Lombok, at the beach

From Denpasar, we flew to Lombok island. Even from the air we could see it's a gorgeous place:

shots out of the airplane window and straight out of the camera -- just so extraordinary!

The first few days we stayed at a place on the Selong Belanak beach. We'd gone there thinking we could snorkel, but we quickly learned that the waves were too powerful and there was no snorkeling in the area. But there was plenty of beach-walking, beach-reading (me!), beach-swimming (Marc!), and pool swimming. We were only there a couple of nights but it was just lovely. We stayed at the hotel the whole time.

our little bungalow -- way up on the hillside

water by the steps to our villa to rinse the sand off our feet

imagine my SHOCK to look at the books in our room and see KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD!!!!

We mainly just rotated between the pool, the beach, and the restaurant. The hotel is built on the side of a mountain, so they have these golf cart type vehicles to take you up and down between the rooms and the beach. We walked down and rode up -- we aren't dumb. :)

The beach was really beautiful -- this, to the right....

This, to the left....

and this, the panorama -- Marc's photographic specialty (plus art shots)

Marc enjoys swimming out and doing some body surfing on the waves. I enjoy watching him do that.

Planning his next move.

Marc, and SCALE

This is my favorite beach activity. I read NINE books, almost ten.

This was the biggest crab we saw. Most of them were tiny.

I'm always fascinated by the gorgeousness of their sand-flinging patterns, and...

how they differ!

At night, when the tide is out, the beach is filled with these gross-looking things. Crab-moved
sand, I'm assuming.

At first I thought these were tadpoles, but it was swarms
and swarms of baby crabs!

After the fabulous banana pancakes at Alam Jiwa, in Ubud, I was very disappointed.
to encounter their banana pancakes which were just tough, rubbery American-style
pancakes with a bit of banana. One morning Marc got the more traditional Indonesian
dish, mie goreng. (Mie has noodles, nasi has rice.) They were also very proud of their
Lombok coffee, which was good enough but I prefered Balinese coffee. which was richer.

lemongrass tea

My honey, checking his email at breakfast. The only wifi was at the beach and restaurant.
The food was mostly so-so, not much more, so I don't have much to say about it.

One afternoon we were swimming as the sky darkened -- I took this shot of the bay from the pool, which is up
near our room

the pool was really nice -- overlooking the bay

We took a walk around the bend of the beach to this quieter area, filled with
fishermen's boats

it was very peaceful over there, compared to the busyness of the surf

these were tied on the fishing nets, and you'd see them littering the beach.
No idea what they're for, exactly.

our shadows during a sunset walk

sunsets really were beautiful there

the boats all went out at night -- the lights are on the boats

Marc, taking a sunset picture.

From here, we hired a driver to take us north, to Rinjani National Park. We enjoyed our stay here at this beautiful beach, but were very interested to head north. Of all the places we were staying, Rinjani was the place I was looking forward to the most.