Part 1
We decided to have a week on the beach for our last week; slower pace, lots of pool time and trips to nearby islands.
So after the big boys flew home, we hopped on a plane from Flores to Lombok, just missing the huge earthquake in Flores by a couple of days.
From my research, the nicest beaches were on the south coast, but those beaches didn’t have accommodation ON the beach. Instead you stay in small nearby towns like Kuta or just isolated on a road somewhere (also fine) and visited the beach each day by car.
But it’s just too much of a ball ache with this many kids, getting them all ready in time for a taxi, getting all the stuff they need to bring, sorting taxis, then one of them forgetting something, one of them has had enough and wants to leave and everyone else has to leave when they don’t want to etc etc.
Plus just getting this many people out before 2pm and into a car is a CHORE. The whole thing is a palaver. So, either hotels ON the beach or no beach at all, ie: stay in the jungle.
So I decided to forego the nicest beaches in the south and just go for the biggest pool on the island, which is how we ended up in rather unattractive Senggigi on the west coast at the Holiday Resort.
It ticked all the boxes we needed for the family, though it wouldn’t be somewhere we’d choose as a couple, a bit soulless and atrocious cocktails – how can a pina colada and mojito both taste the same and also horrible?
We met a couple from the UK at our next hotel, who stayed at the nicer Sheraton, a few doors up from the Holiday Resort, but they came to the Holiday Resort every day because the pool was so much better. So that’s good, because it was about 1/3 of the price of the Sheraton!
It was on the beach, which was decent enough. Massive pool. A second pool but with awful loud music playing at that one. Big inflatable pool bean bag things. Half decent breakfast. Nice gardens – because I hate it when they cut down all the trees for a hotel. A couple of dinner options on site (average but fine with kids) and some walkable warungs (very simple local food huts) on the beach. Tick.
After being up and out every day for the last 4+ weeks, I thought we might get bored by just sitting by the pool every day, so we took a boat trip to the Gili islands in the north, which Jonathan and I had been to when I was pregnant with Bo over 9 years ago.
It was nice to go back, especially as this time it wasn’t rainy season (my brain doesn’t work when I’m pregnant, and I had failed to check average monthly rainfall before booking, and it bucketed pretty much all day, every day).
On the morning of this island trip, we had a bit of a nightmare with the boat guy organising it for us, and we ended up sacking him off, forgoing our deposit and walking off.
I immediately got in touch with lovely Jon – the taxi driver-cum-tour-guide we’d had the day before – to see if he could organise a last minute island trip for us (at 9am same day). He could! Hurrah!
Jon got someone to come pick us up straight away (a fella who drove like a madman and made some of us travel sick before we’d even got on the boat) and organised a boat to be ready for us at the pier and off we went in a boat called Hey Brother, manned by 2 nice boat guys.
We decided to just spend the day at Gili Meno, the smallest of the 3 Gili’s. We stopped at some snorkelling points to see some sunken statues and swim with turtles. The coral wasn’t much cop.
But this time I put the snorkel mask on Crickett, as she had absolutely taken to it in the pool and I so regretted not trying it on her when we went to Komodo.
It was her first time in the sea snorkelling and she absolutely LOVED it. At first she just swam in the mask without putting her head under, and when I reminded her to put her head in, she went crazy, shouting fish!, laughing and trying to grab them with her little hands. Snorkelling, at 3!
One of the boat guys looked after us while out snorkelling; guiding us in the strong currents and pointing out where was interesting. It wasn’t a patch on Komodo National Park, but still some stuff to see, like needle fish and some turtles.
He also had a spectacular go pro in a waterproof fish eye lens case, and took a bunch of videos and photos of us, for free!
These are such a delight to see – and don’t have any of that dull blue filter that an iPhone has – so it is absolutely going on my Xmas list! Wish I’d had it in Komodo…
We went for lunch on the island at a simple little spot on the water and then walked from the west to the east of the island along the south coast, where we’d stayed before.
We found a beautiful patch of powdery white sand and the kids all played in the water while we wrote in the sand (me and Soph) and dozed (Jonathan).
Next thing I knew, a huge wave came and while I was telling the kids to “stand up!” so they didn’t get dragged back out in to the sea by the strong pull, I turned around and saw Soph running out in the water waist high chasing a sandal!
The water had come up so high it had washed all our bags and shoes in to the sea and she had run in the water to get them. Kindles. iPhones. Shoes. All out to sea. Bo’s bag with all 60 of his new Pokémon cards we got in China… eek.
We managed to recover everything but one kindle and Soph’s digital camera were not salvageable.
Worse though, was the fact that in running out to sea, Soph had cut all her legs on the coral and was bleeding.
After Jon had picked us up from the pier, he drove us to a clinic to have her cuts professionally cleaned up, which cost £4 (which I actually think was just a ‘donation’ to the nurse in charge, as we didn’t pay formally at any desk just handed it to him, absolute bargain).
He did a thorough job; she just had to keep it dry for 24h and it all healed nicely and no infection thankfully.
We stayed in that hotel for 3 nights and the morning we left, the kids released some baby turtles in to the sea.
They have a hatchling centre onsite at the hotel, and after the turtles hatch, they keep them for a week or so before releasing them, to toughen up their shells and give them a bit of a better survival chance. And charge guests for the privilege of getting involved. Still, we’re in this deep so what the f…
Bo named his Percy (after Percy Jackson, his favourite protagonist), Rai named his Hermione in the hopes it would be smart enough to survive.
And Crickett couldn’t think of a name so we decided on Nanny, so we could shout “GO NANNY!!” and know there was a turtle in the world called Nanny.
The waves were pretty rough that morning and Percy kept getting washed back ashore, but he made it in the end, with much encouragement from the sidelines!
Part 2
For our remaining days, we moved south to Lombok Suites, a much smaller property on a very pretty beach in the south-west, in an area called Sekotong.
There were several small islands within kayaking distance from our hotel, but nothing else around, not even a road to get to it, just a dirt track. And dodgy wifi. It was perfect.
We spent 3 days there, just relaxing, playing cards, kayaking and watching the sun set.
Making up games, like Legs: where you have to guess which dish will be ready and brought to the table first, and finding fun in the errors on the menu like “basket bread” a breakfast option – no basket to be found.
The face on him!
I had to encourage every single bite.
100% do not recommend. Don’t bother.
The nearest island to us – Gili Kedis – was tiny! A friendly couple we met (from Uruguay and Colombia, now living in Barcelona) shared a drone video of it. Which was far superior to me just walking round it with my shaky hand.
The morning we went to Gili Kedis, the hotel only had one man kayaks, so we each plopped a kid on one with us, and kayaked over.
It was rather perilous at times but ultimately successful. I could not get any photos or videos because every time I tried one of us almost fell in.
We went to some secluded beaches down the way from our hotel and sometimes over to the bigger islands on the kayaks
Each day when the tide went out, the sand flats were abundant with starfish, sea cucumbers (don’t touch, they’re toxic) and urchins (also don’t touch, though very tempting, like a cactus).
We went for a little explore each afternoon to see if we could find the one blue star fish and the one leopard print starfish. Plus the very weird red sea cucumber that like looked like rope/ intestines.
I found out that starfish have weird jelly things that draw up inside itself when you pick them up… haven’t googled that yet but did get a video (below).
Day trippers came each day to check out the islands that we kayaked to, so there were a couple of warungs down the beach selling local fish and rice etc, but the food at the hotel was so good that we just ate there for all our meals, bar lunch on the first day.
On the last day Crickett decided to swim, sans floaty! She asked me how to swim without it and I said – the same as with it! Just kick your legs and move your arms! So she did! And proceeded to scream-swim for the next hour!
We flew back to Kuala Lumpur on our last Saturday at around lunch time and stayed overnight at the Ibis near KLIA (KL international airport), which gave the kids their last opportunity to have a swim in the sun, before flying home the next day.
We’ve had an amazing time but we are ready to come home and sleep in our own beds again 😊
Now gotta drive 2h back from Heathrow.
