Village life on Lombok

Friendly farmers, a wedding procession and a front row seat at a circumcision – never a dull moment when cycling through the villages of northern Lombok.

After running down Mount Rinjani and hopping a lift in the back of a truck back to my bike in Senaru it was time to get back on with the business of cycling.  Where I would stay that evening was once again in the hands of the gods and as I set off my direction was towards the town of Labuhan, which is where I needed to go to catch a ferry to Sumbawa, the next island on the itinerary.

The first 5 km were easy as I was rolling back down the mountain towards Bayan, the town that 2 days ago I had pedaled up from after sleeping the night in the grounds of the local hospital. Once through Bayan it was on with the business of grinding my way up and down roller coasters as the road skirted the mountain on one side and the beach on the other.

I knew that I wouldn’t make it all the way to Labuhan that day as it lay around 70km away and I only had a couple of hours of daylight left.  The road was hard going especially as the beaches that I was passing looked so tempting.

At the top of one particularly steep hill I passed an organic farm called Saifana which had a few hut that you could rent in the grounds and so I pulled in to check it out.  Muliadi, who runs the place, showed me round and as it was getting late I decided to stop there for the night.

The setting is stunning with each of the 4 accommodation huts set in their own patch of the garden.

Muliadi doubles as a tour guide for guests and his wife does the cooking.  They do not live on site but their house is in the village next door.

The following morning my legs were tired from climbing Rinjani and I decided that I would spend another night at the farm and spend the day cycling through the local villages.

I took a track that Muliadi said would lead to a beach after a few kilometers.  On either side of the track there were ‘farms’ which seemed to specialize in just one type of animal – some had cattle, some chickens and others goats.  It was all very peaceful.

I think that this is first time that I have ridden the bike without luggage on a true off road track and man was the bike difficult to handle.  Without 10kg of weight on the front forks the bike was bouncing around like a bucking bronco as it jumped from one rock to another.  A couple of times on the down hills I lost the front end completely and ended up sprawled out in the mud.  Brilliant fun.

The vegetation near to the coast was scrub land and either I was being followed by a pack of monkeys or there are hundreds of them in the bush as I constantly saw them crossing the track in front of me.  It was like I was cycling through the African savannah.

When I eventually reached the coast I was slightly disappointed as I had been expecting a sandy beach, black or white I didn’t mind,  but what I saw in front of me was a pebble beach. Still the ocean was warm and blue and I jumped in for a swim.

After my swim it was time to head back up the hill to where I was staying. On my way up,  I was passed by a motorbike that was stacked high with some type of reed vegetation and when he pulled up about 100m in front of me all you could hear was the clanging of wooden cowbells as the cows in the scrub came running over. It was feeding time.

Once they had been fed I set off whilst the farmer finished up.  He then did something that is a bit weird the first time it happened but I am now used to it – he followed me on his motorbike.  Normally, they stay about 10m behind me just keeping pace with my bike. Sometimes I am followed for 5km or more, and then they will drive past me without a word.  I have no idea why they do it but it happens so frequently now that I don’t give it a second thought.

After a few minutes we came across another farm and as we did the guy came along side me and signaled for me to stop at the entrance to the house.  When we pulled up the family came out to the road to say hi.  Nobody spoke any english nor me Indonesian.  I think that the family were relatives of the motorbike rider as he pointed at tehm and said “ancestors”.

The first thing the ‘father’ did was what everybody else seems to do which was squeeze my bike tires and then a long conversation ensues and then everybody gives the tyres a squeeze.  It is fairly comical, and still makes me chuckle when it happens.

The father wanted a photo and his wife must have told him to go put a shirt on as  he was bare chested.  He went off and came back with a shirt, but his wife wasn’t happy with his choice and sent him off to change.  Most times you do not need to know any language to understand what is happening and this was one of those times.

The man and woman had the most amazing smiles – hardly any teeth and bright red mouths from, I assume, chewing a type of Betal nut.  I am still amazed why everybody is so keen to have a photo taken with me as they will never see the photo. They really do enjoy looking at themselves on camera afterwards though.  Always a very beautiful moment either way with lots of laughter.

The father then wanted  to show me around his land and he was very proud of his cows which were in the field next to his house.

Their housing was typical of what I had seen throughout lombok – a couple of buildings made from wood – one for sleeping and the other for cooking

Around the back of the house there was a basket of chewing beans drying in the sun, and I declined them when offered as I have had them before and don’t really like them.

As I was saying my thank yous it was obvious that the father wanted  to take me round to see his neighbor who turned out to be the local goat farmer.

The house was very much the same set up – one hut where they slept and another hut where they cooked on an open fire.  A very simple but effective existence.

After my tour of the goat farm it was time for me to head off as it was now getting late and I wanted to be back before dark and still needed to go and find a shop to buy some water and a pre-dinner snack as I had now missed lunch.

Traffic was heavy on the track as the goats were coming back home.  It still amazes me that all day you see goats and cattle roaming freely in the fields and along the roads then at night they seem to just make their own way back to where they live.

Here is a video that I shot of my tour of the local farmers:

Just as it was going dark I rolled back into the organic farm to get a quick shower before joining the family for dinner – you had a choice of fried rice or fried noodle.  I normally go for fried rice as you seem to get more ‘bang for your buck’ and it keeps you full for longer.

The next morning it was time to continue my journey to catch the ferry to Sumbawa.  I could have easily made it across that day but I had looked on google maps and there was a nice looking part of the coast about 40km from the port and so that would be my first port of call when I arrived.  Given the 60km cycle to the ferry, the 90 minute ferry crossing and then the 40km ride on Sumbawa I would not have enough time to cover it all in one day and so instead decided to camp the night near the ferry port on Lombok and cross the following morning.

I had only cycled around 15km when I came across the village of Obel Obel.  From the noise that I could hear it was obvious that something was going on in the center of the village, and decided to park my bike and investigate.

The sight that I found was pretty spectacular – in the very center  there were 4 people, each on a separate wooden horse, being carried by the crowd and behind them were 20 or so musicians playing a heavy drum beat.

Surrounding the horses was a crowd of a couple of hundred people.  Quite an amazing crowd to cycle into the middle of.

Just as I arrived the procession was about to set off as the horses separated into  single file and were led out one by one back to the main road.  I followed them, still not really understanding what was going on, when Rani came and said hello.  She was a university student in Mataram and was back in the village visiting her family.

The occasion in front of me was a marriage ceremony and as part of this the happy couple were paraded around the village on ‘horseback’.  The procession would walk for 1 km up the road before turning and coming back again.  Rani invited me to follow and I duly fell in line with the other people behind the band.

There is normally some weird tradition with most ceremonies that I have seen and todays wedding march was no different – a man was walking along by the side of the procession with the raw hide and stomach of a cow tied to a long pole that he was chasing people with.  No idea why but it added to the sense of mystery to the occasion that was unfolding in front of me.

Once we reached the halfway point it was time to turn around and head back the way we came.  This was when Rani pointed out the two little boys who were with the adults on motorbikes at the head of the parade.  Apparently, when we got back to the village they would be circumcised in front of the crowd and I was more than welcome to come along and watch.

Now that is not an invite that you get everyday and as I had never been to a circumcision, let alone one in front of 200 people, then I was quite looking forward to going.  I can’t say the same thing about the two lads on the motorbikes who were about to lose their foreskins.

The nearer that we got to the village the more excited the crowd got about the impending circumcision and around 10 people had already told me that it would be happening when we got back.  I suppose that as just about everybody in the procession was Muslim, then all of the men had already been through it.

If you have never watched the film East is East then you should do so just for the part where the family realize that they forgot to get one of their sons, Sajid, ‘done’ as a baby and he is now nearly a teenager.  It is a brilliant part of the film.

Once we were back in the village the bride and groom were paraded around the central area before dismounting their horses.

Here is a video I shot of the procession:

Now it was time for the young lads to take center stage.  The area where it would happen was the covered central market and everybody had squeezed in for the occasion.

The band were in full flow as a mat was placed onto the floor and then the children who had taken part in the procession sat on the laps of an adult.  A full cooked chicken on a stick was then placed in front of each child, and an adult sat and split the chicken in half with his bare hands.  One of the halves of the chicken was then rubbed onto the child’s forehead before he was given it to hold.  This process was then repeated for the other children on the mat.

If you are a bit squeamish scroll down now past the next image and video.

(and Claire – perhaps don’t show Cuan and Aifric this one….)

Then it was time for the lads to get the bad news as they were placed one by one on the table in front of me.

There would be no privacy here, as all of the people crowded around to get a look.  As I had never been to a circumcision before I was not exactly sure of what to expect.

As an adult cuddled the child his underwear was removed and a doctor stepped forward with a syringe and injected the anaesthetic into the childs penis. The child was then taken away to wait for the anaesthetic to work.  The second child then had the same injection

Five minutes later the band really started to play loudly and the first child was brought back to the table.  This time it was for his foreskin to be literally cut off with a pair of surgical scissors.  Obviously, the screaming was not from pain, as he had been injected, but the child being held, the crowd straining to look , the screams from the child, and the noise from the band all mixed together to create a very charged atmosphere.

I lasted about 5 minutes before having to leave with nothing but sympathy for the screaming child.

Everybody seemed so happy that I had been there to witness the circumcision and kept coming up to shake my hand with huge smiles on their faces.  It seems that it really is one of the special moments in a child’s life and something that the whole community celebrates together. Either way, I needed a cold drink and a sit down for 10 minutes to reflect on my crazy morning – a wedding and a circumcision – now that doesn’t happen everyday.

Here is a video that I shot of the circumcision.  Don’t worry though as I have edited it to cut out (no pun intended…) the actual cutting bits.

After a drink it was time to grab a quick bite to eat and get back to cycling towards the port.  The road was continually undulating and fairly steep in parts for the next 20km.

At the top of Lombok there is a coastal plain and once I reached this the road was completely flat.  I was back in farming country and up here mixed in with the padi fields were fields of sweetcorn and even tobacco.

The picture below is of buffalos grazing on the stubble of the picked crops

While this picture is the dried tobacco being loaded into the back of a truck:

At about 5pm I cycled into the village of Sambelia, which iss about 15km before the ferry port.  I liked the feel of the village and decided that this would be as good a place as any to call home for the night and went in search of a suitable spot.  The beach here was fairly narrow and after cycling down a couple of lanes without finding a suitable spot I eventually found one.

Quite fittingly my view as the sun went down was of Sumbawa where I would be heading to the following morning.

On Sumbawa, my hunch to follow an image from google map  would lead me to one of the most beautiful ‘undiscovered’ beaches that I had been to in a long long time.  That will have to wait for another day as right now I need to get on with the small job of cycling my way around the world.

Cheers

Stewart

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