Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

Way before we left Singapore, my hubby and I thought about traveling together as a family.

You know, just to take a good break from all the exhaustion and mad busyness of moving and relocating.

We wanted to take a few days away from ‘city life’ and take the kids to a place where we get to see, breathe and enjoy more of ‘nature’.

And so we decided that we should perhaps check out Lombok!

We’ve always heard about it, but somehow we’ve never got around to visiting it.

[Note: People tend to go to Bali, instead of Lombok, because in a way, Bali is more ‘tourist ready’. But really, if you ask me, Lombok is the one that’s still less ‘commercialised’. Yes, heaps of things can still be made better there, and I really hope one day Lombok gets the attention, visitorship and care it deserves]

[Beautiful view of Bali’s ‘Gunung Agung’ from afar]

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Anyway.

Since I took heaps of photos during our trip, I thought of doing a series of pictorial blog posts on Lombok! =)

Here goes.

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We decided to visit Lombok for 4 days and 3 nights.

Day 1: Arrived and stayed at a hotel in Senggigi
Day 2: Headed over to Gili Trawangan by boat, and stayed at a Beach House
Day 3: Back to Senggigi and stayed overnight
Day 4: Returned to Jakarta

Knowing that we’re not familiar with the roads and how to get to places in Lombok, we rented a car and had a local to drive us around.

He picked us up from the International Airport and we went towards Senggigi. Took us about 50 mins to get to our hotel.

[Love the fresh air and beautiful view]

[Waiting for our grilled corns-on-the-cob]

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One of the places we went to was a Fisherman’s Village, and on our way there, we made 2 stops (and bought some grilled corn cobs from the roadside!) to take photos of the beautiful views!

It was a very simple fisherman village. We walked past homes, goats, chickens, cows and an ‘in-house guide’ showed us the way towards the beach.

If you’re looking for something fancy and clean to see, I’d say this is not the place to go.

BUT, personally I thought it was good that we stopped by this place, because the two older kids got to see a different kind of living there.

They saw a super simple village where fancy gadgets were no where to be seen.

They saw some shirtless boys around their age running around, small girls sitting and shyly looking at us, and some were happily chasing the chickens and goats too.

And, soon enough they both decided to give their half-eaten corn cobs to the chickens =)

Nothing beats real interactions with real animals, I reckon.

We then walked towards the beach and we saw rows of old fisherman boats parked along the beach.

The kids played with dark-coloured sands (note: ‘black sand’ is commonly found on beaches near a volcano), while the adults captured the sea views and the surrounding.

[All along, Brie was carried in my sling]

Glad that we made this stop.

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Quick Tips:

–  Donation to the village (given to the ‘tour guide’ in front of the villagers) is highly recommended

– If kids want to randomly feed the animals, do bring along some foods (eg. corns, carrots, etc)

– While making your stops along the way to take photos of the views, there’ll be people trying to sell you stuff (eg. Shirts, jewellery). When we politely turned down the offer, smiled and walked away, we found that they didn’t ‘insist’ / ‘followed’ us everywhere. I thought this was nice (because in Bali, the sellers are generally much more persistent)

– Personally, I think staying overnight at Gili Trawangan was a nice idea. It allowed us to just enjoy the island and the activities (eg. We went snorkelling!) without needing to rush (read: Compared to going there in the morning and returning back to Senggigi in the late afternoon)

– We also thought that a 4day-3nights trip to Lombok was just nice. We definitely want to visit the island again in the future!