Lombok Chapter 1 (Senggigi)

Hey yall, we meet again ;)

This time I went to the island in West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia; Lombok. This island is situated next to Bali. We (me and my friendszz) bought the ticket few months before, during the promotion to all Indonesian destination.

Our plane Air Asia flights  departed from KLIA 2 around 9.00AM 1st September 2015 and we reached Praya airport Lombok around 12.00PM. The flight time was 3 hours. This is the new airport by the way, Praya. Previously the airport was located at Mataram. But due to heavy traffic, it was moved to Praya, especially after AA started its new route here.  From the plane, u can actually see the island of Bali before arriving in Lombok island as they are next to each other, awesome!

That is Bali yall

As usual, we booked our Supir, Pak Juaini before we arrived there. He is one of the best Supir for Lombok. I would highly recommend u guys to book him if u r planning to travel there.

We arrived at the airport and Pak Juaini already awaited us with my name on the card, hihihi.. malu tau. tiber. Btw, below is the contact for Pak Juaini:

E-mail: lombok_trasports@yahoo.com  (yes i know the spelling is wrong but it is the email)
Phone: +6281907223511

Lombok international Airport (Bandara Udara)

Our first day here, we didn't plan lots of thing as we wanna just relax. So, i asked Pak Juaini to just sent us to our hotel in Senggigi. He said 'dont u guys wanna travel around today?'. and i said 'we will travel tomorrow, today we wanna relax at our hotel'.

We stop for lunch first at Mataram city. This is the capital of Lombok. lots of govt buildings, even small population of Chinese, Malay and Indian, how awesome was that. U can actually see some shops written in chinese. Pak Juaini said, these ppl migrated here years ago and stayed here for generations. But they are not allowed to work in the government sector. Hence, almost all of em own businesses. Unequal yes, but thats how they roll.

I cant remember the name of the restaurant we ate, but it is big and have a small lake. Pretty, the ambiance is good. We had some fried fish, spinach, a small cinonet chicken and fruits. We were damn hungry so it tasted very good.

The food

cak!

Pidot, our marathon champion pretty much finish everything on the plates..hihihi
TIPS: For Halal foodies, do not worry to eat in Lombok as majority of them are muslims, so its pretty much safe to eat here. Unless u r too fussy, then u can bring ur own biscuits or watever.

We reached our hotel in Senggigi after around 2 hours on the road, Joje Bungalow. This place is sooooooooo beautiful, i love  all the bamboo inspired room and decorations. TIPS: If u wanna stay at a quiet and serenity place, choose hotel/hostels in Senggigi area. But if u want a hype party place, choose Gili Trawangan. For more adventurous ppl, you may choose South Lombok, underdeveloped but filled with great beaches and rainforests. p/s: look out for my next entries on the great beach of South Lombok!

Welcome to Lombok!

Bella as our groupface :P

We checked in and asked Pak Juaini to pick us up tomorrow morning for our Gili tour. Paid him for the day. TIPS: Paid your supir by day in order to avoid getting cheated, so its very important when u ask for price, ask them to breakdown the charges for easy references.

For those who wanna stay in Senggigi i would strongly recommend you to try JoJe Bungalow. The owner Ibu Yuka is very friendly and will try her best to give you a great stay here. Love warm hospitality of this hotel. That was the pro, now lemme tell you the cons of the hotel.

Joje Bungalows, there are some management issues with this hotel. We booked 4 rooms, 3-2-2-2. But the room where Jenny stayed was not good enough compared to the other 3. This because 1 of the room that we booked was mistakenly gave by the receptionist to another guest. They deduct the amount from our payment though and Jenny & Bella got their refund. The room was okay but compared to the other 3, it was not good enough and spoiled the mood for em. But after they got their refund, everything became brighter again.

The other room

Facing pool room

facing pool room, this is a non smoking room btw

Ibu Yuka said she will relocate them to the promised room for no charges once the guest check out. But meh, we were already okay, so never mind. They only have 8 rooms btw. The family room, was extremely lavish and big. Our bags was put there first mistakenly, thats how we know it, hahaha. TIPS: Do book this room if u plan to bring ur kids!

Also Agoda bring problems to me, ive been charged twice for 1 room and they charged me at my credit card although i've paid the hotel via cash during check in. It was not updated in the system, so its either the hotel or Agoda, which i am not a fan of.

Most of the time i use booking.com. But because, the room was limited i cant book all from the same site. So, i booked 2 rooms via booking.com, 1 room via Trivago and 1 room via Agoda. All 3 was fine and no issues, but Agoda charged me after payment has been made. Agoda even charged u booking fee on the spot after u book. So i wont recommend using Agoda at all. I never have any issues with booking.com so far. TIPS: avoid using Agoda if possible.

But Ibu Yuka was very helpful, i only realized ive been charged twice when i saw my statement the month after. I emailed the hotel and she didnt know that i was charged twice, she apologised for the mistakes, liaise with Agoda and refunded back to me the overcharged money.

So yes, they are quite disorganized sometimes, but they put the effort to make sure ur stay is flawless and the place is very comforting and pretty, beach front btw. Want a calm, relaxing, beach front hotel in Lombok? Joje Bungalows Senggigi is the place!

welcome juice

The contact for Ibu Yuka & Joje hotel is: bonzabali@yahoo.com and this is the website



We were given our welcome drink, juices by the hotel and free massage 20min if we want. great ay?!. Sha and Jiji took that. Me? hmm i feel ticklish when getting a massage, so nope. Our room and the family room face the pool! weeheheheeehe. and at that time it was only us there of course bcos we conquer half of the rooms there :P . So.. pool time! we jump into the pool, and time for narcicism! picturesss.

fire!..i mean water splash!

the pool in front of our room!

we lurrrve the pool time, it was so fun, all the stress from work gone! :D . It doesn't stop there, our ass continue to the Joje private beach after that, hihihi beach whores, lol. Jus a few steps from the hotel. The sand here is black, not because it is dirty, but the original color is black. The location is near to the volcanos, so the color of the sand is black. Black sand beach, awesome & wicked at the same time. ;)

The hotel beanbags, facing the Bali Sea

yeay!!

The black sand!

It was such a fun afternoon for us, pool and black beach. love love love this location.

The wave is freakin strong u know!

Me and aman ('Aman', name of my friend not 'A man', kikiki) got back to the room, shower n stuff and went for some drinks. They have a cafe by the beach, Joje. So, its easier for us. Breakfast is free every morning here for hotel guests. I'll tell u about that in my next entries on Lombok ;).

Joje beach bar and cafe, breakfast is serve here as well

We had some coffee, it was refreshing, filled our tummy. Kak don and Jiji had some drinks as well. We had some rest afterwards, it was already almost 6PM.

That 1st night, we got into our simple beach dress and walked to the Senggigi town, it was quite a walk u know..up the hill, because Joje bungalows is located at the edge of the town. There was several horse carts travel up and down here. n lots of motorcycles.

At first, we decided to take it, but nope,,the horse was so small, this is seriously not good. It stopped after 1 min and we got out. We asked the owner to stop, paid him half, and we wont be continuing. He demands we paid in full tho, Sha gave him a few more and ask him to go. Pity the horse, it was the right decision. Esp when we saw the owner being abusive towards the horse few minutes after that. We rather walk. I cant stand seeing that kind of abuse, glad i witnessed what was happening, so i can share it with others here. TIPS: just walk around Senggigi, its a small town and from what i see is safe for travellers, dont use the horsecart, its a major abuse of the horses and the owners are rude, so by all means, avoid it.

One of the cafe in Senggigi town

We walk around the Senggigi town. Its pretty small with some overpriced pubs and clubs. There are live bands, restaurants, fast food, convenient stores esp Indomaret, souvenirs shops etc. We were looking for places to have dinner, not many to choose from. We ended up having dinner in a restaurant called Taman. The girls in front of this restaurant were promoting it heavily. We had some nasi goreng, meehon and coffee. It was not that good, less than average and overpriced. i dont recommend u to eat here.

Taman Cafe/Restaurant/Pub? idk

We walked back to Joje Bungalows, stop at indomaret first, hahaha.

Indomaret Lombok, pic from google btw

Walked back, we decided then to just hangout on the beanbags by the beach. Drinks, beanbags, sea breeze at night, owh feels like sleeping there. They have wifi, so anti social us starts to check our phone and rape the internet. technology ruined us i know. We hang out until we were tired and got back to our room for a good night sleep. The others, some were actively on their wechat, hahahaii.

Purrrfect, this is Bella's btw. Lombok Coffee

Bean bags & us berpisah tiada

TIPS: if the bed have mosquito net or kelambu, please ensure u use it to close the bed before u go out, it means the places will be filled with the bloodsucking flying thing or well known as mosquitos. hahaha. We asked for mosquito spray from the hotel tho before we sleep.

Tomorrow is a long day, Gili here we come, stay tuned!!