18/12/2009 Paradise on earth

Hired a moped and went for a long, long ride south to Kuta beach (Lombok) via Mataram the capital and many local farms. Farming here is done as a village. The village owns the land and there are about 300 people in each local village – about 120-150 households. Each village has a chief and once they get too big they start a new village. Everyone works in the fields planting and harvesting the crops and everything is done by hand. The children go to school which is free in elementary (primary) but costs the family for high school. A lot of the fathers also work in the tourist areas when they are not in the fields and miss out on seeing their children. The average wage is 750,000 Rp per month (less than $100) and half of this is spent on rent. While food seems cheap to us they cannot afford to eat in the restaurants or ‘warrung’ and exist on a diet of rice, noodles and small amounts of chicken, beef and vegetables. Fruit is plentiful but Lombok is drier than Bali and they only have one rice crop per year here. We saw lots of interesting local architecture and antiquated farming techniques such as the hand scythes to cut the rice stalks and women beating the stalks on a board to remove the husks. (These people work so hard – we should send all Australians here to see what life is really like in the rest of the world). We also visited a local village to see how the houses are made. Most people have nothing but the clothes that they wear each day. Their homes are empty with dirt floors, steps made of clay and cow dung and thatched roofs that need replacing every 10 years. Many of the women weave cloth by hand to supplement their farming income and sell to tourists.

After about four hours we arrived at Kuta Beach Lombok – this place is paradise on earth – long sandy white beaches and sparkling blue-green bays surrounded by rugged cliffs and no-one else for miles around! We had the beach to ourselves until the hawkers discovered us but once they found that we weren’t buying they soon disappeared. We had lunch at a deserted hut on the beach – fresh whole grilled tuna and cold Bintang – and heard that the whole south of the island (50km or beachfront and islands) has been bought up by Emirates for development! What a crime – this place will become the Gold Coast and the pristine landscape will be lost forever. All of the locals are being forced out of their homes and off their land. They will be ‘compensated’ but they will be displaced, no longer be gainfully employed and their village community will be scattered around the country. We were pretty sad to discover this but are going back there to spend a few days before it is too late. We rode the potholed coast rode through the mountainous terrain and found even more desolate beautiful beaches – previously only used by surfers and locals but all now being rapidly bought up for development. It was a hairy ride home in the dark on these roads on our little moped but the memories of this day were worth it. Met Barry an Indonesian from Phillip Island at his new café in central Senggigi and then went for dinner at Lumbu which was OK. Unfortunately Lumbu is opposite a very loud & bad music café so it was rather noisy!