This was the one I was really looking forward to. Wayan collected me early in the morning from the hotel, and we set out east out of Mataram.
First stop was in the peaceful suburb of Suranadi about an hour into our road trip, where we stopped at Pura Suranadi, a Hindu Temple. As it was still early in the morning, there was no-one there, except for the caretaker to make sarongs available to Wayan and I.
Back into the car we continued East, slicing the island horizontally in half, as we did, the view out of the passenger window was of Mount Rinjani. Today’s trip was going to afford us every angle of the live volcano, as we toured it anti-clockwise.
As is mandatory when visiting an Indonesian island, we stopped at a rice terrace. I’ve seen a fair few in my time. This terrace wasn’t commercialised, in fact it was accessible down a slightly muddy clay track, with a small hut at the centre of it. Of course we had to leave prematurely because of a down pour.
As we progressed towards the north east corner of the island we stopped at the highest point on the road that we could. Taman Wisata Pusuk Sembalun was the name of the stop. The road were steep but certainly not record breaking inclines. Nevertheless, Wayan decided it would be best to turn off the air conditioning in the car so that the car had more power to climb the hills. He wasn’t a fan of the lower gears.
Even though the start of the day was hot weather and blue skies, by the time we’d started climbing the side of the mountain, it was cold, raining and cloudy. Our view of the valley below was obscured by fast moving clouds, giving us only short moments to see the town of Sembalun, our next stop.
We drove down the hill, and the effects of the heavy rain were much clearer on the far side of the hill.
At the bottom of the valley was Sembalum. Wayan steered the car directly towards Bukit Selong. Bukit Selong is on the bucket list for anyone with a camera in this area. An elevated position over swathes of rice fields, bordered by Pergasingan Hill, but really, a mountain range.
I took another panorama that was so wide the website wouldn’t accept it as a photo! The rain started shortly after climbing the muddy hill and taking some photos. Wayan suggested we take a quicker muddier route back to the car. I guess it was alright. As the rain started pouring I took some photos in the village on the way back to the car.
Second to last stop is the other mandatory visit when visiting tropical indonesian islands…waterfalls. Tiu Kelep and Sendang Gile Waterfalls were scheduled after lunch. Both are accessible from a booth on the main road. Entry is IDR10k. Most reviews on Google, will say that local guide will be quite insistent on selling their services for a couple hundred rupiahs, but they’re not necessary. I got a guide and there are still benefits, they know the paths, they keep everybody else away, and they do have some things to say. So the two waterfalls are accessible via a mix of concrete and steel steps and muddy and paved paths. The smaller waterfall is accessible basically all the time, the larger waterfall, involves crossing a fairly wide river, which on this occasion may have been a little too risky to cross because of the moving debris and the uncertainty of the depth of the water.
I had to see the torrent of water for myself before turning back. I got a couple of photos of the smaller waterfall.
We were due to see the sunset at Malimbu Hill, but we were delayed due to a collapsed bridge, but no regrets!
