Andrej and Karen Brummer

The adventures of the Brummers

Monthly Archives: June 2010

South Lombok

View our location map at  Kuta, Lombok

Stunningly rugged coastline, deserted beaches, some of the whitest sand and clearest turquoise water we have ever seen, and horribly aggressive touts on the main Kuta beach, is how we would sum up southern Lombok.  Plus awesome Lombok coffee (better than Bali coffee).  The Sasak people, in our limited experience, seem a lot harsher than Balinese, harrassing tourists at every step and never taking ‘no’ for an answer.  In saying that, there are always exceptions and we did meet some truly lovely people.  In general though we felt the ‘big white ATM’ tag that circulates around Asia very strongly here.  The saving grace was the immense beauty of the area.  We hired a scooter for a couple of days and the breathtaking coastline more than made up for any frustration that the touts caused.  (And it was fun speeding away from them on the scooter too!)  We had the most awesome time tiki-touring around and finding deserted beach after deserted beach, it really was stunning.  We would swim, dry quickly in the heat, get back on the bike and find the next beautiful beach.  The roads are atrocious, and definitely put Dre’s scootering skills to the test – but he passed with flying colours and we have survived to see another day!  Our photos are here.

Gili Air Paradise

Well they don’t call Gili Air “Paradise Island” for nothing.  We spent 10 days here and we are willing to make the big call that it may have been our best 10 days in one location ever.  Yup, it was pretty special.  The friends we made (and now can’t wait to go back and visit), the atmosphere, and the beauty all made for perfect relaxation.  There is no doubt we will be going back to Gili Air.  The team at Santay where we stayed were beyond awesome, and apart from reliable internet (!!) there is nothing more we could have wished for while staying there.  By chance we made good friends with Jakar who we later found out was the “godfather” of the Island, with an entourage to meet any need or whim always at his beck and call.  We were priviledged to be invited to his house a few times (the flashest house on the Island by far) and partied with him and his friends many times.  Our photos of our time in paradise are here.

Gili Air

View our location map on  Gili Air

Our first day on Gili Air was just as we hoped it would be.  A beautiful sunrise, early morning run, swim, breakfast of delicious fresh fruit (the fruit here seems heaps yummier than Ubud), lazing around, swimming and snorkelling, and a walk circumnavigating the whole island.  The food here is awesome, so far everything we’ve had bas been really, really good.  We had a bit of a laugh after lunch, as we had lunch, a sleep in the restaurant, and then paid and left.  Where else can you do that?

Contrasts of Ubud

Last night we walked down the road to watch a soccer game that Charlie, our new Indonesian mate, was playing in.  Whilst we didn’t end up finding the game, we stopped at a roadside stall and bought some sambal tofu and on the way back found an amazing Indonesian warung where we had Tempe Lalapan which is a dish of Tempeh, sambal and rice.   In contrast to the night before, where we spent 2,323,450 IDR at Mozaic, this dinner for both the tofu and the tempeh dishes cost a total of 16,000 IDR.  So dinner on the second night cost 0.6% of the night before…. and both were awesome experiences in completely different ways.

This morning we saw the best sunrise so far over Mt Agung… our time here just keeps getting better and better, so bring on Gili Air!  Today we are heading to Gili Air, a small Island off Lombok and we won’t have reliable internet there, so you may not hear from us for a couple of weeks. :-)

Karen’s Birthday

Karen celebrated the big 3-0 yesterday.  We started the day with a swim and watched the sunrise over Mt Agung.  The resort gave her some lovely birthday flowers  and made a ‘Nasi Goreng cake’ – a triangle shaped tower of nasi goreng with a candle in it, it was really cute.  We then had another swim, and went into town for an awesome lunch in the rice fields at Sari Organic, where you have to walk about 15 minutes through the rice fields to get there, and once there the views are amazing.  The food was great too and we spent a couple of hours there relaxing and taking in the views and eating yummy food.  We then met an Indonesian guy that showed us around his family temple, and thought it was an awesome idea for us to take a photo with him standing on Karen’s legs (?!?).  Relaxing by the pool and more swimming was in order for the afternoon, before heading out to our special dinner at Mozaic, Indonesia’s best restaurant.  We had a 6 course degustation – initially we were going to get wine pairing with the meal – once we were there though we decided cocktails were a better idea!  Hehe.  So many courses and cocktails later, they also gave Karen and birthday dessert – the whole night was really great.  Photos are here.

Temples, a volcano, and rice terraces

Today we hired a driver and got taken around some of the temples, drove up to an amazing view of Mt Agung, Indonesias highest and most sacred mountain, and saw many, many rice terraces.  It was a fantastic way to see the rural life in Ubud and experience some Indonesian culture.  Some of the more touristy places were as expected – full of touts – in general though the people seem a lot more gentle than those in Thailand.   We spent may hours driving through the tiny rural roads and seeing small villages.  We also visited a coffee, cocoa and spice plantation where we got to try some coffee Luwak (the stuff that is eaten by the Luwak animals and then collected, and roasted!) The whole day was awesome!  Our photos are here.

First days in Ubud

View our location map in Ubud, Bali

We have spent our first couple of days exploring and relaxing.  Mainly swimming, sleeping, chilling on our massive balcony and also going to the markets and the Monkey Forest.  Our photos are here.

Dinner with Dre’s family

After spending the day with Tim, and then the morning with Jillian, we met up with Kate to see her new place and then went to our last dinner in NZ for this trip.  We had some yummy Thai with Kate, Anita, Sean, Jillian and Tim before checking into our airport hotel for our early flight.  So, the adventure begins….

Dre’s mums

View our location map at  Dre’s Mums

We are currently spending some time with Dre’s mum.  Yesterday we went for a lovely walk with Jillian and Susie (her dog) along the coast, and had a very nice visit with Grandma.  We were lucky as Jillian made a delicious fish tagine for dinner.  Today we are hanging out with Tim… more pics to follow.