Breakfast at Mana this morning, I had smashed avocado with mango and some other fruits in it on sough-dough bread and poached eggs (Mmmm, dribble!) and Ellie had something that sounded Mexican but had corn chips, avocado, black beans and some other delicious ingredients too. Could have sat there all day looking out over the cliff onto the sea whilst the surfers went out, it was so peaceful!

But, onwards we go to the next place, we were going to Mataram in Lombok today ready for our boat trip tomorrow!
We got picked up around 9.20am and then had to pick a further two guys up along the way. The driver was bloody crazy, I’m not sure he knows how to slow down steadily rather just a delayed reaction to oh s*** there’s a car/motorbike sat on my car bumper. We got almost all the way up to Padang Bai where the ferry port is at around 11.20am only to find a delightful traffic jam... so a long short cut it was (the cut through a village) which I’m sure took us longer than waiting out the traffic or taking the gravel shoulder (hard shoulder of rumble and make shift huts selling random things) but we got to the ferry port at 12.02pm... 2 minutes after the 12pm boat departed!! Now we had to wait around until 1.30pm for the next fast boat to Lombok (which isn’t that fast...). Our 1.30pm boat arrived late at 2pm and then by the time it loaded about 200 people onto it along with their luggage we didn’t leave till gone 2pm. Sat downstairs like we were in a bloody sardine can, the Windows half opened soon became shut when the boat was bouncing over the waves and the water was flying in like someone was throwing a bucket of water through the window. We were in the back row because they wouldn’t let anyone upstairs so at least here my thinking was “we can grab those two life vests behind us and be the first out of the exit hole in he back of the boat if anything happens”. I know that’s a little morbid but, you have to think of these things in Asia with so many people on the boat and water from the waves smashing the boat streaming in through under the window seal onto your seat... ya know?!

We had a stop at Gili Trawangan and Gili Air before Bangsal harbour in Lombok. And my god didn’t a lot get off, along with their luggage but a fair few still got back on to return to Bali, so that was a while before leaving these islands... the water was absolutely gorgeous though you could see to the sea floor around 5-6m deep I would say at the shore. We managed to get out of the seat and stand at the back of the boat, granted we got sprayed wet a little when we were sailing again but I preferred that than sat inside that sardine can.

Finally time to get off, I managed to jump off the top deck onto the pier with the help of two locals but Ellie and about 30 others got stuck because they couldn’t get the boat to stay in the correct place. Haha!
Finally we had a car cheap cheap that I had haggled whilst Ellie was in the middle of getting off the boat and away we went. So we got off the boat in Lombok at around 4.45pm and we didn’t get to Mataram until 6pm.... such a long journey driving round a round through the jungle roads up over and down the mountain.

Lombok isn’t very touristy and isn’t as big as Bali, the biggest religion is Muslim so there are lots of mosques being built everywhere and we went through a town that were building lots of mini houses all with their walls entirely made of plasterboard, no wonder their houses blow down in these storms! What do they expect? There’s plenty of rocks and mud about the place - make it of that so it lasts!

Lombok didn’t look at all inviting, you could tell it was more of a stopping and meeting point for boat trips onwards to further islands. It just seemed dirty and damp - probably because it had just rained but still...

We couldn’t wait to get to the hotel (red Doorz) and have something to eat and a well needed shower, and we could condition our hair because we bought some last night! Thank god, we were starting to go bald with the amount of hair falling out of us!)

Dinner opposite, not quite sure what we had, it seemed like a knock off version of subway. It was tasty and all very fresh but strange haha.
Early one for us - as usual you say haha. Pair of grannies getting, god help us on that boat over the next few days when we have to socialise with lots of people constantly!

Also very annoyed we missed the Australia v Wales game because we only bloody beat them!!