Upon our arrival in Senggigi, Jon and I decided (after long, long, long deliberation) to rent a Jimmy Suzuki to do a four day road trip around the island of Lombok. For $15 CAD a day, we were equipped with the Jimmy, a map and a bottle of water to fill the radiator with in case it got too hot and off we went.
Day 1- Senggigi to Tetebatu
Because I drive a standard at home, the seemingly natural decision was for me to be the first to drive. As it turned out, two factors made the task of delivering us safely to our destination for the day very difficult. One: I have only had my licence for a year and a half. Of these 18 months, I have not been driving the last 5 and my usually oh-so-keen driving skills have rusted a wee bit. Two: Indonesian drivers are shit crazy. They like to leave livestock strewn about the road, drive scooters very quickly and horse carts very slowly, and they don’t really believe in uniform traffic flow.
Normally I would say easy-peasy, but throw in four cars across two lane back roads and it gets stressful. Within the first couple of minutes of leaving Senggigi, we went through a small construction zone with too much going on. I managed to miss all the people milling about – but not before sideswiping a garbage bin with my mirror. There was no permanent damage to us, the Jimmy or the garbage bin (that we know of) but we learned very quickly how to drive in Indonesian traffic – slowly. We arrived at our destination in Tetebatu after 2.5 hours, and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing our tension-wearied bodies with ginger tea in the hotels’ beautiful terrace restaurant, overlooking the rice paddies and tropical garden, and listening to the melodic tunes of the ‘techno frogs’.
Day 2 – Tetebatu to Sembalun
The next day, Jon wanted a crack at driving (which he was convinced had to be easier than I was making it look) so he took the wheel while I experienced riding shotgun (which I was convinced was easier than Jon was making it look). The day was long, and began with another close call. One thing you have to understand about Indonesian roadway infrastructure is that it is built for scooters. One Jimmy does not neatly fit into one half of the road like one would normally expect in two lanes. Instead, it takes up closer to ¾ of the road, and if you drive along the center of said road you will soon find that you will be hanging off the road on your other side. This spatial disorientation lead to our second moment of exhilaration on the trip when Jon almost smacked the back of a woman’s head (who looked like she was at least 100) with his outside mirror. Luckily I managed to convey the message (amidst some shrieking and gurgling) in time, and her neatly coiffed hairdo was saved. She did not, however, manage to see the humour in the situation and may have cursed us as we passed. If there is a plague on both our households, you know who to blame.
After this run in, the rest of the trip went rather uneventfully until we reached Mt.Rinjani National Park. At this point, more adventure ensued.
As we gained altitude and started driving through rain forest and clouds, the roads became progressively steeper and more potholed. Jon slowly but surely navigated The Jimmy through and around, working towards the mountain pass. All was well until the mother of all potholes appeared about two thirds of the way up the mother of all hills. Jon tried to go around it but failed on account of its girth, and stalled the car right in the middle of it. It was quite the conundrum; we were unable to start the car quickly enough to haul ass up the hill because the hole was too deep and we were afraid of damaging the bottom of the car, and unable to start the car slowly enough to ease out of the hole because the car would stall on the steep hill. After accumulating a number of helpful Indonesian locals behind the car pushing, and replacing Jon in the front seat driving, the car was eventually relocated to the top of the hill. Needless to say, we did not slow down for any more potholes after this embarrassing incident and we made it to Sembalun without any further trouble.
Day 3 – Sembalun to Senaru
Once again, Jon drove (by this point he was kind of the rugged mountain driving guy, and I was the busy traffic gal) to Senaru. The driving itself was uneventful (blessedly) and we arrived in a timely manner in Senaru, the main point of departure for the Mt.Rinjani trek. We had opted, after hearing tales of how awful the weather was on the mountain, to not do the trek but decided while we were there to check out some of the waterfalls in the area. After lunch our guide took us on a walk through the jungle and along some really neat aqueducts to the waterfalls, where we spent a few minutes frolicking about in the frigid mountain water.
After our walk we headed back to the hotel where we planned to have a relaxing afternoon. Before we were able to complete this mission, however, Jon was sneak attack-ed. Minding his own business, he was walking along the path outside our room when a spider with a leg span of more than 6 inches leapt onto his shoulder. Jon bravely fought the monster off, and barely managed to escape unscathed. The spider scuttled back into the depths of darkness under our porch, presumably waiting for a less competent victim.
Day 4 – Senaru to Senggigi
I finished the last of the driving of our road trip as it was mainly through populated areas (remember – busy traffic gal). The beginning of the trip went well, but unfortunately, 30 minutes before our destination we took a wrong turn which ended up resulting in a two hour detour. This in itself was bad enough as we had already had enough of driving around in stressful conditions, and the situation was exacerbated even further by a torrential downpour which caused the streets of one small town in particular to fill with almost two feet of water. Onward we slogged (more due to my lack of knowing that with water that deep it couple get into the engine and burn it out more than bravery or determination) and made it through, driving no more than 5 km/hour.
We arrived back in Senggigi hungry, grumpy and somewhat murderous, but we managed to return the Jimmy to its rightful owner without any hassle (I am certain our diligent filming of the entire outside and inside of the car before we took it on the road helped with this) and called it the end of our fantastic Indonesian road trip.
It was hectic and so, so stressful but completely worth it. The scenery was spectacular, and it was with pure happiness we responded to the calls of “Hello meester” and “Hello toureest” from children in not often visited towns, waving to the kids with our windows rolled down. For all the warnings about renting a car in Indonesia, with a bit of defensive driving, two pair of eyes and a bit of luck, we managed and made it through in one piece.
The End.
