Travelling by motorbike is great! One word of advice though: when you pass a group of high school boys sitting by the side of the road you can pretty much guarantee that they'll catch up, surround you all yelling "Hallo Mister!" at once, and in their unbridled enthusiasm almost drive you off the road. Other than that, just remember to keep your camera handy because you'll see some interesting things. My favorite is the fat cop on his motorbike carrying the pink tricycle over his shoulder. The two photos at the end are a good ole’ fashioned Lombok meat market. It’s simple – someone leads a cow into a village, kills it and hacks it up on the side of the road while the locals haggle over the prices. The whole event takes no more than 15 extremely loud, bloody, fly infested minutes.

NOTE – Whoever doesn't think cows have any sense of humor read this: We were whizzing through the countryside only to come to a screeching halt as a cow was blocking the road to take care of his business...and a big heap of business it was. He finished and we sped off to look down a side road. On our return about 3-4 minutes later we found the same cow tucked into the bushes watching us carefully, apparently waiting to see if we would run through his little monument. When we dodged it you could literally see him look down in disappointment. We pulled off the road and watched him crane his neck out of the thicket every time a car or motorbike came by. Finally, when a motorbike finally hit ground zero, he jostled his head back and forth in reverie and strolled away. Brilliant!!!

Tetabatu was our next stop. Situated at the base of the southern side of Rinjani it was hyped as a beautiful little hamlet among the rice paddies that was tucked right under the might mountain. Yes, it was very pretty, but I found it a tad cold and wet for my tastes. We tooled around on the back roads and tucked into a resort for lunch as it started to rain. After the downpour one of the waiters assigned himself to us as a guide and provided an in-depth tour of the plantation which included rice paddies, nutmeg trees, vanilla trees, and kids catching the fish that live in the irrigation channels between the paddies. That evening over dinner, we were recruited to teach English for a few hours at the local high school the next morning before our departure. We taught them about ecology and explained how keeping their island clean would help stimulate the tourist business and the islands economy, which translates to money in their pockets for iPods. To make things relevant you always have to address the bottom line. There were some who spoke English very well, particularily the girls. But mostly it was a lot of very shy attempts to speak english which brought huge amounts laughter. Whenever some poor kid was on the receiving end of laughter, I just spoke a few words of Indonesian and that really brought the house down. I think there was an official photo taken for the local papar. The kids were great and by the end of the hour the whole school and the administration were joining in the conversation too.

Ekas bay was the next destination. The roads were terrible, but that forced us to go so slow that we were able to say “hello” to virtually everyone we passed. There is a new international airport going in to South Lombok. A great idea. They’ve made the runway long enough and wide enough to accommodate a 747. I just hope they figure out that signage and good roads will help tourism too. In our 10 days of travels on Lombok we passed no more than 8 signs.

The Heaven on the Planet resort was built by an oceanographer/surfer from Australia, and is a lovely place hanging off a cliff over the incredibly beautiful Ekas Bay. This was a great spot to take a day off the butt-rattling roads of Lombok. Plus it was the only hotel for miles around. The owner filled us in on the fact that some Chinese boats were still sneaking into the bay to bomb fish. It wasn’t what it was a few years ago, but the locals have made an effort to build the reef back. We were too tired to take photos...sorry. But there is a Surf Alert for Ekas Bay: this place is a hidden jewel. The coastline picture is taken towards the north, but just to the south there's a whole lot of nice, big, long, even breaks withan easy entry...fantastic news for you shredders out there in Awol-land (Bret and Chrissie)!

We’d heard Kuta Lombok was a stunning place, so after our bottoms had recovered enough we set out west. On the way there we passed an artist workshop where kids were making Batik prints. It was interesting to watch, but it was not cool that the very young children were working the long hours and not going to school. When we finally arrived in Kuta, both of us realized it wasn’t quite what we thought it would be. You can see that in the past it had been a beautiful little fishing village but now it was just a run-down surf town with a few shabby hotels and ramshackle bamboo huts in a nice enough bay that had obviously been over logged. I guess we’ve just seen so many really amazing places that we felt somewhat let down. At night, though, everything changed. As we sat having a drink, staring up into the star-filled night sky, we began to notice other little white lights moving slowly through the surf. They'd slowly congregate then drift apart then crowd together again, only to disburse one more time. As they moved the light rippled over the top of the gently lapping waves making the whole spectacle a very surreal event. This went of for a few hours as the lights gradually moved from one side of the bay all the way to the other. Then the fisherman waded out of the water, emptied their little nets into a bucket and turned their lights off. It was truly mezmerizing to watch. Another bonus to Kuta was the amazing organic restaurant overlooking the bay. Antari could have easily been in Portofino. Helen and I had originally planned to stay a few days in Kuta but neither one of us was feeling any mojo so we left the next morning.