….by the beach.

My favorite

Villa Ombak. Checked.

It was my first visit to one of my beautiful country exotic islands, Gili Trawangan. I took a tour, semi backpacking. We travelled from Java to Lombok by bus. It was my first visit to an island on the eastern part of Indonesia. FYI, Indonesia has 17, 508 islands with 5 large islands of Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes and West Papua. Gili Trawangan is among the lesser Sunda islands in West Nusa Tenggara islands range. When we had lunch on the beach, munching to some local food, one of the guides said the most obnoxious sentence I ever heard on an island. He said; “Villa Ombak is the best hotel in here. It is where the bule stays.” Well, bule is just a nickname locals gave to foreign tourists who have golden hair and white-colored skin. Usually, when we played under the sun for a long period of time, our black-colored hair would turn to a bit reddish. That was when our parents start saying that our hair turned to bule in color. So, when our ancestors (or whoever invented that term) saw blonde tourists, they must have been lack of vocabularies that they named those people, bule. Anyway, as I said earlier, it was so obnoxious. I refused to admit that there was a place in which only bule people can stay. And I made a pact to myself to visit this place, Villa Ombak.

So, last January, I went to Lombok with my friend. On our itinerary, I wrote with bold, Villa Ombak. It was my first time visiting this island by myself. I knew already that Villa Ombak was located on the left side of the harbor … or … that site where the boats stopped. With our hugh backpack on our back, it was a pain staking effort to walk there. Well, I knew it was on the left side, but I had no idea how far it was from the dock to the villa. We just tried our best, then in the middle of the road, we stopped a Cidomo. Cidomo is the local transportation. It is almost like a carriage in a very modest way. You will know what I mean, when you ride it. Surprisingly, we cannot bargain with the driver or rider or … mas-mas, in local dialect. We were so upset because he put 40, 000 IDR for just one trip to the villa. Man! That’s a robbery! That was a price for a nite stay in a shanty room in this island.

Another summer day…

Another summer day.
In one of South East Asia islands.
It is where people live up their dreams.

An unplanned plan is a plan.

“I plan not to plan”

It’s December. Holiday seasons were approaching. People were excited too much about one month holiday that we earned. They had even booked tickets from October or November, quite a preparation, won’t you say? Well, I didn’t prepare anything. I guess, the spirit vanquish because of my unsuccessful birthday gateway last November. Yap… I knew back then when I heard my friends arranged their wedding exactly one day prior to my birthday, I could not go out of town or out of this country. So then, I just planned no to plan. As you know and experience, perhaps, this kinda attitude will somehow bring you to a crazy adventure and so did I.

It all started with twitter. And next time I know, I am at travel bus to Bandung going to the meeting place. I just joined Lombok Vacation #3. Lombok is an island further to the east side from Bali. It’s famous for its beautiful Gili (small island), coral reefs and other tropical havens.

Lombok Vacation #3 “Family Picture”

We were 13 and came from several different places of Indonesia.