It’s one of the great mysteries of travel in Indonesia why more people don’t visit the islands east of Bali. Known as Nusatenggara, “the southeastern islands”, these fabled lands begin just across the Lombok Strait which is easily traversable from Bali by ferry or on a surpassingly beautiful 20 minute flight.
For Bali’s easterly sister island, I chose an approach by sea which always promises more of the unexpected. A water landing is also more polite, intimate and sensual than skidding, screeching and bumping down a hot tarmac in a Fokker 28.
I talked my way on to the bridge and was in turn talked into the captain’s chair, only one of the implausible courtesies visitors by sea are accorded. A vista of land masses, billows of cumulus clouds and endless ocean unfolded. Cool sea air and spray enveloped the ship.
The four-kilometers-deep trench separating the two islands has for millennia stopped dead the natural migration of hundreds of species of plants and animals. If the Lombok Strait had been any shallower or less subject to ship-swallowing sea changes, there might be elephants tramping today around Australia.
This trough marks the legendary Wallace Line, the divide between Asia and Australia, the storied realm of Wallacea. As the Balinese say, looking across this gusty, swirling and dangerous body of water towards the southeastern islands, "Here the tigers end."
Though it’s traveled on a new two-lane highway, the trip to Lombok’s south coast is a journey through time. All of Lombok was once like southern Lombok is today. Villages are built on hilltops to defend against human predators; beneath are fields of corn, cassava and other subsistence crops. Rice storage barns (lumbung) are covered in preposterously long grass with tufts of black palm-fiber resembling mop-haired beehives with hairlicks.
Life is hard in this isolated, sparsely populated land of cacti, slow-moving bullocks, stooped women in sombre black clothing, and their equally dour male counterparts tilling fields by handhoe. The road eventually winds down to the seaside fishing village and tourist resort of Kuta, a green, coconut-blanketed oasis along an arcing, unblemished beach at the base of barren hills. Immediately, the pace ratchets down.
Unlike its celebrated namesake on Bali, to every side of Lombok’s Kuta are blinding blue skies, an expansive blue-green ocean, peculiar rock formations, inexhaustible forests of palms, clusters of high-roofed houses draped in elephant grass, black specks of goats etched onto hillsides, and stairways of tobacco and peanut gardens.
But what is indelible in my mind are the beaches. Mawun, Selong Balanak, Ekas - each outranking the next in its utter solitude and raw beauty. Except for a few scraggly grass huts or a wayward herd of mud-caked kerbau, they are totally empty, waiting for a Caruso to splash ashore.
To see Mawun in its full glory, go in the morning when the sun is spotlighting the perfect circle it forms, bevelled like a racing track. Line after line of big crashing waves peel off rocky headlands, appearing like ancient ruined castles, to the west.
We turned into what looked like a sprawling private seaside estate, Kuta’s one-of-a-kind Novotel Coralia Hotel. At first I felt only the weirdness of the property, but then the playful roof towers, the strange contours, the intriguing architecture, the mischievous artworks, and finally the sheer fantasy overwhelmed me and became, in the end, bewitching. It’s as if a mob of children were let loose with wheelbarrows of mud, sand, stones, sticks and grass and cajoled into sculpting a mini-kingdom of the phantasmagoric - but with envelop-pushing 21st Century amenities and services.
Looming up in front, like a mammoth beached whale, is the craggy limestone pinnacle of Mandalika. This famous landmark was given the name of a mythical princess who, attempting to flee her princely suitors, flung herself into the ocean, her strands of hair multiplying ad infinitum into seaworms (nyale). Over centuries, their frenzied reproductive cycle became the focal point of a singular festival to commemorate Mandalika’s sacrifice. Believed to possess oracular powers, each year the nyale are deciphered to give a glimpse of the future.
A few nights after the full moon, in the 10th month of the Sasak calendar, large groups of Sasak gather on the beach, light bonfires, recite rhyming pantun, and hold watch over the coastline. At dawn, the first nyale appear, then uncountable more hatch in the shallows of the reef, swarm to the surface, and are carried to the shore by the tides. Masses of the luminous red and yellow creatures are scooped up by hand, filling nets and wicker baskets, and are brought to shore. Much sought after as a ritual food, the squirming worms are then grilled, boiled or devoured raw.
The larger the number harvested, the more abundant the crops and the brighter the future. It’s recorded the previous years‚ seaworm harvests broke all records. Before I set off again fortropical Asia, back to civilization which lay beyond the dry and scrubby hills to the north, I thought to myself that all bodes well for Lombok. The priests have read the nyale and they are seldom wrong.
Where to Stay
Novotel Coralia Lombok, Pantai Putri Nyale, Box 5555, Mataram 83001, tel. (0370) 653-333, fax 653-555, email: hotel@novotel-lombok.com, website: www.novotel-lombok.com. Designed in a whimsical, childlike style and blending harmoniously with the environment, the Novotel has a considerate staff, high-tech services including satellite TV, beachside pool, open-air restaurant, children’s club, fitness center, a spa mindful of an Aztec temple, and a wide range of watersports and recreational programs from birdwatching, tai chi and language lessons to golfing, jogging and kayak open-sea voyages. Rates (not including 21% tax and service): Superior Standard Rp688.000, Deluxe Terrace Rp788,000, Bungalow Rp1,088,000.
Matahari Hotel & Restaurant, Jl. Raya Kuta, tel. (0370) 655-000, 654-832, fax 654-909, email: matahari@mataram.wasantara.net.id, website: www.lombokonline.com/matarhari. A clean, comfortable, friendly hotel combining Javanese, Balinese and Sasak motifs. Swimming pool. Rates: Standard (fan) Rp150,000, Class A (hot water and fan) Rp200,000, Deluxe (hot water and a/c) Rp300,000, Villa (hot water, a/c, minibar, VCD, etc.) Rp550,000. Great atmosphere, helpful service. The top moderately-priced hotel in Kuta.
E-mail : pakbill2003@yahoo.com
Copyright@2003 PakBill
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