View of the western part of Lombok and of Bali's Mount Agung from the temple of Gunung Pengsong.
Willy in front of the looms of a shop in the village of Sukarara.
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I longed to discover Lombok more in depth, and to go to all the places of interest described in my travelbooks. The hard thing was coming up with a tour enabling to go all around the island by motorcycle in just two days, so as to enable us to see as much as possible while not rushing things too much nevertheless. In theory, it looked quite nice: 200km to reach the eastern tip, then 150km to come back by the northern side of the Mount Rinjani, which stands at 3726 meters. Having forgotten my books and with no indicators on the motorcycle, I was going to have to find my way with the small map taped in front of me, and with the help of my sense of direction helped by nice weather and the regular possibility to see the slopes of the Rinjani with its top hidden in the clouds. This great expedition started out in the tentacular capital of Lombok, Mataram, before a quite unpleasant night in a pretty noisy hotel. We left at sunrise on beautiful and quite empty roads, feeling the island wake up around us as the children go to school while the adults start to bring their goods to the marketplace. We visited many places of worship, starting by the temple of Gunung Pengsong atop a steep hill, to see the view and what was ahead of us. Later along the way, we stopped at the oldest mosque of the island, in Bayan, and we completed our tour by going to the main temples of Lombok: Batu Bolong next to the sea, Lingsar, the reconstitution of Mount Rinjani in Narmada with beautiful gardens, pools, and a temple for a king of the XVIIIth century, and finally Suranadi, the oldest Hindu temple where we were able to see the sacred eels which are fed chicken eggs. Apart from this sort of pilgrimage, we wanted to see the shops of all those small villages specialized in a particular kind of craft. Pottery decorated with rattan, objects and furniture made from bamboo, pearls, cloths, weaving, all of which was unbelievably cheap. We had fun talking to the Indonesians, who insisted on dressing up Willy for a nice little picture in front of their looms. After all, we were able to complete our journey, and the motorcycle held on until the end, even if Willy had to get off of it several times since the hills were so steep. We roughed it, especially by ending up in places where we could not get much sleep, and also had to run on a tight schedule, but we are sure not to forget this adventure which enabled us to get to know Lombok in such a complete way, in so many of its aspects.
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Lombok 