LOMBOK, MATARAM

Wednesday, 17 June 2009

A series of passenger launches left Gili this morning at about 8.30 and we boarded with some difficulty, big step ups and a low roof to punish the hasty, and feet in a foot of water at the sea edge. About 20 backpackers per boat. On arrival at Senggigi we oldies got caught as the backpackers hung onto their rucksacks whilst our cases were snatched by porters taking us to the bus by horse and cart whilst the rest walked a little way up the road, shades of the Jarvie's tricks at Magillicuddy's Reeks on the ring of Kerry - for the bad road soon gave way to tarmac. Anyway we got away with 8$ which is far more benefit to them than us and the bus driver did take us right to the hotel whereas most were heading either for the airport in Mataram or else much further south to the ferry from Lembar to Padangbai in Bali. We shall now follow that route ourselves after a stay at Kuta Lombok, which is said to be the antithesis of Kuta Bali.

We have just booked into a nice international style hotel for 45$ per night, but the usual beautiful garden, big swimming 20m pool, large 'tiled' bungalow with the first power shower we have seen since Blighty. Even watched TV for a school program on volcanoes (and English using Mount Fuji as the example. We should have bargained them down, for they made two sucessive small discounts on the room from 53$ to 47.5$ to 45$ without even being asked. We intend to take the Table d'Hote menu there tonight at 6$ if only to find out how the Lombok business community eat. This Internet just across from the hotel is only 0.5$/hour whereas we were paying 24$/hour on Gili Trawangan. Most of the ATMs here only pay out in 100.000 Rp notes double what we want because they will be unusable in rural Lombok.
When we went back to the Internet the following day we found that it was down for lack of power. We did indeed find another ATM which satisfied our need, but we got no further with our attempt to find out what business men eat for their evening meal, unless the answer is nothing, for we were the only diners. Unfortunately although this was a classy hotel the Air Con has a habit of having a preset minimum of 27 degrees and a habit of switching off in the middle of the night leaving us sweltering until we manage to persuade it to start again at a lower value. For whatever reason these were the first poor nights I have had in Bali/Lombok. Joan loved the tea and instant coffee powder (though she never drinks it at home!) and the not so fast DIY kettle. We did however see what they ate for breakfast for there was a fine choice of rice gruel or a delicious soup, with lots of additives, roasted onion and garlic, boiled egg, croutons, peanuts etc. In addition there was a choice of six dishes of rice, fried rice, noodles with the choices of the day like beef curry, tofu, stir fried vegetables, chicken pieces, plus a choice of fresh fruit, Omelettes were available cooked to order and DIY toast with butter and papaya jam. Not bad!

We were up early that morning and breakfasting because we had arranged to meet a young man who had shepherded us through the previous days transfers. We went with him and a driver to Banyumulek, a town in which every house is its own small pottery workshop. This discovery only came as a result of Joan's request to see the kiln at the shop/factory to which we had been directed. They said it couldn't be seen as they only fired at night (in fact it wasn't a factory just a warehouse). To find the kilns we had to go through the town, otherwise we might well not have seen nothing.

The kiln was a huge surprise, in fact there were two side by side, just roofs which could have been open sided market stalls.,The pottery was set out in the sun to dry before firing, there were piles of coconut husks, wood, hearth stones but above all stacks of rice straw, which covered the pottery during the firing process which was presumably partly burned but retained the integrity of its seal. Joan was delighted at the revelation of this discovery which made sense of so much more of what we had been told at the warehouse/shop. The pots, some very large, were coil pots but there was only a single firing, the decoration was added ingeniously added after firing. Some egg shells, coloured clay slip and sand may have been added pre-firing, but banana leaves or batik were almost certainly post-firing finishing processes. We are not sure how the highly decorative colourings, often of abstract designs, were achieved.

In the town there were many deliveries of clay from the mountains in the form of small rocks, which were then crushed, ingeniously because the clay was laid on sacks across the road so that the passing motorbikes, lorries and horse carts (cidomo) started the the job for them, as an alternative for breaking by hammer. Before finally being washed in water to remove the stones before moulding into potters clay.Second stop was a village said to be concentrated on basket weaving from grass of which we have some sturdy and transportable examples, several little baskets for which we paid 20$. There was some doubt that we were in the area where the items were made, for we saw nothing of the manufacturing process and only the simplest of items being made in the village. There was not another tourist in sight so when the international airport opens in 2010 there is going to be a sea change as mass tourism reaches Lombok. We feel so lucky to have seen it before the era of commercialisation. We went into the village each house having a separate kitchen building with a variety of hearths, one of clay, another of brick. A group of women were busy chatting and doing their grass weaving sitting on an outdoor stage with a grass roof. Outside each small house was a pot in which water was kept to keep it cool, exactly as butter was stored in my mum's pantry. The pot was held well clear of the ground on a DIY wood tripod and had a plug at the bottom through which the water was drawn. Joan observed a baby held by her mother, Welsh shawl style, crying for milk whilst another was mixing powdered baby milk in a glass preparatory to pouring it into a baby feeding bottle. A piece of her hair had been cut off in a ritual at a similar age to the circumcision of boys.

On return from our trip we tried out the pool and were soon joined by many Muslim families. Later we discovered that they lived in Mataram but were able to buy
tickets to the pool, where they set about teaching the children to swim whilst the rest of the family had a light meal at the poolside. So much better than the fate of many a hotel pool which is rarely used except for sunbathing on the loungers. The discrepancy between the dress of one mother in a conventional bathing costume, she may not have been Muslim only 70% of the island are, and another mother who was fully covered by a sort of wetsuit, full leggings, fully sleeved black top a balaclava helmet and goggles - but she was an excellent swimmer.

That evening we went in search of a restaurant and settled on Rumah Makan Aroma, a Chinese restaurant where we had by far the best meal of the trip having asked a neighboring table what they were having, and settled on a deep fried whole Gurami fish, a wonderful chicken soup with home made noodles Mie Kuah, Crispy Pigeon Burung Dara, a plate of green spinach Sawi Cah, mixed vegetables fried with prawns and boiled rice Nasi Putih all for 13$. The following day we returned substituting unintentionally a big bowl of soup Sop Ayam, but deliberately I Fumi which was fried vegetables with wafer thin black mushrooms of the type our Chinese friend Michael brought us on his last visit (though he had demonstrated cooking them in a very spicy manner) and Kolo Buk pork deep fried in batter. What maybe we should have tried were the fried crabs which is apparently the delicacy of the area.

At the next table John was seated on his own until we engaged him in conversation. It transpired he had worked for many years in southern Asia and had decided several years ago to make his home here in Mataram, although he had experienced many times of strain such as when there was an outbreak of burning Christian churches, which from what we were told later had coincided with the Asian financial crisis in 1998. Basically he felt it a result of envy as the Muslims clearly believe, probably rightly, that the Hindus, Christians and Chinese have by far the greater power. A few days later the Muslim Tashi at Sapit confirmed that these attrocities had taken place.

Having intended to spend only two days in Mataram we decided to spend a third and to visit the Museum, which is given an incorrect date write up in the LP because although small it was modern, very well kept and informative. The curator Hubertos, who came from the island of Flores, which he said was almost entirely Catholic, guided us around, proving very informative about so many topics from ancient history to geology to customs and costumes. He also set up our next day with a BlueBird Taxi driver who would take us right across the island to Sapit on the meter via some more craft villages. Before leaving the museum, which closed at 11am on a Friday (being a Muslim city) he did not have to much difficulty in selling us a piece of Ikat Weaving done in Flores, though the hand made nature showed up in a change in colouration for part of the length of cloth. Ikat weaving is difficult technique in which intricate patterns are set up in advance by tie-dyeing the threads in advance. There is already one example from a Sarawak (Borneo) longhouse in our hall.

Lombok Garden Hotel
Jalan Bung Kamo no. 7
Mataram
Lombok
lombokgarden_htl@telkom.net
(0370) 636015