The moon is up there,
Silver light, accompanying the peaceful silence
Carefully lighten the dangerous path
When a misstep would swallow in the darkness
We were wondering
Who carved the rocky path?
Or the muddy slide
Where beautiful moss grows on the trees
Curious earth worms waiting
And sharp thorns hoping for a grab of hand
Lonely travelers in the middle of savannah grass,
Friends of the wind and sky
Vertical rows,
Streams and pour from the sky
Running down like a waterfall
Beneath our shivering hands
wet shoes longing for steady steps
And eyes
Blinking for the clearness
Is it my sweat or is it the rain?
the smoky cloud
Blurred pine trees and endless sky
Where birds are chirping
Where our wet bodies
Slouched between the savannah grass
Wondering......
Can we preserve this feeling?
Can we embrace this peace and companies?
Rinjani is always reputable as ‘difficult’ and challenging mountain. From three of us, unsure about K, but B and me had not been doing serious mountaineering since respectively 8 and 12 years ago. Original planning was to do regular exercises; jogging, cycling and trying to scale easier mountains like Mount Kinabalu and Mount Ophir for preparation. Unfortunately, hectic work schedule and other trips we had ourselves left us no time to go either mountains, even exercises were done far and between, we had to make do with whatever exercises that we could squeeze in our own times. To make the matter worse, we were not in tip-top condition. Both of us fell sick a week before the trip, and K even had to skip the trip because she was not feeling well.
We also heard that Mount Baru Jari in the middle of Rinjani’s crater lake, had just erupted again, spitting ash and lava up to 1500 metres into the sky.
Beside all those, Lion Air had given us the headache amongst all. They changed the schedule and didn’t bother to inform us, from having 3-4 hours between connecting flights, we now had only half an hour for one transit, we found out only few days before the trip by ourselves. Apology? They asked us to pay if we wanted to change the schedule.
Through numerous phone call and emails, we managed to get it change without topping up money. But it ruined our plan to spend two last days in a quiet secluded island in Lombok because we had to fly at breaking down on the last day, cutting off almost one day from the whole vacation. To add to the stupidity, the changes was not updated in the system and we had to be checked in manually on that last day after reaching the edge of burning the check-in counter.
Anyway, don’t let the story ruin the journal.. this is one of the most wonderful trips I had that I will never ever forget unless I lost my mind one day.
Rinjani had come into my mind since 12 years ago, when I was still active in mountaineering. Beside my trekking organization didn’t really arrange to go there, I was busy with my study to be as active as I wanted to be. So, it’s just a destination I keep in mind to visit, someday, one day. Beautiful mountain with beautiful turquoise lake.
But when I graduated, mountaineering became a thing in the past. Welcome work, welcome adult life. I live abroad and lost ‘real’ contacts with my mountaineering organization. It doesn’t help that most of the members I know also had become detached from the activities. Until one day, I met a colleague whom I can click, who shares the same craziness and over a chat, Rinjani came up.
As fast as it’s being talked, we confirmed the trip. That’s the spirit I’m looking for!
So, for the long awaited destination, and thanks to this colleague, I bless 2010, as I can cross this from my imaginary bucket list. It’s never too late, although, well. as long as your knee joints are intact.
He did his own selection for his friends and I did mine, although actually I didn’t really ask anybody because those came to mind are either not close or busy with life, and to my opinion, it’s a too committed trip physically and mentally, where options for turning back halfway is not feasible, and everyone counts on one another. I also wanted to go with people I’m comfortable with and responsible. I have had unpleasant experience in the past before, when one irresponsible member can endanger the whole groups, so I’m not keen of asking someone I don’t know well.
26th May 2010.
We started early, since K couldn’t join us last minute because of fever, she decided to abort. So me and B boarded Lion Air flight to Jakarta early in the morning around 10 am. My mom was in the same flight with us going back Jakarta.
Immigration through the airport was smooth, we said goodbye to mom, took shuttle bus to domestic airport and board 12.45pm flight to Mataram, also known as Ampenan, and arrived at Selaparang airport, Lombok.
Because of one hour delay, we reached the airport around 4.30pm. Lombok’s time is the same with Singapore and Bali, one hour ahead from Jakarta. Our guide picked us up and we started the three hours journey to the feet of Rinjani, Lembah Rinjani rest house at Sembalun Village.
Lombok looked like Bali and many other part of Indonesia. Low rise building, shops, field, villagers and the vegetations. As usual, for my trip, we dropped by ‘warung’, Indonesian mama shop to buy some water, tidbits or some toiletries we didn’t bring. From there we continued the journey, enjoying the scenery, talked cock until one point we looked at each other … hungry!!!....haha.. I’m glad that I traveled with fellow pig.. ;p It was about one hour away from destination, so we decided to stop in small eating place, ate some noodle, teh botol (tea in the bottle :) and bought some peanut martabak for tonight.
From there, we continued to dark road without many signs of civilization. Sometimes we saw dogs, several houses or some people sitting in the dark enjoying the night. We ascended and could feel the night was getting cold as we started to climb to higher altitude. We rolled down the window to smell the fresh air until mild rain started to splash in, we saw stretch of mountains standing gloriously in the dark. The feeling of holiday crept in. Yes… our holiday mood came in a bit late for this trip, but we got it. We got it.
We stopped by for a while to pick up the guide’s brother who would accompany the driver back to the city. I was quite cautious about this unexpected plan, but at least I felt safer with B around.
There was one place located quite high up in maybe around 1600 meter above sea level, much higher than our starting point at the rest house, we couldn’t see anything literally because there was smoky clouds around us. The car had to go very slow and scaled the road meter by meter.
Apparently we went through Pusuk peak (google it and you can find some interesting info) and then descended again to Sembalun Lawang valley where our rest house is located.
Now I kind of understand about why the driver was scared to go back on his own, with the plane delayed and unplanned dinner, we would reach rest house much later than his expectation, and the road to and from was definitely not a breeze.
We passed by Sembalun village, where we could see some civilization, with villagers walking around or hanging out in front of their houses. There were some big trucks carrying fresh vegetables to the city. After we passed by the village, we were greeted by the dark roads again until we reached Lembah Rinjani.
We took off our extra clothing that we didn’t need for the climb, masks, snorkels, chargers for the car to bring back to the city. It didn’t reduce much of the weight though.
It was around 8 pm, after a while, short chat with the guide, we checked into the room, in a small and simple but clean rest house.
The guide explained that we would be camping in Plawangan Senaru instead of the lake because of the volcano activity. However, depends on situation and other climbers, if it deemed safe, we can stay overnight at the lake.
We had to walk some short distance under the rain from the dining area where we gather to the rest house where our room was located. Upon touching the pavement to the house, it was slippery. Dang! How can I survive the mountain if a nice flat pavement was too slippery to my shoes? Ta ta ta ta…..
The water was freezing cold and I literally had to jump after shower. We ate a few bite of martabak, had some chit chat, and decided to change our last two days of the trip hotel location.
Originally, we were supposed to stay two nights in Gili Nanggu, a nice private island in Southern Lombok where we could enjoy nice beach, peace and quiet. The setback is that, it is very far away. On our last climbing day we need to drive few hours, cross the sea by midnight and reach the resort around 1-2am. We were okay with that, but now Lion Air changed the flight schedule, from 5 in the afternoon, become 6 am in the morning (halooo stupidity), that means we need to leave the resort around 1-2 am too the next day, alias we would never had a good night sleep in the resort and most of our time would be spent on the road. So we called the operator to arrange for hotel near Mataram. Screw Lion Air for ruining the plan.
After sneaking into the pantry to look for water, we then decided to call it the night. Preparing the strength for big day tomorrow!!
Map of Lombok27th May 2010
I woke up at six in the morning, and for the first time, staring at Rinjani under the dusky morning light. The air was cool, B was still hidden under the blanket so I went out to the terrace and took some pictures. In half an hour we were already gathered at the dining area, had banana pancake for breakfast. We had the time for ourselves, we would go on our own pace. We took turn and tried to do last shitting, he he...
We walked a distance away to register ourselves. There were some interesting model of information about Rinjani mountain, about how it was shaped to what it is currently from single cone shaped mountain that stood at 5000 meter thousands of years ago.
Around 7 am plus, with our backpacks and big bottles of mineral water, we started to walk. Along the way we saw a row of cows and a calf walking to the field. The mother cow walked behind the calf and patiently guided it to stay on the path. They were all wearing wooden bell on their necks. I love cows, I love village. I love wind. I love sky. I love paddy field. I love fresh air. I love misty early morning. Maybe I love repeating myself and bore people with my journal.…
In front of us, Rinjani stood high up there and in between, there were fields and fields and fields of paddy and fresh vegetables. The scenery was so beautiful and we had very good mood to start the day. I picked up a small rock and put it in my pocket. Note to all climbers, this method had been working for me since I started going outdoor in 1993. Whenever I had to spend days outdoor, where toilet is as rare as good people in politic and as dysfunctional as bureaucracy, I would carry a rock in my pocket and I’ll be safe from having big business. So far so good. Sooo far soooo good.
B was so happy to see the vegetable field; he is a plant person as well as animal person. We asked the guide whether we could make a detour to go down and passed by the carrot, lettuce and other vegetables farm. The guide said sure, just relax and we could do whatever we want. He is a nice 40 years old plus local guy who is not very talkative and we like it. He is also very accommodating and patient.
How nice it is to see the clear field and sky and how I wish that I can enjoy this everytime I want to. You can really feel the burden being lifted up and it just simply brighten the heart, bring smiles and made me poetic. Wakakaka…
The dawn from rest house's terrace overlooking Rinjani
Beautiful fields along the way
Terrain at the beginning of the track
We stopped for taking pictures, one thing I hate, beside heavy, my camera was not rugged friendly. I protect it in padding bag, shoved it between my sleeping bag and clothes after wrapped it inside two layers of plastic bag. My camera bag was not enough to carry all the stuff so I used bigger back pack. To cut long story short, it’s tedious to take the camera out every time and it’s not advisable to hang it around the neck, therefore I couldn’t take as many picture as I wanted to.
Our guide asked us to go ahead, and so both of us happily walk in front. It was an easy walk, the terrain was still flat and we were pampered by the scenery, nevertheless, we started to sweat. Making turns, slight up and down, and after a while we left the rocky road and started to scale earth road between tall grass where there was no motorcycles anymore and I liked it much better.
I loveeee the tall grass...
We walked and walked and there were times when we were moving away from the mountain. The sun was shinning hard and yet the mountain didn’t look closer.
We went through savannah field, the swaying grass was waving, it’s our favorite terrain, we were enjoying the walk and started to climb steeper steps. After around two hours of walking, we saw Post I. Like other posts, is just a shelter with metal roof, there are only curbs for us to rest our butts for a while. There were two porters preparing lunch for a group of four female bules/angmoh who looked as if they just take a messy walk.
We stopped by for drink, pour more water from big bottle to small bottle for easy access, and prepared to walk again.
The savannah terrain was still around, but we got closer to the mountain and during certain time, we couldn’t see the peak as it was covered by the cloud. I remember the nice green and golden field being covered by the shadow of the clouds and sun peeking in between, decorated by immortal edelweis field here and there. We always walked first. B in front, me in the middle, and our guide behind. The track was quite clear and we were free to stop as we please, just to look at the view and enjoy the surrounding.
It's just started...long loooong looooooooooong way to go..
Fields and savannah grass under the shadows of clouds
Original plan was to have lunch at Post 3, but somehow our guide decided to have lunch in Post 2. That was where we met our porters who were ahead of us all the time. They were carrying two baskets of stuff with a bamboo stick, climbing up and down the mountain. I must say it’s really, really impressive.
We didn’t mind having lunch in Post 2, as we were both hungry. B mentioned that he always has no appetite in the mountain, I thought I was always hungry. Apparently I still always hungry, but somehow I couldn’t eat much. For lunch, they took very long time to prepare, but it was luxurious lunch on the mountain. Vegetable soup, friend chicken, hard boiled egg, rice, pineapple (too bad we both don’t like pineapple), crackers and hot tea and coffee.
We were joined by two groups of bules and soon the shelter was full.
Post two had parapet where we could sit on, down there was a spring and further up there was a toilet. I had learned something from the past, I don’t trust the toilet in mountain. B went up and visited the toilet, and although he didn’t see anything unpleasant, according to him, the toilet was so corroded that if I go there, I would stuck, made the whole toilet collapsed and embarrass myself. This is the guy that I have to stuck with for whole six days. ;p
Overlooking springwater stream from Pos 2, where we had lunch
Pos 2..
Lunch in cooking....
I'm not sure if we are allowed to climb out without a guide or part of nature organization, one thing for sure, it's luxury to have them, something we certainly don't have on our other mountaneering trips, for this one, as we didn't need to carry tent and food supply ourselves
We waited, stole some banana and lurked around before lunch.
After lunch, we asked for more water and started to walk again. Our guide just gave us some instruction and we almost didn’t see him for the whole hour because I think he was taking his shower in the spring. We just enjoyed our time although the terrain was getting harder and the sun was getting hotter. We stopped for a while when we didn’t see the guide for a long time, after catching his figure from afar, we started to walk again.
From savannah, it changed to tall grass and big rocky terrain when we saw post 3.
In post 3, there were some crevices and caves where group of people were resting, around there were some big rocks and water stream where we decided to wait for the guide. When he appeared we moved to the shelter, there were camps and wild monkeys around. I don’t really like post 3, maybe because it was quite crowded, or maybe because it was where I complete my monkeyness.
I chose to put my bag on the dry grass as it supposed to be cleaner, so I knelt down and took out my camera then suddenly our guide pointed to my right knee. Alamak…! There was monkey shit on it, the monkey shit in the grass and covered it nicely. Don’t worry, it’s definitely not human shit. So I had to sterile my pants with alcohol handwash I brought. Gosh… monkey shit on my first day,.. but now I shall be safe from monkey attack. Luckily I managed to wipe away the shit and it was not smelly.
We continued to walk up and the terrain got significantly steeper. It had became rocky. Rocky terrain is my favorite, as I feel safer because it’s more steady and less slippery. We often needed to take big steps or used our hands to help to balancing ourselves but I felt less tired than steep earth terrain because at least in rocky terrain I could steal one or two breath in between.
We made significant climb for the rocky terrain, but we had more than 800-900 meter to climb up from Post 3 to camp area and the air was getting thinner.
After what felt like a long time, we found out that we only covered 300 meter high.
We took short one minute standing breaks once in a while and one ten minutes break to fill the energy with Snicker brought by B. It was the only and last significant break that we took, we were sitting in one row on different high and the cloud was hovering between us. The thunder was hollering from afar, sounded like it came from below. We felt hot and perspired, but after two minutes stopping I was shivering. The sky got grayish and we soon moved again. There were quite a lot of resting places (read, small patch of flat terrain) where we found many climbers slouched there because of exhaustion, we didn’t stop to rest but continue.
The terrain changed to steep earth terrain in between tall grass. From far, I could see colorful carriers on climber’s back scaling the steep mountain, I wish I was up there but the reality is I needed to go where they were and they looked very far away.. Everytime for what that seemed like a peak, we saw another track up. For today climb, it was almost all in the wide terrain where we couldn’t see the valley or the cliff, so it was safe start.
The misty terrain...
panoramic..
Earth terrain was exhausting and soon our fear was proven. The rain started to drop; I soon geared my bag up with cover and put in rain coat to protect the camera. B just wrapped a plastic bag around his head and we continued to walk. Soon the pace was getting slow, terrain was getting even steeper, around me was a group of Indonesian climbers. We all had to make a stop every ten, more or less steps to take a breath before we continued. I let my head and hands exposed to the rain because we felt hot at the time we were moving.
We reached an area where we were higher than what we could see beneath the cloud, and for the first time I could see the valley on two sides, it was like a walkway connecting two mountains, with black volcanic sands. The ‘walkway’ was quite wide, around two-three meters. The image was quite surreal, us walking to the cloud, black solid sands on our feet and valley on both sides, with drizzling rain from the sky. Every faces around me was tired and exhausted. I was trying to pick up my pace to shorten the distance between us. Our guide behind also looked tired and he also stopped frequently.
We went through many ‘walkways’, too bad I couldn’t take pictures under the rain. There was no more break but the ten seconds stops we took ourselves. We walked and walked and walked until our guide told me, we almost there. Just about when I repeated twenty times in my head to myself “are we there yet???”
Plawangan Sembalun at 2639 meter, we camped a distance away from other’s camp, in a private secluded secret area, which was a very good idea because it was nice and quiet.
Our guide pointed to Rinjani summit, he said it looked near but we needed four hours to go up there.
I can’t tell you how glad I was to see our tent was ready and waiting for us. It was after we passed by another flat area where we met fellow climbers we saw along the way. They commented about why we never stopped to rest. We were desperate to reach the camping area so that we wouldn't be caught in worse rain situation and then we could rest properly, that was why. The superb porters had reached there earlier and prepared everything, including much needed hot sweet tea.
I don’t like sugar in my tea, but would appreciate some during diving trip. For mountaineering trip, especially this time, I prefer a lot of sugar in it as I could feel my body craving for it. One thing I regret not to bring, sweets. Not a fan of sweet but I really long for it during the climb, I think it could give significant energy for me.
We ran to our tent, dropped the load, changed, cleaned up and went to the main tent, to gather around the bonfire. We were so cold and hungry, nibbling banana and hot tea, enjoying the dusk and the freedom from walking and load. As it got dark, B kept a lookout when I tried to take my first leak in nature for this trip.
It didn’t come out easily haha… how would you feel, only protected by darkness, among the bush, overlooking the whole wide open mountain above the horizon?
I must say it was the best scenery I had under the moonlight for taking a leak though.
Dinner was not ready, but both of us already hid in the tent to escape the coldness of the night. We hung the torchlight on tent’s zipper and started preparing for tomorrow’s summit trip. It was a waste of space and load bringing sleeping bag, because the ones provided are much better and clean. The porters had also laid the mattresses properly for us.
It was a four-man tent, but just comfortable for two as we need space for our bags, shoes, slipper and miscellaneous stuffs. We slipped into sleeping bags waiting for our dinner while we had another round of sweet tea. Relaxing, chit chatting, when the fried rice dinner finally arrived, we were so hungry. We ate inside the tent shinning torch lights, but even though we were so hungry, we couldn’t eat much but few spoonful regardless how we forced it. So we gave up.
We brushed teeth and prepared to sleep although we ended up talking for the while because the amount of tea we drank kept us awake.
Both of us didn’t sleep really well. There was a dog who paid us a visit, the guide said it’s hunting dog, although looked like just another dog. Along the night it went around our camp area, from front to back of the tent and howled. I know the myth of dog howling but luckily I didn’t feel afraid at all, it just kept waking me up. We also felt our fingers and toes numb because of the coldness, although it was hidden in the sleeping bag.
28th May 2010
We were supposed to wake up around 2.30am. Before that, I was already awake and just sat around waiting for the guide to call as I didn’t want to wake B up.
When he called, we woke up, brushed teeth and drank some sweet tea and crackers. Our guide wouldn’t be going with us to summit; instead, it was one of the porter, Deni. We would only carry one bag with essential stuffs only, so B was carrying my bag where we put my camera, first aids and passports. I was carrying flask with hot water and small water bottle.
After preparing, we were ready and started to walk. It was pitch dark and cool.
I think by the time we moved, it was already three plus. We passed by the main camping area with many tents but there was no one around except those who chose not to go to summit snoring inside the tents. We saw some torch lights up there.
The night was quite cloudy, it was full moon but the moon was not as bright and the stars were hiding. We started to scale up, the terrain was still earth terrain but it was steep. There was metal railing at one point to help us climb up, up, up, and then, we started to scale the crazy terrain.
We were told by our guide, the path to summit is horrendous. For every two steps we take, we would slide down one step. It was volcanic sand terrain with maybe around 30-60 degree steepness.
From walking, we were climbing with all four. Every step we took, we had to make sure that we didn’t make negative effort, using our hands to grab some rock, if available, and kicking the sand to create some concave to put our foot in before we lifted our bodies. Our eyes got adjusted to the darkness but we couldn’t see much. It was taxing and soon we started to slow down and took few seconds break for every few steps. I wanted to take turn with the bag but B didn’t want me to. There was a time when three of us just sat in the darkness on the slope, behind us was the moon, in front of us was the steep path and the whole dark mountain and valley around and glimmering light from villages far far away. I love that moment. It was quiet, nice, peaceful, although we were busy regulating our breathes.
Beautiful peaceful nite... except the heart wrenching and sour limbs..
We moved up again and found a angmoh lady who was lost and alone. Deny tried to show her the way but she wanted to go down, so he just directed her the way to go. In Rinjani, the path is quite clear, it all leads one way. One way it’s good, other way it means there is no easier path to choose from.
We climbed more and reached the shoulder or crater rim of Rinjani. This crater rim is the narrow path with valleys on both side, stretching throughout the whole ring of the crater, like neverending journey. We could see the cliff down to the lake and it was breathtaking scenery on one side, the other side we could see the cliff leads to nowhere. It is beautiful, but deadly, and again, never ending. I will never forget the rim.
We walked again and the terrain became less steep, at some point it was flat or going down. I don’t like going down when I know I should be heading up. Yes, it provides ease on the leg, but the more you go down, the more you need to climb later. Right?? Right……..!
There was an area where I remember, we needed to walk cross this sandy path which is only around 80 cm wide. It was short distance, but there was nothing on left and right. One misstep and you’ll be having the slide of your life. It was still dark when we crossed it but I could see the nothingness on the side. Luckily it was just a short distance before we moved in to wider area.
Remember the nice ‘walkway’ I mentioned during yesterday journey? For crater rim, everything is walkway, from 80 cm to few meters wide.
The sky on the left started to have orange stripes, and the sun started to peek.
On the right side of the valley, the moon was still there, on left side, the sun had just arrived. I want to frame this view and feeling forever if possible. I want it tattooed to my brain for the beauty it has.
We continued and found a guy midway in sleeping bag. I thought it was Deni because we were stopping for a break, then he woke up and said good morning. Apparently he decided to call it quit and just waited for his friends there. We sat there for a while, and moved on again.
Not far from there, B told us to continue and he wanted to wait there and enjoyed the sunrise. I was also very exhausted, but decided to give it a try. So I took the bag, passed him the flask and biscuit crackers and continued with Deni. We didn’t need torch anymore as the dawn was breaking.
We walked and walked, at one point, the rain started to fall from the sky.
We had prepared our rain coat a night before, left in on top of the tent so that we could grab it in the morning, but we forgot about it. I only had windbreaker with me, it’s enough for mild rain but we couldn’t predict how bad the rain would be. I also thought about B who was in the middle of nowhere and it would be freezing cold to wait for us under the rain. I asked Deni how long would it take to reach the summit and he said it was still two hours away. Two hours? Alamak!
From far we saw the two tier of steep terrain leading to the summit, at least it’s forty-five degree, not encouraging at all, and it was still far away. We need to go through endless amount of crater rim that looked like stages of dark shadows from far.
For all those consideration, I mentioned to Deni that I wanted to just go back and met B as I was worried about the rain and him. He told me the rain should be okay, and maybe I could try to climb to the end of the crater rim and see how it goes. He said the steep road to the summit would be very difficult, but I should try to make it to the bottom of it and see whether I want to continue.
I pondered for a short while, the rain had stopped that moment, so I thought since I had walked this far, I might as well do what he suggested. So we moved again and again.
The crater rim was exhausting, but still walkable.
The sun had risen and all the mountain was bathed in golden color. I stopped few times to take pictures of the sunrise, and for the Segara Anak Lake on the right side of the rim. The scenery was breathtaking, Deni adviced me to take the pictures now because we wouldn’t know whether we would have clear view from the top as the cloud might cover everything.
the night is just about to leave..
morning has broken..
one of the ways to take own picture..
Lake Segara Anak from crater rim
We moved again and were reaching the end of the rim, Deni took my bag to help me conserve energy. The air was getting even thinner, the wind picked up and it was cold. I wrapped my head with buff to prevent loss of heat. I saw the glorious summit from below and there were some human’s silhouettes. They looked very far, standing on top of the bloody steep and scary path. Hopeful, I asked Deni whether it’s our destination. He said no, still far up. Oopsss..
The steep path was made of fine black volcanic sands combined with rocks. It was all movable, means similar terrain with the beginning of our track in the morning. Two step minus one. Or should I say three?
I started climbing the first tier. It was approx one to two meter wide; both sides were steep valleys that were ready to swallow everyone who were not careful. I can’t imagine how one would break the fall or survive if they misstep. Right side would lead to painful fall with rough encounters with the rocks that are formed by erosion to a looooong distance to turquoise lake below, left side is steep smooth fall to nowhere.
It was really scary and tiring, sometimes I needed to go all four to reduce the negative footsteps. Every few steps was a horrendous effort. I started meeting fellow climbers who were going down. After second day, I kept seeing familiar faces. They had been very kind and encouraging me, they even remember and asked about B. Everyone was panting.
I made milestones for myself. Looking ahead, I had to reach that rock. Then moved to another point. It looked very close but it was hell of effort to reach such a short distance.
I could feel the air was getting thinner, as I needed to take more breathes, sometimes the nauseous kicked in and all the time I was starving and craving for energy.
Deni was behind me all the time, sometimes he stopped and took his cigarette. There were few times I looked back to see him and I had to tighten my grip as the view of the path I went through was really steep and scary. How would I go back later????
I had a phobia of going down, if the path up was this scary, I couldn’t imagine the way down. Gosh..
In the beginning I looked back quite often to remember the point where we left B, but from that moment on, I never turned back. Cringed....
My body kept asking me to give up but my mind was threatening me. Think about it, if I gave up now, I would have to repeat the whole thing to reach where I am because I know this stubborn head would ask me to go back again and again until I reached the summit. But I have to admit there were ten over times I just wanted to stop and said, at least I made it this far. I could see the summit, I could smell the summit already. Maybe that is my limit. I’m ooollllllllllllddddd.
With all thoughts fighting, I still picked up my butts and took baby steps. From eight to five to four and two steps each time. I was desperately hoping for a giant hand to take me up, or a helicopter to fly to top. Hell no, no helicopter for those rich brats, no one should spoil this place. Sometimes I spoke to myself, cursing and swearing or encouraging my numb legs to keep moving.
This is literally, what it means, by: so close yet so far. Really.
One thing I forgot as the result of exhaustion, I don't have any pictures of the two tier hellish walk.. hiks..
I finally reached the end of second tier where there was formation of yellow rocks. On a glance to the right I knew there was more but at least I was freed from the crazy narrow sandy steep path.
I was the last one to the summit that day, we started late, our camp was further but I also took my own sweet time, I met the last group of two angmohs at the end of second tier.
From the yellow rock formation I cross another rock formation the the other side, the real summit of Rinjani. I saw Deni put the bag down and looked around. If the tiredness didn’t empower me, it would be very very scary to stand there. 3726 meter. It was 360 degree of view and cliffs. Stunning, pretty, arrogant but amazing summit. After few minutes of calming down, I started to take pictures, still a bit reluctant to stand up, I dared myself to walk to the edge to take the picture but stopped short a meter away, I didn’t want to fall from there. My legs were not shaking and I’m not afraid of height, but it’s just not wise to risk, and I really really felt the respect for the summit.
Summit...(3726 meter/12224 feet above sea level)
Lake Segara Anak from summit
But I copied Deni and sit on the edge, carefully. It was scary but surreal. Somehow I still cringed imagining if the rock below me failed and I slid down. I also worried with all the exhaustion I misjudged the distance, so I took few pictures, enjoy for awhile and moved away from the edges. The weather was good, everywhere was clear and the warm sun welcomed my stay. I asked Deni where B was, and he pointed just at the beginning of second tiers. He said he saw him moving along the way. I saw his blue jacket and waved, but he didn’t see us. He looked captivated by the scenery, if only he came up and joined us.
another way to take own picture..
I enjoyed the summit for a little bit more, while eating some biscuit brought by Deni. Got food? Say lah…. I was starving.. but still, I couldn’t eat much. We started moving down as I pitied B for waiting too long. As I imagine, the path down was damn scary, to spice up the matter Deni told me there was a Canadian who fell from where we were. I knew what I was asking, but yet I still asked, what happened to him then? Yah. You know the answer. Without big big miracle, noone could survive falling from there. I told him to let me slide down on my butt instead of walking down, so I would feel safer. That is my way of going down steep scary road. He laughed at my idea, said try to walk and he helped me along the way.
It was scary but after a while it was not that bad, we moved down sideways and let our feet step and slide through the rock. I remember his advice not to look to the scary right and left, instead I focused on the front where we could see B nearer and nearer.
I personally thanked Deni, because of his encouragement I fulfilled my wish.
We finally reached him, rested awhile, and he passed me the last cup of warm water from the flask. He was enjoying himself and I’m glad he looked so happy. We proceeded to the crater rim, and in the bright light, we realized how scary the paths were, especially the narrow ones. It seemed like forever, it was cold but the sun was burning our face, neck and hand until we looked like roasted meat. Way to go without sunblock.
When we were in the crater rim, Baru Jari volcano in the middle of the lake, let out whoosing sound and spitting cloud of ash. We had been hearing it the night before, but this one was louder and more massive. We stopped to take pictures and enjoyed the nature phenomenon for a while.
Mount Baru Jari was grumbling to say good morning to us..
It felt like forever before we finally reached the beginning of sandy steep terrain again. I was grateful of going down, it was much less tiring going down. Of course lah. Aiyoh..
We saw the main camp from far, we still needed to slide slide slide, crossed the valley and walked up again to reach there. The Indonesian group was all prepared and about to start their climb again. We exchanged short gestures and moved to our camp. When we reached, it was almost eleven. We had banana pancake for breakfast, again, we were hungry but I couldn’t really finish the food, but I ate an apple and it tasted really goooood. We relaxed in the tent until 12 o’clock and got ready to move again.
It helped to know that we would be going down. But only around few minutes into the journey, the rain started to fall. It was mild in the beginning, so we kept walking under the rain. Soon the rain started to pour and I geared up with my raincoat. B used my windbreaker as it was easier and thinner. From there on the rain never stopped, it was getting heavier and heavier.
We would be climbing down to Segara Anak lake at 2000 meter above sea level from where we were, Plawangan Sembalun 2639. It sounded near as it means we only need to go down 600 over meter. But the mountain doesn’t work that way, at least not Rinjani.
There were up and down. Flat and slope. Rim and crater. Earth, sand and rocks.
Big half of the terrain contained scary 40-80 degree rock formation going down. I prefer rock formations, and this one was really steep, I took it slow to ensure I didn’t fall and break my legs or endangered my friend. Many times I needed to squat as the level below was not reachable to me by simply putting the leg down. It was much easier for B, he moved fast and efficiently in the middle of pouring rain and limited visibility. We slipped once or twice, but nothing serious. Luckily I had moved my camera to top compartment, as I foresee that my butt would be touching the ground for this terrain and I was damn right. In fact, I didn’t even care about the camera too much anymore, no energy, life is more important. Of course. I miss my compact, to be honest, it would ease my load a looot... My pants felt really heavy because of the rain, I should have wear track or parachute pant like B. That is the difference, kakis is no longer the best material for climbing imho. Really. It doesn’t help that the pant was too big; I needed to flip it around the waist.
The rain water fell like a stream along the way. Our feet and hand were all dipping into poodle of water. It was cold and quite miserable, and no ending a long the way. B saw a waterfall that we would see again later and tomorrow, I suppose it’s the same one? Not sure. We kept going down, going down, sometimes the terrain was combined with earth, scary bamboo bridges and crossing mini rivers.
After all the steep rocky terrain, we moved to grass terrain and the rain had finally become less pouring. We crossed the waterfall, it was nice waterfall, but somehow we were too occupied by the rain to really enjoy it.
We started to meet the scattered Indonesia group again and were happy; it means we went quite fast. The terrain changed to earth terrain, we needed to circle the mountain perimeter through high grass, moving up and down. Finally we saw the lake, but it was also so close yet so far. It was still some distance to the camp.
When we reached, we dropped the bags, my legs all wobbly, we were wet and cold. I desperately sat near to dying bonfire or moved around trying to warm myself. It had been crazy day; both of us changed to slipper and started to give priority of the bonfire to our shoes and socks. The shoes, socks, pants and shirts were soaking wet. It was around 4 o’clock and we had not have lunch. Our porter were preparing instant noodle while we enjoyed hot sweet tea. There were hot spring a distance away from the camp, but we wanted to change first before we went there. It might be a good idea to soak in the hot spring in that cold weather because we were shivering. The late lunch was ready, yet again, although hungry, we didn’t have the appetite to finish everything.
We had the option to camp near shelter or down there on the shore of the lake. We decided to camp near the shelter. It would be nice, but it might not be good idea to camp next to the water where there was a grumpy and active volcano that could cook the water and throw tantrum anytime. B also said that we could save some effort to climb up and down from shelter to the shore, although not much, every steps we could save counts, I wholeheartedly agree.
Finally, our tent was up, we took turn having ‘wet tissue shower’ and changed into dry fresh clothes. I changed into short as I didn’t bring extra long pants, it was not really cold and I felt much much much better after changing. Our tent was built behind the post, a distance away with other tents so it would be more private.
Both of us walked to find hot spring. The scenery around was calm and nice with the golden sunset we could see reflected on the mountain. We walked through the tall grass and suddenly, B wanted to answer his nature call. So I waited around and kept a lookout for him. He chose a very nice spot overlooking the hot spring, with the mountain next to him. If anyone was on the mountain, they could see him, hahaha, exhibitionist ;p it looked like the coast was clear though.
We cancelled the journey to the hotspring as the terrain didn’t look friendly and we didn’t want to get dirty and wet again after changing. So we proceeded to the camp and walked down to the lake, took pictures and enjoy the scenery. The turquoise lake looked calm and friendly, but it was indeed 230 meter depth, can you imagine? Our guide told me that there was one time the water temperature reached 40 Celsius degree because of volcano activities and all the fish died. There were few types of big fish released to the lake; we also found a lot of snails on the shore. The locals believe that the lake water can cure diseases and the place is sacred. It’s common for many religions to do their ceremony and praying there, to respect Dewi Anjani, the God of the mountain.
Lake Segara Anak & Mount Baru Jari.. 180 degree
Our guide also shared a sad story. It was raining season, there were 8 climbers camping on where we were, apparently they spend few days on the lake so they were running out of logistic. Seven of them then went up to look for supplies, went through the rocky terrain we passed today. It was pouring, he told me the rain was worse than what we had. The villagers found all seven died along the path, because of coldness. They don’t really understand why they would finish up all their supplies instead of pack and go before, and also why they were so ill prepared for the weather. Noone never know, I’m sure wouldn’t want to be the eighth guy who was the only survivor.
When the daylight replaced by darkness, the moon shone beautifully through the trees and from one of mountain afar. Didn't manage to get pictures that does it justice.
There was another dog lurking around the camp and it stood a distance away and howled to the mountain for maybe a good ten minutes, together with avoiding giving too much thoughts to it, we were busy playing with fire.
From B’s request, who is obsessed with burning things, which I also like, we had our own bonfire few steps away from our tent. There were stack of firewood and also small kettle so that we could make our own tea and filled our flask. It’s nice to travel with someone who bring compact but essential things, his flask and wet tissue are good items that I missed out.
Our main purpose with the bonfire was to dry socks and shoes, although we ended up burning a lot of things, which was good because we burned every rubbish that we could find around the place we sat and having fun with it.
Sad to say, we saw quite a lot of rubbish around, at least for our group we burn our rubbish and for two of us, it’s good excuse to burn, burn, burn.
This crazy friend of mine somehow managed to burn everything from big and small, once he threw a milk cartoon to the fire. In seconds, the cartoon swelled up and looked like it was about to explode. Without any signal or warning to each other, both of us looked at the cartoon, eyes pooping, and jumped at the same time away from the fire. So to say, we had same reflexes and laughed like mad. We didn’t get close until we saw that the fire had created hole in the cartoon, so it was safe. Hopefully no one saw us and luckily we didn’t end up burning the whole camp. We were hidden behind the high parapet of the shelter, everyone else was in front of or in the shelter, but I’m sure they could hear crazy noises and laughter that we made.
From burning plastic, tissue, paper, foil, cartoon, bottle, we ended up burning our socks, not in purpose of course. The socks were soaking wet so we waved them through the fire, in front, on top of the fire. It was burnt before it was dried. I was laughing at B’s burnt sock and thought mine was okay, until in the morning I saw a lot of holes on mine too. Karma. While he had the satisfaction to burn his socks that night, I had to leave mine. I also managed to burn a bit part of my shoes. Dry? Nahhhh. Not even close.
Before the bonfire session we requested the dinner to be just vegetable soup, without anything else. It was nice and we finished the whole pot while sitting next to bonfire.
So after all burning session we took turn to go ‘toilet’ behind the tent. There were similar corroded toilet nearby, but I was not going there. Noone did.
We brushed teeth (we always brush teeth properly, morning and night above all things. Haha) and went inside the tent.
I thought tonight was going to be warmer. I wore short but put in new high thick trekking socks. When we were inside the sleeping bag I felt a bit warm and thought I would need to crawl out at night. Instead, the night grew colder and I felt my fingers were totally numb, so I had to keep them inside my fleece jacket all the time. We didn’t wear glove tonight, it was wet and dirty because of the cold crazy summit climb.
I had quite a good night sleep, although I woke up a few times because of the sound of people talking as if they were near our tent. I also heard the snoring sound of a guy far away (imagine in the tent with him). B kept waking up because he kept hearing whooshing sounds from the volcano and got a bit cautious if things got too serious. The volcano was quite active the whole time we were there, but luckily never spit any lava, just smoke and ash. I can say it’s quite an experience sleeping next to a volcano, with water in between.
29th May 2010
We promised to wake up at 4, so that we could start the journey early, we wanted to reach Mataram earlier. B had told our guide but when I woke up at 4, I didn’t hear any activities outside. B suggested we went back to sleep, I tried, after a while, I heard some sounds and decided to go out so that they knew we were ready. Only our two porters were busy preparing something in the shelter, I brushed my teeth and went inside the tent because it was cold. I couldn’t see my friend’s face as he was whole big lump in sleeping bag and he didn’t bulge when I sit near the entrance. I wanted to prepare my bag and there was no other room, so I ignored him and started packing my bag, putting things around and even on him. Finally he woke up and we prepared to go, there was when a plate of pisang goreng came. Wahhhh, it was so nice and we finished everything this time. I went down to the lake for a while to take picture of the lake while he changed.
The porter asked us to leave one of our bag and they wanted to carry for us. This was the last day so they had much much less load. So we use my bag to carry camera, first aid, windbreaker, raincoat, and some other small miscellaneous. B carried the bag, I carried two small water bottles. I think it was almost 6 when we started to walk around the lake perimeter, going through watery rocky shore.
Today, from the lake at 2000 meter, we need to climb up to Plawangan Senaru at 2641 meter before decending down to Senaru village at 600 meter. Why like that? That is Rinjani. Up down up down. And today we will see another terrain. You name it, Rinjani has almost all terrains.
After the lake, we started to climb up, it was tall grass earth terrain at first, then we walked into steep rocky terrain. This is the terrain I prefer more, but B didn’t really like it, he prefers earth terrain. We climbed up and up, some part was like rock climbing, again, we had to use all four limbs. In the morning, the weather was good; it was all sunny and bright.
After a while, I asked our guide are we going there? Pointing to the mid mountain with full of hope, yesterday I saw him pointing that way. He said no, we are going there, pointing at the top of the mountain where we could see very very small climber’s shadow. Ho ho ho… fat hope…
We reached a nice rocky rest area and B agreed to pass the bag to me. We rested for a while, as usual, we requested to move again first and left the guide behind. He would catch up, he always catch up. In fact, it’s not so common that he walked with us. He was either far in front or far behind. But we prefer it that way, so that we can have time and moved according to our pace.
The terrain was still the same, some parts was very steep. The sun started to dig into the skin, it was hot. I commented about the good weather but then being forced to knock my forehead in case I spoke too fast.
We moved up and up, stopped for a while to enjoy good scenery and took pictures.
Breathtaking view from Plawangan Senaru overlooking Rinjani summit
We reached very high point in the rim and as far as we could see, we would begin to descend down. B took the bag again.
At one point, we started to hear human talking, and a big group of angmoh’s climbers were moving down while we were climbing up. There were still many bit and pieces where we had to climb up. Our guide caught up with us. After the angmoh group, there was a Singaporean group and their many many porters. It’s amazing to see them climb and balanced themselves with the crazy load they brought, wearing only slippers or sometimes barefooted. What a hard life.
I quite enjoyed the ‘rock climbing’ and it reminded me how much fun it was. The rock terrain was of course easier than rock climbing as we always had enough places and points to put our feet and hands. On the other hand, who said we came for rock climbing? We came for trekking. Trekking. Tsk tsk tsk… Rinjani…
We finally reached Plawangan Senaru where we could see 360 degree including Mount Agung in Bali from afar, Rinjani summit with the crazy two tier slopes. Hiy… cringe.
The scenery around was breathtaking.
We saw the beautiful lake and at the other side, nice rocky wide terrain where we were heading. From this point, our guide promised all down. Down. Down.
Hate the tent and the rubbish! If see carefully, the Mount Agung in Bali is visible.. above the tent a little to the left..
Plawangan Senaru 180 degree
There was a monkey who paid us a visit again, but we didn’t have food for him to steal and we were hungry too. So we all just looked at each other, hung around for a while and made a move.
Monkey, eh.. my friend was happy to run down the terrain. For me, again, I’m scared of going down, so I walked carefully step by step but I have to say going down was much better than climbing up after all the vigorous two days. After the rocky terrain, we were greeted by the pine forrest in the cloud and beautiful savannah grass. Sometimes I saw B walked through savannah grass, on top of the terrain and disappeared behind it. It was picture perfect but the camera was with him.
He enjoyed going down and there was big distance between us, but he would wait and enjoyed the scenery. I felt jealous that he could run like that.
We reached pos 4, rested for a while. We were starving. B declared that he wanted to cook lunch and our guide promised to let him mess up with the stove. We were drooling so we jumped up and continued to walk so that we could reach the next post. Before we left we saw our porters behind us. Food. Food is here!!!
After savannah terrain, we reached an area where there were scattered pine trees with misty cloud. We love that place because we could hear all kind of birds singing. We sat there for a long time just enjoying the wind and the sound. Sometimes we heard loud monkey sounds. Couldn’t take it, we took out our phones to try to record the sounds. We are both not high-tech, so had to fiddling for a while. When he activated his phone, all messages went in and they were all shits from work. Poor monkey. So we kept our phones and use video recording function in cameras instead, why didn’t we think about it?
(I promise to upload the audio when I have done with it)...
My favorite point.. this picture doesn't do the justice.. with nice bird singing concert..
Everytime one started to record, the other made noise. Phone beeping, plastic bag rustling, zoom function, laughers and ridicule and foot step from our guide and porters who caught up with us. Finally after quite sometimes, we think, we recorded it. Preserving the moment and reluctant to move, we finally lift our butts. We were closer and closer to civilization! Shampoo! Food! Warm beds!
Not very far from that, we reached Pos 3, 2000 meter. So we were finally backed on the level where we started this morning. We went up 600 meter plus and 600 meters down the whole morning. Still 1400 meter to go!
We had some cold water our porters got from the spring. It looked like just came out from fridge.
As promised, B started to cook his Singaporean style instant noodle using my favorite Indonesian noodle. We took off our shoes and relax while cooking. The feet and thigh started to sore but I was surprised that my toe’s skins were still intact, although there were big blisters. Along the climbing down yesterday, I kept thinking that I had lost the skin because of the friction with the shoes. Alas, my shoes started to talk back to me. The glue started to give way, both fronts and backs were peeping, I hope it could last for the rest of today.
My monkey friend dropped the wok to my direction and wet the wooden bale-bale (big sitting area), luckily it was just water and not hot yet (thanks monkey!), but he is forgiven because he was really hardworking and determined to make good lunch. :)
We cooked the noodle in two rounds together while enjoying tea and coffee. He distributed coffee he brought from Singapore. It was indeed nice and great lunch. I think today we got our appetite back although B insisted that was because his noodle was very good. There were few monkeys around but they were quite well behaved not to disturb us while eating, instead they dug the rubbish bin and licked the seasonings.
Ten minutes after eating, both of us already started, leaving our guide and porters as usual. The terrain was denser and we reached heterogenic forest where we could see various moss and fern and beautiful vegetation where there are dense trees surrounding us, we also found a lot of gigantic earth worm, I saw one around half a meter long more than 1 cm in diameter, we always tried not to accidentally step on them. For both of us, this is the terrain we are familiar with for mountain climbing. This trip was the first time we met savannah, volcanic sandy steep terrain and high density of rocky terrain. We love the savannah, I quite like the rock. But volcanic sandy steep, we can live without it.
Together with heterogenic terrain, it was all earth, my biggest fear. We did stop a lot of time to look at those nice vegetations that B loves a lot. He took a lot of pictures while I was just grateful to rest my knee. Going down was a lot of pressure for the knees.
Not a moment too soon, I got nice momentum to go down; somehow I lost my fear of going down and could jump, balanced and ran through the earth terrain. Hell, it was fun, how come I didn’t pick it up sooner? Now I could tailgate my friend and amazingly I didn’t fall at all. In fact, for the whole Rinjani trip, I had less bruises and blue-blacks than what I got at home or in the zoo. If I recall, that is what I always been. Seem like I’m more balanced in nature setting and can survive better while I tend to knock my head on washbasin or table, hit the wall, miss a staircase step in the city. Wakaka.
However, the rain started to drop. From mild, we continued to walk. Then it started to pour. We quickly geared up, now B was wearing my zoo’s raincoat so that it could cover the bag properly, I wore my windbreaker and we continued.
We couldn’t take picture or enjoying the scenery as the rain got really pouring so we just kept going very fast.
Trees around helped us steady ourselves when we needed too, but once or twice we grab the wrong thing and ended up grabbing palms with scary and painful thorns. Since then we avoided palms or touching anything if we could.
Jumping and running we reached Pos 2. Post 2 had two big bale-bale shelter but both were full of people sitting, crammed with sad faces looking at the rain. They were dry and tried to keep themselves warm. We were wet, active and there was no way we wanted to squeeze with them, they must also felt the same. One guy at one shelter pointed another shelter to me. He thought I was going to sit with them. I said we only want to ask for direction so he pointed the way and we both went down fast.
From stream, the path had become 'waterfall' we ran down together with. B took time to stop and took the ‘waterfall’ picture then we started moving again. We kept going down and down; it was not tiring so we never stopped.
After long time, our guide and porters caught up, they were really good and fast because we actually moved very fast too. This time when we caught up we didn’t need to give way because we didn’t slow them down. I said, haha.. if it was yesterday or this morning, they would be impatient with me and kicked me down the mountain so that I moved faster. With his style of sympathy, B said, yah, everyone should kick you at least once, me too! Thanks again!
We reached pos 1 at 1300 meter, ate a banana. My shoes were flipping half way already. The rain started to quiet down, we rested for three minutes and proceeded again. Now that the rain had reduced, we could enjoy the scenery, the forest looked different already,the common forest we could find many where.
Whenever we rested for awhile and moved again, I felt my leg sore as if I just did 300 jumping frog. Once we moved, it was okay.
We ran ran down and finally saw a big gate of Pintu Senaru… This is the other side of the mountain. We started at Sembalun, ended at Senaru. We could do vice versa but I don’t think it’s a good idea, according to our guide, it’s common to rain in Senaru. I definitely don’t want to start the whole journey wet.
Pintu Senaru we found a bit of civilization. Two big kampong shelter and they sold drinks at tidbits. We drank two cans of Pocari Sweat each. Our guide asked me to check for leeches on my leg, I told them, it’s okay, let them eat first. I was tired and didn’t really care about leech. The porters said normally other girls would jump around when they saw leech. I don’t think I could jump with my sore legs.
I got money in my pants since the beginning of the journey, it was just nice to buy three packages of cigarettes for both porters and guide. B was confused about this Indonesian tradition, now I actually kind of agree that it might not be good gifts in term of health.
The porter helped me tied the flap on my right shoes with yellow plastic rope, it almost came off. We just found out that we were not there yet, we still need to go down some distance. Fifteen minutes, the guide said, but maybe thirty because it’s very slippery.
Indeed it was, from there on, the terrain were mud, slippery mud when you can sink your feet everytime you touch the ground. He found some alternative ways in between trees but we still needed to go through a lot of mud. I think my shoes are really good that it’s really reliable in that terrain. Although now I could only see them as two lumps of mud, with yellow plastic rope tied around it, soaking wet and damn dirty, I vowed to wash it clean and bring it back safely to Singapore. It had endured a lot including being burnt. Kakaka…
We walked through some vanilla, grape, avocado garden and finally, finally, the first vehicle we saw was motorcycle, it was few seconds before we managed to make a proper bet about what we were going to see.
Then we saw asphalt road and car. There was an area where we could wash up and B suggested we took shower because we had 2.5 hour journey to the city. I was in panic attack for a split second because I didn’t have anymore fresh clothes left, then he reminded me that we had our other stuffs in the car.
We took turn to take shower. The bathroom was dark, typical kampong style with stone tub and almost broken wooden door, but it was clean. At first he suggested me not to take a shower because of the condition but upon smelling fresh water and thinking of having to sit in the car filthy but he was all neat and clean, no way…! The only thing I worried about was the broken door that couldn’t be locked properly, but he was out there keeping a lookout for me, so I felt safe.
The water was damn cold but it was goooooooddddd. We also washed away the mud from the shoes. I think it was around 5-6pm when we said goodbye to our guide and porters (they had to go up Rinjani again tomorrow, what a life..), settled the rest of payment and moved back with the car.
B planned to take a nap but we ended up chatting all the way and enjoying scenery. We were moving to Senggigi, one of the famous tourist area.
We saw sea of Lombok, saw lights of boat and people enjoying themselves. We were starving and ate the Snickers he brought.
Luckily, in less than two hours, we reached the hotel. Since we fortified our stay in Gili Nanggu, which cost more, plus the boat transfer cost etc, the operator promised to give us good hotel. It was not bad, very spacious, but not very clean. We found seven small croakcroaches in the bathroom and my superhero friend got busy making a lot of noises beating up the croakcroaches with bucket. Thanks to him though, I had pest free bathroom everytime I went in. I saw one huge gecko on the terrace and three fat house lizards. Anyway, I think Rinjani kind of numb me quite well. I feel like I was not and shouldn’t be afraid of anything anymore. Kambateeeeeee!!!!!!!
House lizards, disemboweled by my cats, stuck to my feet, no longer scares me…will it?
Okay.. when we went back to city, we’d talk about this again.
I hung my raincoat, windbreaker, gloves and buff outside at the terrace. We put the shoes inside the room, hoping the aircon would dry it up, but it never was. We decided to do some laundry, it was not cheap, but quite reasonable. Our clothes, pants especially were in very bad shape that we needed it washed. We filled up the big bag, I washed more including two thick trekking socks. From the whole big bag it was converted into small flat clean bag when we collected, I think it’s worth it.
We went out for dinner to look for spaghetti, B was craving for spaghetti and cream soup, while I was craving for vegetable soup like what we had in the mountain, didn’t know why.
We walked around the street. Everywhere was offering diving, trekking to Rinjani, kayaking, car and bike rental, laundry. In fact, it was quite annoying as people kept touting us. The touting was worse than Bali.
We decided to have dinner in a small cozy restaurant. Nice place, but I didn’t like the guy there, who seemed like the manager or whatever. After the waitress took our order, this guy asked us where are we come from, and proceed to argue with me when I said I’m Indonesian. No, you are not. No, you are not. I was supposed to be Japanese or whatever. Where on earth that I look like a Japanese? Flat eyes, definitely not. Fair skin? You should see my wok/kettle-backside color because of the tan I got. And I speak Indonesian with Indonesian slang. I finally said, why you insist? you know me more or I know me more?
They also allow touting inside the restaurant, which we think was very uncomfortable idea. Anyway, the food was quite good; we just ignored the surrounding and had our coca cola with ice that we had been waiting for.
After dinner, we walked around for a while to buy some drinks. There were many pubs but we were not interested, so we walked back to the hotel, and took long shower.
My friend was fascinated with Indonesian drama, it was sooooo dramatically ridiculous that we both spent a lot of time picking on it. There was one guy threatening his girlfriend that he would commit suicide by drinking bleach if she didn’t want him or whatever.
There was this girl called Karmila or what’s her face who kept crying everytime she breathes and his father who was on the deathbed but never dies, who looked more like his boyfriend. The scene went on forever. We kept shouting.. drink the bleach! Quick lah! Or die quicker… or stop the bloody tears… aiyoh!!...
Around 10, we suddenly felt very sleepy, anyway, we only slept around few hours a night and we must be damn tired. We didn’t have wake up call or terrains to scale tomorrow, so we didn’t set time of when to wake up, as long as we don’t miss the breakfast that finished at 11am.
30th May 2010
Around seven, I was awake, I flipped the curtain and saw the garden that had been lighted up by the sun. Looking across the room, I saw my friend had spectacle on already, wah, he said he was awake since six.. this was the first time he was up first! ;p We brushed teeth and limped to the restaurant next to the sea. Limped, because our leg muscles were very sore, we walked like penguins and went up and down short steps like being tortured.
The waiters were very busy because they were short handed, but they were very polite and apologetic. At the edge of the restaurant, there were iron fences, then black sandy beach like Bali Kuta style and the sea.
The sea was rippling and there were people swimming and playing in the water or walked around the beach. We stood there for a while, somehow this time the sea was not as fascinating, because we were not coming for the sea, and because it was too touristy, although I still enjoyed the sound of wave crashing to the shore a lot.
However, again, we were being approached by locals offering massage etc, they even went inside the restaurant which was part of hotel. We really didn’t like this practice, Bali had learned a lot from it, but seemed like Lombok just gets to the worst. I thought Lombok would be a more peaceful place when everything was still more natural and less commercialized, maybe that is Gili Nanggu.
We relaxed for a while, went back to the room and then started to walk out. We tried to ask for some information about places to visit but even hotel staffs were trying to convince us to buy their tour’s program, although not as pushy.
So we walked by ourselves and went where our feet brought us. We were supposed to go to Senggigi Plaza and art market. It was much nearer that we thought and soon we were at the market already. Not many shops were opened. We walked by the beach, saw row of Jukung, Bali traditional boat, and decided that we were hungry again. Yah, it was just maybe less than half an hour since breakfast. Ha… so we sat down and order omelet and fries and cold coca cola. We sat there for quite a while, just relaxing and chit chat, pondering what to do. We could go kayaking, but maybe not. We could go snorkeling, but maybe not. Or maybe we could go to the town, but we definitely needed to rent a vehicle.
Around eleven plus, we started to walk the market, but the touting was annoying and soon we left the place, walked to the main road and rent a bike. We promised to return the bike at 10 pm, and there we went straight to the town.
The sun was shinning hard and the traffic was quite chaotic. We only stopped for gas and in around half an hour or less we already reached the town center of Mataram and saw the mall. We decided to stop by for a while to eat McDonald. Yah, we have been eating almost continuosly. Ha…
What thought to be short stops extended and before we knew it, we had spent 7 hours in the mall. Seven hours! Both of us had never went to one mall for that long and we were not shopping type at all..! The mall was not big but very long. There were a lot of toy shops (maybe that explains), book shop, cloth shop, supermarket, even football field (yah you read me) and bumper cars. We stopped by T-shirt shop and busy picking up colorful cartoon T-shirt, bought some soft toys or weird toys, some magazines, ate some donuts and drank coffee, bought tidbits in supermarket, but the time flew very fast.
Still planning to eat that the roadside food stall we saw on the way to hotel yesterday and to give more buffer time in case we got lost, we left the mall around seven plus. Since it was one way road, we rode further. Except one time asking for direction, B was very certain and he even did some short cut here and there. He was good and we were on the right direction. Soon we recognized the buildings we passed by.
We bought so many things that we looked like Christmas tree laden with plastic bags, so we dropped by hotel and put our things first, before we rode passed the market and found rows and rows of grilled corn, my favorite. We rode further and then made U-turn because there was nothing as long as we could see. I suggested that we ate bakso, Indonesian meatball noodle, since he likes noodle and there was nothing else except satay and grilled corn.
So we sat at wooden bench facing the dark sea where we could see the sea, row of jukungs in front of the art market and our hotel and sea shore beyond that. I ordered bakso for me and bakso with chilli for B, little did I know, it was massive spice that he almost had swollen lips because it was so spicy but he said it’s very nice. My retribution was the grilled corn I ate in the hotel, spicy corn.
The bakso was quite nice as we both didn’t feel very hungry. But still, we were going to look for dinner, tomorrow we needed to wake up early for the morning flight, and the hotel couldn’t even serve us hot tea in wee hour.
It was almost nine, when we dropped by a cozy restaurant. We ordered mixed fruit juice for him, and avocado juice for me. Chicken satay with fries (yes, it’s possible!), sour prawn soup for me, and lobster crème soup for him. Turned out it was the soup he was craving for. It was expensive but nice ‘snack’, not even proper dinner ha… we did pay a visit to the souvenir shop belong to the restaurant, but as usual, Senggigi had tourist price and there was nothing we wanted to buy.
We made use of the bike well, returned it just ten minutes before the promised time. We had to walk back to the hotel, short distance away. I remember there was a row of odd-shaped shop houses, B commented that it looks like haunted houses with full moon as the backdrop, it was indeed. Yah, come to think of it, we had full moon for the whole trip. Too bad the weather was cloudy so we didn’t really see a lot of stars. When we saw stars on edge of the mountain, sometimes we wonder whether it’s star or torchlight of climbers.
Again, we watched some dramatization drama but we failed to see what happen to the guy who wanted to commit suicide. When he drank the bleach, it was to be continued…, to didn’t know when, for sure, we couldn’t find it that night. Mhahaha..
We packed our bags, since my bag was really compacted, now that we needed to carry shoes, I had to make use of my recycle bag and stuff everything in. I had to pass our masks and snorkels to B, he has bigger backpack. We found out that we didn’t buy that many things from the shopping mall, we were just very visually shopped.. Haha.. we both agrees that we should have shop more.
31st May 2010
Yah, it’s end of holiday. And we had to wake up early. By 4.30 am, we already left the hotel and ten minutes to five, we were already at check-in counter, but had to stand there until last minute before the plane flied at 6 o’clock. Unprofessional Lion Air, what else. We were very pissed off, they already ruin our plans, now they conveniently ‘forgot’ to update their system. At the end, we were issued manual boarding pass, we had to run to make sure we reach the gate fast enough as we might not be registered as passenger and they could leave us any time. Bless in disguise, we had the very front row.
We witness very beautiful sunrise from the plane, where we could see Rinjani and the summit (cringe) and the three islands at Gili. Too bad I put my bag up there, but B managed to take some pictures. We had some cakes we bought last night to suppress our appetite.
We reached Jakarta earlier than expected, I had a bit regret that we didn’t take the later flight, our original scheduled time, but on the other hand, we were tired and going around Jakarta in few hours might not be a relaxing activities. Next time.
We had plenty of time at the airport and had breakfast at AW before going inside the airport. We had time to kill so we went around, found some places to sit and finally we boarded the plane on time. I didn’t feel tired or sleepy the whole morning, but even before the plane took off, I dropped dead and slept the whole way, although I woke up once in a while, B was also sleeping.
Singapore was raining when we touched down; our baggage took very long time to come out. It was around 2pm, so we had lunch at the airport, boarded MRT to Tampines to take bus (because we were scared with the MRT crowd) and separated our ways in bus terminal.
Finally, I can cross Rinjani off my imaginary list, I’m grateful for the companion I had who makes this trip safer for me, possible, enjoyable that turned the difficulties and miseries into fun and unforgettable memories.
If I can describe Rinjani in one word. First I would say brutal. Brutal brutal brutal, that was the word in my mind many of the times during the climbing especially when the summit was so close yet so far. But to be more accurate, one word for Rinjani is perhaps stunning. Stunning for the beauty, the difficulty, the challenge, the terrains, the diversity, the crazy crazy crazy crazy way to summit and the respect I have for it. For then, for now, for the time I hang onto my will to continue, there is one thing in my mind. I will never climb Rinjani summit again.
Ask me a few years from now; I don’t know what would I feel. But for now, one Rinjani’s summit is enough.
Will I climb another mountain? I really hope so. I’m feeling alive out there, and I already miss the sky, the field, the wind and the peacefulness.
Below....as promised! The shoes are back to Singapore, now I just have to do something to make it functional again..
Burning holes and edges from wild fire adventure... ;p
It lasted.. until the last day... poor shoes.. too be fair.. it was already peeping a bit before the trip... the yellow thingy is glue from Chinatown repairman :)
:) Yellow rope saved my day..
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Photos from my mountain companion:
Immortal flower: Edelweis
See the zig zag path...?
Love the misty cloud..
And the golden dust..
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Way up to summit... two steps up, one step down... or three?
One of the bamboo bridge..
Signages at the Lake
Railing... to... help?
Beware of rocks..
Rocky terrain
A visit from fellow monkey
Way down..
Down..
Down..
Tree in the mist..
Tiny friend..
Last post we stopped for rest and lunch.. Pos III, 2000 meter, last post with sunny weather..
Beautiful moss
Waterfall? No... it's just raining..
Slimy strange creature
Senggigi beach
Sunrise and Rinjani from the plane, last day..
Gili Trawangan & Rinjani..
A walk in the clouds..
Mountain spring..
The blues..
Dandelion (sp?)
Rinjani...!
Thanks buddy!
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