The Lombok Shit Show

Lombok, what Bali was 30 years ago they say. It’ll be fun, they say…. I can’t vouch for that because I only showed up here on Earth 29 years ago.

We didn’t spend enough time in Lombok for me to determine what I really thought of it. Tay and I were only there for a couple days when we visited Indonesia back in 2013.

We were in literally for a wild ride as soon as we arrived. So here goes the Lombok shit show. I’ll tell you about the process and series of red flags leading to us arriving in Senggigi.

After spending 4 hours on the slow ferry coming over from Bali, we thought the worst and longest part was over. The four hour long ferry was weird, getting on the ferry and buying our tickets was strange being that neither of us spoke or understand Bahasa, so we just sort of followed what everyone else was doing. Not to mention it was 4 am and pitch black out. The person who we bought the tickets from kept falling asleep under his desk and in order for Tay to receive any information on the departure of the ferry she had to wake him up. He was not enthralled by the little white girl needing directions.

We finally boarded the ferry and made it to one of the decks of the boat and both curled up outside and tried to sleep amid all the people shuffling around the entire time. Finally an eternity later we arrived in Lombok. We were barraged by all the taxi drivers there waiting in Lembar. We picked one and agreed to the price, however they wanted us to go into their office and pay.

Red Flag #1:

Then they insisted we leave our bags with them and we go pay. It seemed a little fishy, but Tay asserted her authority and said hell no, she stayed with the bags, I went in and paid for the taxi.

Red Flag #2:

As I’m paying for our ride to Senggigi the man writing our voucher asked if we’d like to book the fast boat back to return Bali or one to take us to the Gilis. Which between what we had read on the internet and what other travelers had said, it was made incredibly well known that you can only purchase boat tickets directly through the boat company, so I rolled my eyes and said no thanks.

Then we load up, get in the taxi and head off. Meandering up the coastline… Then a few miles or kilometers or whatever you use up the road, we stopped.

Red Flag #3:

At this point Tay expressed a bit of anxiety due to the weird series of events unfolding. I told her we’d probably be fine. Then a man gets in, and from we can tell it’s one of the driver’s homeboys…. our driver thought it necessary to bring a friend along for the ride.

Homeboy, was not someone who you would want to encounter in an alley by any means. He had bloodshot eyes, looked strung out and had two very distinctive long pinky fingernails like some kind of pimp from the 1970s. From here on out we shall refer to this person as “sir sketch a lot” cause that’s the kind of vibes we got from him.

By this point Tay was sure we were getting kidnapped. I felt like I was reliving my bus trip between Macedonia and Kosovo where I’m sure the driver was part of that black market organ smuggling scheme that got busted as soon as I made it to Montenegro in 2011…. I came home from the trip with both kidneys still intact.

As Tay is looking out of the car window, convinced we are going to be sold for parts, what is it she sees? A horse, but not just any ordinary horse sighting. She starts laughing because she saw a giant horse dick fall to the ground. IT WAS TOUCHING THE GROUND! She took it as an omen as everything was going to be okay. Wouldn’t you?

Tay has also since admitted at this point to holding a key between her fingers anticipating a possible struggle and having some way of defense. Cause that’s what happens when you see a big horse dick you get confidence in your ability to fight back.

Red Flag #4:

Finally we arrive in Senggigi and we re-read the address of the guest house. That’s when the friend turns around and says, oh, that place burned down last week.

HA! Finally, I’d been waiting for this day! I’d traveled quite a bit and finally someone tried the hotel-burned-down scheme on me. I said, “Nice try, I’m not stupid. I just spoke with the owner today.”

Red Flag #5:

So next they insisted on taking us to a ‘travel agent’ aka: a friend who’d give them a cut, where they tried to talk us into re-booking elsewhere because now the story changed from ‘it burned down’ to ‘it’s very far from anything’.

After about a good half hour of standing our ground we loaded up in the taxi and continued on.

Red Flag #6:

After leaving homie’s travel agency our driver decided to continue the difficulty in finding our damn hotel… They decided to go into another hotel to ask for directions. I went in with the driver leaving Tay behind with “sir sketch a lot”, since Tay had now taken the duty of chief bag lady. On my return I received a look from Tay of utter confusion. I asked what was up and she said that she just had the weirdest conversation.

Apparently in an attempt to be civil ‘sir sketch’ asked Tay where we were from. She replied that we were both from Alaska and after what Tay has described as an awkward length of time he shot back with a….

“Oooooooooh, Mafia”

Cause, that’s an acceptable response. And if that’s the case perhaps, don’t fuck with us good sir or we gonna send the family after ya.

Red Flag #7:

Finally after meandering up a road that was an approximate 5-10 minute walk from the beach we arrived. Where then they tried demanding more money out of us. We told them no, they had agreed to take us here and we had given them the address of where we were staying before we ever left. They charged a flat rate to Senggigi. They continued to argue and by that point the owner the guesthouse and his wife were at the taxi and chased them off, the wife yelling something that didn’t sound pleasant in Bahasa at them.

We had finally arrived!

We made it unscathed, unlike where Tay’s mind wandered to on the way out there. And they had a golden retriever which if you know Tay, is absolutely kryptonite to her. She loves nothing better. We were there at Villa Mataano at last! Where we proceeded to to have a lovely stay for the next couple of days, and Tay lost her shit over the golden.

*Tay had a lot to do in writing this post.

Related articles

• What I’ve Been Up To On Instagram
• Bali suitcase murder: Chicago man arrested for long-distance role in Sheila von Wiese-Mack murder
• Can Americans Be Arrested For Breaking U.S. Law Overseas?

This entry was posted in Asia, Travel Advice

• Indonesia
• Lombok
• taxi
• travel