Senggigi

Arriving at Bangsal with Richard and Claire gave us extra bargaining power with the taxi drivers, and in no time at all all 4 of us were relaxing in a comfy taxi on our way directly to Senggigi on the Lombok coast.

The first few cheapy places we tried were all full, but luckily we got decent rooms at the lovely beachside hotel of Lina's (125K, no brekkie - the president was making an appearance in the town the following day, so rooms were scarce I think). It was still just late morning when we'd all settled in, so after showers and resting for a bit I went for a refreshing swim. As I was heading back to the room, Richard arrived at the beach with his Waboda ball (a present from a mate back home apparently). This high technology 'invention' is basically just a bean-ball that bounces along on the water when you throw it to someone, and Richard had been keen to try it out for ages apparently. So needless to say I was keen to try it out too (Richard had dragged Claire down to the beach to 'play', but she didn't seem too keen really!). It was quite a workout firing the ball back and forth, and it was good fun - it would have been great to have little goal posts!

Later that afternoon all 4 of us strolled along the beach to explore a bit, and to try out snorkeling (well, just me and Richard snorkeling while the girls lay on the beach). Richard (who is a very experience scuba-diver and general water-baby), found a cool white spotted moray eel under a rock and quite a few shrimp, but I'm pretty sure we weren't in the best snorkeling location.

After a great dinner that night in central Senggigi it was a fairly early night and the following morning after a very tasty breakfast at the local bakery we said goodbye to Richard and Claire as they set off for a tour of Lombok and Flores. It was weird saying goodbye to them as they continued on their travels - they still had over 3 weeks of traveling, while we were heading home in less than a week. Even though I've been on the road now for over 2 years, I actually felt a tad jealous of the fact they were heading off adventuring to Flores and Kimodo, while all we had left was a few relaxing days in Ubud before going home.

But I planned on heading to Ubud the next day, and so for the rest of that day I rented a bicycle and explored the coastline north and south of Senggigi, while Sarah just relaxed on the beach and used the Internet to investigate jobs back home. Using the bike I checked out a cheaper hotel that had been full the day before, and getting a lovely room I cycled back to Sarah and we relocated (only 60K a night and a good deal quieter as it was well off the main road, although the nearby Mosque woke us both at 5am!).

The coastline was lovely, with lots of sandy coves and headlands rising gentley to provide commanding views. I had lunch in a cozy little bakery/cafe in Ampengan about 14km from Senggigi, I stopped off a very large and ornate Chinese cemetery, and I took a detour through a very local fishing village (lots of the locals starring at the Westerner, with kids laughing and pointing and saying 'Hello Mister!' all the time - I don't think many tourists cycle through normally). It was a lovely slow pace to explore the beaches, a couple of which were almost totally deserted, while a couple more were packed with locals (it was a weekend). I was literally the only Westerner I saw on the packed local beaches.

We could have stayed another day in Senggigi, but after exploring with the bike I thought I'd seen pretty much all of it. There were a few interesting looking restaurants (and I was tempted by the Sheraton hotel, around which I had ambled about of course), but in the end I decided Ubud would probably offer more culinary options, and so the next morning we headed off - this time without a pre-booked ticket, we'd just wing it.