numbers of the tourist police, and reported it to the Internet, in case someone else knew where we were and what was happening to us.
Since this police station realized that they could not easily withdraw money from us, they decided to intimidate us by sending us to the main police station of this region, in the city of Praya. We agreed because we didn't think anything could be worse than a small police station in a village full of locals shouting and threatening us.
It takes about an hour to get to Praia. There we were handed over to another police station, where we spent time until late in the morning. Until the damn morning. Because it was a holiday and there was no one to look after us. During the 12 hours that we spent in this station, no one took any formal testimony from us, no one drew up a report and we did not write any explanatory notes, no one went to the scene of the accident to check anything. They simply talked to us, convincing us that we owe respect to the country and therefore must pay money, then they will let us go.
Another interesting point: after the accident, we did not see the moped driver himself until the next morning. And even then, he arrived only when we asked a reasonable question, where is the other party to the accident and why is she not participating in the conversations. He arrived, but was silent the whole time. The police and the remnants of yesterday's crowd, who arrived in the morning to once again participate in our lynching, spoke for him.
The entire time we were in the police, we conducted endless negotiations with the police and with local “helpers” who smiled sweetly and said “dont warr ay help u.” But all their help was expressed in the fact that they simply announced the amount that we need to pay in order to be released.
By the way, we were eventually able to contact our Russian Embassy in Jakarta. Do you know what they told us? “Oh, well, how many of you are there? Four? Well, don’t worry, chip in a hundred and they’ll let you go.” I adore the officials of our country!
In general, our “negotiations” with the police lasted for hours, there’s no other way to describe it. They extorted money from us, showered us with conversations in the spirit of “wai yu dont respect may country” and simply stupidly kept us in police custody. In the end, we still paid some money, but our “perseverance” brought the amount to 20 or 30 dollars, I don’t remember now. True, it cost us 12 hours in the police and several hours of meaningless conversations and defending our rights.
I’m not sure that I was able to convey in colors all the horror that we experienced all this time, not understanding how long we would be kept in police custody. Guys, it was really terrible. I don’t want my short story to show you that we are so cool and we defended ourselves. Yes, we defended, but at the same time we were shaking like I don’t know who, fearing for our lives and for our things. After all, we had boards, photographic equipment, and laptops in the car with us. It was scary. From lawlessness and lawlessness and from the fact that your life has no value at all for these people. They will do anything to get their $500.
I was lucky that I had my brave and cheerful girls with me, who cannot be easily defeated by threats, so we stood for 12 hours and were able to negotiate the real cost of the repair. (By the way, we later gave $100 of our own money to the car rental company for our bumper and headlight, although I still believe that the fault in the accident was at least mutual. And at most, if the owner of the bike had looked ahead, and not sideways, he would have seen the car and the accident could have been avoided. Of course, no one ever remembered the second comrade, who suddenly changed lanes into oncoming traffic (= our lane) and who initially helped provoke the accident, in the police. And who cares about him? , when there are foreigners from whom you can withdraw money out of nowhere.)
To summarize this story, I would like to remind you that it was 2012 and in general, locals in Indonesia have not yet been so hostile towards tourists. To encounter a divorce and an aggressive attitude was rather a rarity. Nowadays, to put it mildly, this is much more common. So if our story happened now, I’m not at all sure that I would be able to defend my money in the same way.
Well, and most importantly, I definitely wouldn’t want to be a tourist in the same situation and thus “diversify my vacation.”
Therefore, the choice about Lombok is yours. I made my choice. I will not go there until the local police and government restore order on the island. If they treat tourists this way, then in principle tourists may stop visiting them, and Lombokers may return to their old life of fishing and farming. There are many other places in the world that are no less beautiful than Lombok. As for surfing, I'd rather spend a couple of hours flying and surf somewhere else.