On 29th April, my last morning on Gili Trawangan, the wind was strong and some German girls in a neighbouring bungalow assured me that the boat on which I was hoping to get back to the mainland of Lombok would not be running due to the bad weather. I headed off anyway, rather half heartedly, and a bit late. However the rumour was false, and the boat was in the process of casting off its moorings when I ran onto the jetty. I yelled to the captain and he came back to pick me up. Despite the choppy seas, I didn’t get too wet during the 45 minute trip.
After a late breakfast with a German guy at the little port, I got a bemo to the main town of Mataram, where I cashed some more travellers’ cheques and shipped a package of unprocessed film back to my sister to process. Then I headed out on a bemo to the east side of the island – initially to the town of Masbagik. From here I got a horse and cart to take me to the recommended village of Lendang Nanka, where I checked into the backpackers hangout at “Radiah’s House”. Radiah was helpful and friendly and offered advice on things to see in the area.
In the morning of 30th April I got talking to Radiah’s niece, who offered to take me to see a blacksmith’s shop. They were very skilled but the workshop was almost comically unsafe – there were no gloves, or even shoes, let alone steel toe boots.
After lunch near Radiah’s place with a nice Belgian couple, I walked to a nearby village famous for its weavers. The walk was interesting since the people in this area are incredibly friendly, and delighted to see an obvious foreigner. Everybody who saw me said “hello” I must have said “hello” back a hundred times before I reached the other village.
I had been told to find Eddie the sarong merchant. Eddie was friendly and showed me some weaving but when I made it clear I wasn’t really interested in buying anything he spun me some sob-story about his poor dying uncle. I still didn’t buy anything, but took a few photos!
People were delighted to explain exactly how the weaving process worked, and nobody seemed to mind having their photo taken. Some places in the world you have to be careful about this, but not here.
Now being an expert on weaving, I duly walked back to Lendang Nanka for an early night.