Trouble in Paradise

Today it is my goal to summit the large hill East of our beach. We set forth in the hot morning sun with swimsuits, runners, and a water bottle. As we get to the base of the hill, there is a man selling coconuts. We ask him if it's possible to climb to the top and, in true Indonesian manner, he nods and says "yes." We continue all the way around the base before realizing he has misunderstood us, and replied "yes" so as not to appear stupid. Fortunately, on the other side of the hill is a beautiful, untouched lagoon with sparkling turquoise water. We happily decide to have a swim, for once unbothered by the pesky bracelet peddling children and the Muslims on holiday from Java who think we are movie stars (both of these are a daily occurance here). On our own private stretch of sand in Indonesia, we pause to admire the thousands of shells and bits of coral washed up on the shore. Chris finds a beautiful gray tortoise patterned shell with a large turret. As he's admiring it a tiny hermit crab pops out in protest. This is our day.

Later on we meet up with Dan and Emily to share our last dinner together. At the restaurant we are treated to a table in the sand, surrounded by twinkling red lights. We are soon discovered by Bob, John, Tom and Tina. You would think these are American businessmen or the like, they are in fact 10-year-old Indonesian children. Their vocabulary consists of words like "Jack Daniels", "happy hour", and "pussy." The children impart grand Lombok wisdom such as Daniel's long hair means he must have a "big banana" and that this leads to a "very happy girlfriend". They look over at Chris' short hair and sigh, "your wife is crying inside - you must buy her a bracelet to make her happy." Which of course is what they're peddling at our table. My freshly caught and grilled marlin is fantastic, covered by an assortment of veg and herbs that I can barely make out in the red light. I dig in zealously, knowing it will be delicious, not caring what the ingredients are. It turns out to be a fabulous concoction of green beans, caramelized onion, chili and lemongrass - to die for.

Mangrove forest, Kuta Beach

Upon arriving home, we gather on our front porch for some ukulele strumming followed by a game of hearts. We are thoroughly enjoying ourselves over a large Bintang each, when two motorbikes and three Indonesians come roaring into our courtyard. One drunken Indonesian teenager stumbles onto our porch and yells at us "My friend saw you today have three people on scooter..." then his friend smiles at us, grabs him by the shirt collar and drags him to the adjacent porch, where they all start yelling at three English people next door. They are our age and had rented a scooter from the homestay that morning. The Indonesian teenager is going on and on about how he had to save up money for three years to buy a scooter for 4 million rupiah. Apparently you're not supposed to have three people on the scooter (even though we have witnessed a family of five on just one scooter before), and he claims the rear shocks - or something - are ruined. He demands 500,000 rupiah as payment for this damage. The English guy explains that there were three people present when they rented the scooter and they must have known three people would be riding it. Otherwise they should have informed them of this rule, which they are now charging them for. The English guy is very calm all through this and asks that they come back in the morning when it's light outside.

Selang Belanak beach

We are all shocked at this turn of events and are trying to appear busy playing our ukulele and minding our own business. But it's extremely difficult to play such a tiny silly instrument when a brawl is about to happen next door. The Indonesian is quite angry now and yells at the Englishman "you think you are more clever than me because you speak English...I will kill you!" At this point the English guy has turned to go back into his room and the Indonesian guy picks up a sharp rock - we are all terrified he will hit the Englishman in the back of the head and beat him senseless. Fortunately one of the other Indonesians holds him back and speaks for his friend to resolve the issue. We are looking around to get the homestay people to help us at this point, and they are all terrified hiding inside their house peeking out the window. We don't know how to call the police, and we're worried they might be corrupt and just put the English people in jail. We feel so helpless. Finally the English agree to pay and the Indonesians go away. No one gets hurt. The homestay people come out of their house and apologize for the scene, they barely speak a word of English. Apparently they have a big problem here with gangs. Thank God we're checking out tomorrow. we decide to call a rain check on the Euro Cup game that night and tuck ourselves into our rooms, locking the doors. It's amazoing how the whole town knows where we are staying even though we are in a homestay with no name.

A word of advice to those traveling in Indonesia: the locals are unfailingly friendly, but be careful who you trust in relation both to renting scooters and booking boat passage. We've heard several horror stories about shoddy boats sinking on the crossing between Lombok - Gili Islands - Bali. And then there's the scooters. We don't want to be too judgmental, but there seems to be some sort of Indonesian mafia operating most of Lombok's tourism back rooms and it's best to avoid them.