Padang Bai was terrible. It was a garbage covered town with hawkers everywhere. Apparently there is another side to it that people like, and the beach is great, but from what we saw it sucked. Within 5 minutes of arriving we were wondering how we could get out of there. We stayed in what should have been a very cute little bungalow with a mosquito net covering the bed and open windows with bamboo walls, but the bugs were pretty intense and the bathroom was VERY basic. Pretty gross actually. We spent one night and then took a 4 hour ferry to Lombok. From there we drove up to the resort town of Senggigi and spent our first night at a place called Hotel Elen. Horrible night #2. This place was even dirtier than Padang Bai and at 4:55 am the mosque loudspeaker went off calling everyone to prayer. It sounded like it was in our room.
The following day we moved to Lina Cottages, which were much nicer and right on the water. We walked around town and ate really good burritos for dinner. The following day we rented motorbikes and drove around a small area of Lombok. We were a little shaky at first but had a great time riding around. There aren't many people here so it's ideal for learning to ride. Right when we got back to town it started pouring again so we stopped for a lunch of jaffles - a bread pocket filled with your choice of cheese, tomato and onion or fruit. At night we gave ourselves a treat and had a spa night. Massages, facials and body scrubs! It was awesome. Then we listened to live music at Happy Cafe.
The following day, Kasey headed to the beach and the rest of us rented motos again. We heard about the quake in Japan and the tsunami warning for Bali and Lombok and kind of freaked out a bit. The locals didn't seem scared but we were because there wouldn't really be anywhere for us to go if we did have a tsunami. We decided to just prepare to run if we had to, but sat at the beach and had beers while we waited for the warning to be lifted. We went to a karaoke bar that night and met an older American man who was the bar's dj. Greg was spinning some serious tunes for a 65+ year old man. The next morning we took off for another ride to a nearby island, Gili Trawangan.
Padang Bai was terrible. It was a garbage covered town with hawkers everywhere. Apparently there is another side to it that people like, and the beach is great, but from what we saw it sucked. Within 5 minutes of arriving we were wondering how we could get out of there. We stayed in what should have been a very cute little bungalow with a mosquito net covering the bed and open windows with bamboo walls, but the bugs were pretty intense and the bathroom was VERY basic. Pretty gross actually. We spent one night and then took a 4 hour ferry to Lombok. From there we drove up to the resort town of Senggigi and spent our first night at a place called Hotel Elen. Horrible night #2. This place was even dirtier than Padang Bai and at 4:55 am the mosque loudspeaker went off calling everyone to prayer. It sounded like it was in our room.
The following day we moved to Lina Cottages, which were much nicer and right on the water. We walked around town and ate really good burritos for dinner. The following day we rented motorbikes and drove around a small area of Lombok. We were a little shaky at first but had a great time riding around. There aren't many people here so it's ideal for learning to ride. Right when we got back to town it started pouring again so we stopped for a lunch of jaffles - a bread pocket filled with your choice of cheese, tomato and onion or fruit. At night we gave ourselves a treat and had a spa night. Massages, facials and body scrubs! It was awesome. Then we listened to live music at Happy Cafe.
The following day, Kasey headed to the beach and the rest of us rented motos again. We heard about the quake in Japan and the tsunami warning for Bali and Lombok and kind of freaked out a bit. The locals didn't seem scared but we were because there wouldn't really be anywhere for us to go if we did have a tsunami. We decided to just prepare to run if we had to, but sat at the beach and had beers while we waited for the warning to be lifted. We went to a karaoke bar that night and met an older American man who was the bar's dj. Greg was spinning some serious tunes for a 65+ year old man. The next morning we took off for another ride to a nearby island, Gili Trawangan.
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