Lombok: Day 6

Day 6 of our trip was mostly a transportation day. We needed to get to our new hotel, the Jayakarta Beach Resort, on Lombok Island.

If you click on the map and make it bigger, you can see that Lombok is directly to the east of Bali (which are both to the east of the much larger Java island). To travel from Bali to Lombok, you have a couple options. One, you can take the ferry. This only costs about $5 or less, but takes about 6 hours. Also, one sank last year so Krystal and I voted "no" on this option.

Two, you can fly. This will cost you about $60 each way. Lastly, you can take a speed boat. Since this option was the cheapest and is only about 90 minutes each way, we voted for this option. Also, the speed boat company would pick us up from our hotel and drop off off wherever we wanted once we returned to Bali. That would save us $20-$30 on each side of the trip. Sounded like a great choice!

Krystal and I sat in the back figuring the bouncing over the waves would be less severe closer to the engines. Well, we may have been right about that, but I don't think we could have ever predicted the water splashing on the top of the boat, running along the roof and dumping directly on us!

Here's a video that Krystal took. I'm not sure if you can tell how wet we are in this picture, but my hair to my shoes were drenched! People were hiding under seat cushion and towels. Whatever they could do. It was the longest 90 minutes ever! I had one dry spot on my leg where my bag was sitting. At least the luggage was put in a closet (halfway through the trip) so it was mostly dry.

We're smiling in this picture, but 20 minutes ago, not as much. :) We finally made it to Lombok and were dropped off on a random beach. Our hotel was about an hour drive away in Sengiggi. After negotiating with an obnoxious taxi driver for the two of us, a French couple and two British girls on holiday, we were on our way to our hotel- finally!

Krystal and I joke that we almost died at least 3 times on our trip. This boat ride was number 1.  I don't care if it's more expensive. Next time, I'm flying!

We couldn't get in to our room yet so we had some lunch, enjoyed the free wi-fi and relaxed. We also planned our next 3 days since we didn't really have a plan when we showed up in Lombok. After talking to our British friends, we decided to rent scooters. I knew I wanted to spend one day scuba diving and after making a stop on the speed boat at the Gili islands, we decided to spend a day trip there!

The rest of today consisted of eating and pool time!