Kuta is located in the south of Lombok Island and is known for its good surf beaches. We could also instantly see that there are many surfers there. Local rental scooter even rent special racks for holding the surfboard.
This time our accommodation place was more modest, but once again clean and decent. There was no need to fight cockroaches this time 🙂
As a positive surprise, our neighbors were Lithuanian young couple. They were on the same mission as we, to travel around the world, but their trip was just half a year shorter. Hence, we had a lot of travel stories to share. We got a lot of good tips for tripping in Asia. Especially vividly we remember how Justas warned us not to go swimming with elephants. They had been to Bali in an elephant sanctuary and there you can choose whether to wash an elephant or to go swimming with them. Before them, a couple had just decided to go swimming with an elephant, and what was happening there was not the most fun. As the elephant got into the water, he decided it is now time for a big poop. So, all this time the couple had to swim in the brownish water 😊. After this story, we probably would also stick to the just feeding and washing the elephants if we decided to go in one of these places.
There were significantly more tourists in and around Kuta. In our opinion, the area was also a bit more beautiful. We visited few of the paradise beaches there: Pantai Selong beach, a paradise for surfers, the beach of Semet, famous for its sunsets and the empty beach of Pantai.
We also took a long ride to the famous Pink Beach. We had read that the best time to visit it was around 12 o’clock noon time because then the beach is best seen as a pink. The 60 km scooter ride was quite painful. In addition, you constantly have to share the roads with cows.
Particularly the struggle was the last 10 km because we had to drive on a gravel road. In fact, it is quite difficult to call it a road at all. The buttocks were painful and we arrived one hour later than planned. It turned out that the pink beach was not so pink after all. At the same time, disappointment was not great because the beach was still wonderfully beautiful and almost empty. Only a few other tourists were there beside us. We spent half a day sunbathing and in the afternoon we drove back to Kuta. The way back luckily went a bit better, maybe we were just used to it already.
Another long journey was the Pantai Nambung, where the so-called sea waterfall is located. Kaija had googled to find that there was such a place and the pictures seemed beautiful. However, when we arrived in the village of Pantai, it turned out that the road does not get there, and we have to walk there with the heat of 30 plus degrees. Sweating and breathtaking we walked a couple of hundred meters along the beach and then rested under the palms to gain the breath again, and after five minutes continued. The beach was again empty. Only a few individual fishermen hoped to catch something. It took us a little time to finally reach the target along the beach and rocks. When finally, we were there, of course, we were delighted because we were only ones there and could enjoy this fully ourselves. The sea banged powerfully against the rock wall, where it was once then flowing down the rocks. We were very pleased with our discovery and made a lot of videos and pictures.
We also visited the home beach or Kuta beach for quick lunch
Urap Urap 
On our last day in Lombok, we decided to visit the local village of Sade. In this village, Sasak, who were supposedly the first people to settle in Lombok Island, live. The village has about 150 huts and 700 people. When you go there we recommend taking a guide who introduces the life of the village. We were impressed by the modest dwellings where we also had the chance to peak inside. Usually, parents and mother and father live on the ground floor. On the second floor, there is a kitchen and a daughter’s dwelling. Floors and walls are made of a mixture of cow manure and clay, and the houses themselves are bamboo. In the village, there are higher small huts used to dry rice. Most of the men in the village are engaged in the cultivation of rice or other farm activities. It seemed that women were mostly at home to sell souvenir stuff to tourists. The handicraft offered is, of course, marvelous, but also this time we did not do any shopping. We would definitely recommend visiting some of the local villages on Lombok Island for a better understanding of local life and living.
In addition to the village of Sade, we also had enough time to visit the so-called Bat Cave. It is located just outside the city of Kuta. Kaija had found wonderful stories from different travel blogs about how people go there to make their wedding pictures because it is so beautiful and the sun’s rays are special and create a beautiful view. But when we arrived there was something like that waiting for us. Rather, it was a cave of horror. There was already a strong, unpleasant smell of bats urine when we arrived. Kaija decided not to enter the cave because we were told that there was a snake also. However, Jaanus decided to go. She was given a guide, a headlight, and an umbrella. The umbrella was necessary to protect itself from the bats’ feces. The guide in front and Jaanus, so they dive into the depths of the cave. The sound of the bats was quite daunting, and there was really thousands of them. The most unpleasant surprise, however, was that in the cave it was difficult to step anywhere because the ground and walls were full of cockroaches. They were afraid of people and ran away, but there were so many that it was hard not to step on any. At the end of the cave, we found a python, who quietly resting on the rock. It was undoubtedly a special experience, but we would not be doing this the second time.
Bats 
Cockroaches 
Python
So our adventures ended in Lombok. The next morning we had to go to the ferry to go back to Bali. Unfortunately, the driver didn’t find our hostel and it seemed to us that we missed the first ferry because of it. We had to wait for an hour in the harbor to get on the ferry, and then we had to wait another hour for the ferry to start moving. All in all, this trip was quite poorly planned and finally, we drove 8 hours instead of 5 hours to arrive at Ubud. Luckily, however, we had taken it into consideration that it could go that way and did not let this to ruin our mood. Ubud left an excellent impression to us already the first evening, but more on this already on the next post.
Waiting a boat with one Spain fellow 
