Lombok

Main Street, Gili Air

Our first night was spent on the resort island of Gili Air along with LUNA BLU.  The town has sand streets, horse cart transportation, tourists, and everything else necessary to support the tourist industry.  hotels, restaurants, ATM's, boat transportation, ferries, etc.  It was nice to be back in civilization.  The ATM was also much needed.

Gili Air waterfront

Our home for a week

The Medana Bay Marina Pontoon

Medana Bay Marina is 5 miles away on the mainland of Lombok.  They are the ship agents for the Rally and handle the extension of our Visas.  It takes 7 days and the extension is for 30 days so you really only gain 23 extra days.  It would have been real tough to clear out within our original 2 month Visa time limit.

A small gas station.  Bensin is gasoline, Solar is diesel. 

The marina has two steel piers with a steel crosswalk between them.  Tortuguita was originally supposed to be on the inner section but the winds prevented that from happening safely so we tied up on the end for a day.  We got the Visas started, filled up with diesel, and washed everything with fresh water.  

The moorings were filling up so we grabbed one before they were gone.  There was alot of complaining about boats rolling at night on the moorings but Tortuguita is so stable, we thought we were on land.

Saki, our go to guy, at the MBM Restaurant (Our US Flag)

The marina restaurant is excellent and the prices even better.  Our meals cost around $1.50 US.  The priciest thing was the 24 ounce beers at $3.00.  Every night was a social gathering with tables pushed together for 15 or more people.

The usual dinner crowd.

Lombok is around 90% Muslim and there was no shortage of prayer callers on the loudspeakers from the handful of mosques in audible range.  Personally, I don't mind them except for the 4:30 AM rant that goes on for half an hour.  We're trying to sleep, dude.  Keep it short and turn down the volume.

I spent a few days helping Gert and Ingrid on LAZY LADY with their diesel generator.  It was flooded from am exhaust leak.  We got the diesel running and the generator checked out but in the end it was too far gone to fix any further in Lombok.  They will have better luck in Singapore where parts are more available.

Mama needs a drink

We hired a van, with LUNA BLU and DANA FELICIA, and took a day trip to Sangigi.  A coastal touristy town.  It was nice to see the sights as most tourists do and we had two nice meals at the Taman Restaurant.  Met a guy, Muhammed, at the Art Market who ended up finding us a traditional Indonesian brass gong like we saw in Alor.  Booker has been wanting one ever since and now she has one.

Fairly gently 'wild' animal

Our trip to the Mataram, the Capital City of Lombok to get photographed and fingerprinted for the visa extension was real fun.  We stopped in the mountains at the 'Monkey Forest'.  There were hundreds of these little things running around.  We fed them whole peanuts and almost all were very polite and probably thankful for the snack.  We went to a nice mall, had lunch, and did some provisioning at a 'real' supermarket.  Our passports came back the next day but we just couldn't pull ourselves away from the marina and our friends so we stayed an extra day.  We head out for Bali in the morning.

 

The Mataram Immigration Office