February 23

what a pose...

February 23


This is the day we a going to do the grand-tour of central and southeast Lombok. Our driver will come and get us at 9am.
But first we have to have a mandi and a bite of breakfast.
We selected each a telor dadar....an omelet. It was presented with some vegetables mixed in, not unlike a vegetarian western omelet. Also 2 slices of crust-less bread, some single serve jams and butter.
Actually the thing I hanker for the most, in the morning, is kopi tubruk, but nationalistically known here as kopi Lombok. As in the Tubruk version, it is just a couple of spoons of finely ground coffee (like espresso) and topped with boiling water, this is allowed to steep for a minute or so and then seasoned with some sugar (like Turkish coffee) needless to say, when you get towards the bottom of the cup a bit of care must be taken, as not to sip the grounds.... hence it is served in a glass.

The nicest part of the complementary breakfast here at the Sunset House Hotel is the fruit plate, it contains at least 3 types of fresh fruit, some exotic as well. This day it was honey dew melon, papaya and pineapple.

The pineapple is the priced, small, local variety, with a perfect balance of sweet with a bit of acidity. The melon tasted as most melons in Canada do, like nothing, tasteless...

The papaya was enlivened by a drop or two of lime (jeruk perut) juice.

Weaving Ikat cloth

The driver, Ali, was waiting in the front of the hotel, before we even expected him, eager beaver.....

We took off in his Toyota, which was, thankfully, equipped with airco, and first stop would be a kampung where they hand weave cloths. Ikat is the name for this type of cloth. Well, you know how impressed I get when I see this type of skillful craftsmanship. I felt like buying out the whole supply, so decided against it.

Every girl must know how to weave before she can marry.....

white, empty beaches

Then we went on to see some really nice beaches and an ancient sasak village that still lives in the 17th century. This too was very interesting; the houses were made of bamboo, wood and rope.
The bamboo symbolizes the children as bamboo is made of short individual sections, the wood represents the woman because she is the backbone of the household, finally the rope is representative of the man, because when a man is good, he holds the whole structure together.

Sasak village

The houses are built in 3 levels, the first level represents the earth, it may be occupied by animals and man alike. The second level represents the grave because it is for people only. Only people get buried...
The upper level represents paradise, it is for the family. The man of the house sleeps on the second level, unless he needs to sire a child, the wife and kids sleep on the upper level.

Second level,...people only

By the way, the upper level is stuffy and the floors are made of mud and cow dung. Mud symbolizes an attachment to mother earth and cow dung represents hard work, as the cow/water buffalo works very hard.

We arrived back at the hotel just in time to enjoy a soothing rain.

Ladies of the village came to say g' bye

We were quite tired so we turned in early, but not before deciding to travel on to Bali tomorrow at 10.30