Tidungers goes to Lombok!

Do you have friends whom you know from a trip? Well, I have, loads of them and I love each every one.

Me, and my fellow Tidungers

As you all might know, I fall deeply in love with travel thingy, backpacker, flashpacker, whatever you all name it. About 3 years ago, I joined a trip to Tidung Island, a tiny part of the awesome Thousand Island (Pulau Seribu). From the trip I've met a very chaotic group (in a good way) and we all became mates, until now. Tidungers, that's how we call our group. Though we don't have a routine meeting agenda, but somehow we manage to keep in touch, whether it's through FB, twitter or recently, by WhatsApp. Last September Me, 5 others Tidungers and 1 additional pax went on a silly trip to Lombok, and surprise surprise, I'm the EO. 

Started with Me passing info about Garuda Indonesia's flight promo during our meeting at Pisa Cafe, and voila at that moment 5 of us bought bought a return ticket CGK - LOP for 850K per person. Cheap? Hell it is! Excited, we informed it in to group messenger, one of our friend interested in join our trip, so he also bought the ticket.

See you again Jakarta!

The trip start from 05 September 12, flight schedule 1810. Traffic made us (Me, Kiki and Oom Bekti) reach the airport quite late. Because of it, one of us, Oom Bekti got an upgrade to Executive Class, Lucky ba*tard! But he was nice and gave the seat to me, so i can taste the "front seat". The flight run smoothly, the meal was delicious, the flight attendants were nice, what an enjoyable flight. We arrived at Lombok's new International Airport in Praya around 2130 local time. A friend of Ombek (that's how we called him) pick us up at the airport and drove us to our guest house for the night. We stayed at Ressa Guesthouse, located in Senggigi. The place is quite nice, and the most important, cheap! We met one additional member on our trip, Emmy, there. She already arrived in Lombok this afternoon.

Hello there Lombok!

Afternoon stroll

To Sendang Gileeee

The following day I woke up early as the itinerary for this day was tight. We're planning on visit the famous Tiu Kelep, which located in North part of Lombok then heading to Gili Trawangan from Bangsal. There were we, 6 adventurer from Jakarta and 1 annoying person from Semarang (LOL) try to conquer Lombok by ourselves! We rent an APV with no driver for couple of days, and none of us are locals. So we depended on Gmap and ask the locals for direction. First destination of the day, Tiu Kelep, that's the plan,   yet we ended up in Sendang Gile waterfall *LOL*. This is when my friends start to call me "EO Brengsek", hahaha. FYI, though "EO brengsek" has a rude meaning, but it was only for fun, so no hard feeling! 

Group Brengsek in action

One, two, three. Cheese!

After the exciting yet exhausted day, we finally reach Gili Trawangan by using public boat from bangsal harbour. The vehicle was parked at a parking lot nearby the harbour. Olga, our host from the guesthouse welcomed us at the pier. For the next 2 nights we stayed at Welcome Inn. Despite of the electricity shut down, it was an OK guesthouse. The room was spacious. We walked on the beach for the rest of afternoon, make a silly photos, try to catch a sunset but ended up stranded at the seashore. It was a cloudy afternoon, so we didn't see the point on going to the sunset spot. Not having a decent meal all day made us starved our bones out, so we went to a market to have an "ikan bakar" dinner. It was super delicious! Then we went back to the guesthouse, took shower then off to a bar nearby just to hang out.

One day islands trip

Island trip

Day three already. We're soo excited for this day because we'll be spending the day do islands visit and snorkeling, yeay! However, there was an electricity shutdown in the island, what a bummer to start a wonderful day is it? Thank God we already have the day planned out, and we won't stay at the island for almost 9hours ahead. We took a public trip to two othe Gili (Gili air and Meno) and snorkeling in 4 different spot. The tour conductor was hilarious, we laugh our self out during the trip. It ended around 3-4PM, yet the electricity still shutdown. 

We got back to guesthouse and put a more decent clothes then rent a bike for two hours to wander around the island and catch sunset. There's one stupid thing we did back then. We took a looong path to the sunset spot, a sandy-hard-to-pass-path! It took us more than 30 minutes just to reach the sunset spot *fiuh*. We kept on laughing the stupidity until now. After sunset, we get back to guesthouse for some rest before dinner, in the dark because the electricity still shutdown. Having a exhausted day made us craving for some of good food, so we decided to eat at a fancy restaurant instead of the market. And what a dissapointment, we love market food way much better *lol*. 

Sunset-ing

Though we had this night planned out, that is hang out at the reggae bar "Sama Sama" since one of our friend seems to fall deeply in love with reggae music, but that night he catched a cold, so none of us really hang out. What a useful thing to spend our last night at the island (I’m being sarcastic... LOL). We spent the night at guesthouse, in the dark *fiuh*

Bubbay Gili Trawangan!

Fourth day, time to go back to main island. After had breakfast, we off to the harbour to catch the next public bus to Bangsal. Luckily we didn’t have to wait for a long time. We arrived at bangsal at 9AM or so. Took our vehicle and start to drive heading to southern lombok, Kuta to be precise. On the way, we stop by at one of Lombok cultural village, our plan was sop by at Sade Village, yet, again, we ended up at a wrong location, Ende Village. The good thing is that there was a ceremony in Ende Village that we might not have seen if we stop at Sade Village (try to humour myself). Still had a long day ahead, we took off to Kuta beach and have lunch at a restaurant with beach view, called Warung Bule. A nice restaurant, good food with a great view. Tho it’s not the end of our trip, but one of the member have to go back to Jakarta, so we took her back to airport.

Sasak Ende Village

After took Emmy to airport, we go back to the south and head to Tanjung Aan. Tanjung aan is one of the famous spot in Lombok for it’s view. One’s can lost track of time just by sit at the top of the hill and see the astonishing view of the beach. Sadly, we only have a short of time since we have to go back to Mataram before catching early flight on the following day. On the way back to Mataram, we had a brief stop by at Segger Beach, to catch the cloudy sunset (too bad).

Tanjung Aan

Cloudy sunset at Segger Beach

By the time we reach Mataram, the only destination i could think of is Ayam Taliwang Irama! Yep, I was craving for one of the local dish in Lombok, that is ayam taliwang. Why Ayam Taliwang Irama? Because as per the local guide in Ende Village, it’s one of the most famous restaurant in Mataram that serves ayam taliwang. The night ain’t over yet, we still have to look for a hotel for the night before our early flight tomorrow. After ask to the waiter, we found a budget hotel nearby, Wisma Nusantara, but unfortunately it was full booked, but the good thing is that they gave us info where’s the available hotel nearby. So there were we, 6 people in one tiny room, just for the sake of taking a quick nap before tomorrow’s flight.

It was 4 AM when we took off to Airport. There were barely any vehicle on the road, just us, the silly group who just spend 4 wonderful days in Lombok. It’s time to go back home, to our lovely Jakarta. I was hoping we can get another upgrade to executive, but hey, no one got lucky everytime right? Our plane landed in Jakarta around 0930, and it was the end of the journey of “Grup Brengsek” to Lombok :)

For complete photo album can be seen right over here.