1 post tagged “indonesia”
The Lombok trip was conceived over a year ago after a few of us flickr folk saw Chkese's beautiful photos at a flickr sg gathering. Not realising the fitness level required, we naively made a tentative pledge that we will go climb the mountain and come back with the exact same beautiful photographs, thinking it will probably be similar to climbing a few Bukit Timah hills. We were so so so so completely wrong :P
Sidenote: Not that the whole experience was truly awful because I count this very high up on my list of wonderful experiences of my life so far and I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone thinking of doing the same. In fact, in many ways, this trip was a lot of firsts for me. My first mountain trek, my first flickr overseas trip, my first time not taking a shower for 2 days, my first time really roughing it out and my first time pushing my body to its limits. The sights, stories and friendship forged on Mt Rinjani will remain imprinted in my mind for years to come and now that the pain of climbing the mountain has subsided, maybe I might make another trip up the mountain again and make it to the summit this time. Brave words indeed from this author sitting in the comfort of her chair with the air-con blowing but going back to Lombok and the mountain will be like going back to visit old friends again.
And so I digress. We arrived in Lombok 28th April, midday, after a short flight on Silk Air. It was hot, so hot that I thought to myself...Oops. Should have brought spag tops here instead of tees. The drive to Batu Koq, Senaru, where we were staying for the night before the trek up made me sigh in relief as the mercury dipped down to a comfortable low 20s.
This is where we dropped our luggage and made ready to head out for a spot of photographic fun in nearby padi fields because we are such fanatics afterall.
Dinner that night was at a traditional Bayan village where we got to try the local traditional cuisine (green leaves of the poinsettia plant) and their local drink of choice (for the men at least), Brem. Its a rice wine that is sweet for the first 2 weeks of brewing and then gradually turning more and more sour/bitter and alcoholic as it ferments.
