Lombok

Mosque in the distance in Senggigi, Lombok

The people of Bali are primarily Hindu, in contrast to the rest of Indonesia which is primarily Muslim.  We wanted to visit nearby Lombok because it was the easiest Muslim island to visit from Bali, and it's very close to the Gilis.  We timed our visit for the end of Ramadan hoping to see some of the celebrations.  We arrived in Senggigi on August 7th and the end of Ramadan was the 8th.  We talked to some people and found out that everyone would be at the mosque on the 8th until 10:00.  Other than that, we didn't know what would be going on.  We saw an interesting thing parked on the street, like a mini-mosque on the bed of a pick-up, it looked ready for a parade:

We sat down at a small cafe across the street to have a dinner and watched as people gathered and the lights went on.  About an hour later, the truck drove off.  We left the cafe and wandered back down the main street towards our hotel.  We found a big shop and spent some time looking at all the items for sale.  It was such a treat, because it was a large shop and we could look around without someone trying to get us to buy every item we looked at, as usually happens.  All of the sudden we heard noise from outside and ran out to see a parade.

We saw several of the mini-mosque floats (as we called them) with many people following each float.

There were also drums and singing from each float.

Overall it was a very festive occasion, and we were very excited to have seen it.  The parade seemed to pass quickly and things felt so quiet when it was over.  We sat in cafe on the main street for another hour just in case there was more to see.

The next day we we went to the capital of Mataram and stayed in a very nice hotel in the downtown area with government offices, Hotel Santika.  We were told it was all there was available due to the holiday so we had to spend more.  It was a real change from the type of place we'd been staying - there was a swimming pool and we had a TV in our room, along with air conditioning.  We enjoyed the luxury! We had some fun looking through the TV channels.  There were some stations in English with Indonesian subtitles - an interesting one from Singapore, some Australian shows, and some from the US.  We took a walk to a nearby mall, curious to see what that would be like, but it was closed for the holiday.  But of course it was an interesting walk.

Motorcycles stopped for a traffic light, happy to wave for my picture.  Helmets optional.

Park across the street from our hotel.  We visited in the evening and there were lots of people in the park, many couples.  People were very friendly, one group even asked to take our picture.

The hotel had an amazing buffet breakfast in the morning and we saw again our friendly waiter Sapar from the evening before.  We had spent some time talking to him and he brought us local home made treats first thing in the morning, such a generous thing to do.  It was mostly Indonesian people at the hotel, and one family had a teenage son who pretty clearly was autistic.  I so badly wanted to talk them, but didn't find an appropriate opening.

The following day we took a shuttle bus to Lembar, and then took the slow ferry back to Padangbai on Bali.  We were so happy to take the slow boat, it was a big ferry and a nice smooth ride.  We had comfortable seats and they even showed two American movies - Oz the Great and Powerful and Jack the Giant Slayer.  Since it was a 4 hour ride it helped to pass the time.  

Ferry similar to ours

There were two types of seating inside - the chairs to the right used by the tourists, and the sleeping areas to the left used by locals.

Next post - back to Bali...