day 5 & 6: lombok

day 5: december 27

YES.  YES!  i love the beach!  don't get me wrong, the

jungle was great but oh the beach.  how i love the beach.

we stayed at windy beach resorts and were very happy with

the small but charming little cottage rooms we had.  annie

and i shared a room and for seven nights i only spent about 

thirty USD including breakfast.  what a deal!

i woke up early feeling much better and took a little walk around

the garden grounds.  here is the entrance to the private beach!  it was

nice because it wasn't too crowded.  senggigi is the main beach town

but we went up north a few miles and stayed at mangsit.  it was perfect.

after i tried to eat some toast, i went and had a massage in a little open 

hut listening to the sounds of the ocean.  i paid about $7 for an hour

which is great but i maybe overpaid a little but that's okay.  she was good

and it was just the thing i needed to start off my beach adventure.

suki if you are reading this, this is for you!  saw these little guys 

on the beach and had to take a picture for you.  baaaaaaa.  bleeet.

spent the day in the clear warm ocean.  it was a little rocky when you

got in and the waves were a bit strong but it was still so amazing! how

could you not fall in love with this place?  the answer is it's impossible

not too.  i think i need to move back here and be a beach bum forever. 

i'm just sort of kidding dad.  sort of kidding...

ain't nothin' like the fruit lady cutting you

the sweetest mango right on the beach!

ahh that beautiful pool.  we stayed out here until about 6:30pm

because no one wanted to leave the beautiful weather. it all left

us with sunburns but i think it was worth it.  we ended the day

with a meal at the hotel restaurant then tucked in for bed. paradise.

day 6: december 28

motorbikes here we come!  we woke up early today, had a bite to eat and rented four motorbikes.  annie's parents stayed by the pool that day so i had a bike, annie had one and nick and serena shared one.  here i am trying on different helmets trying to find one that either wasn't huge or still had a working strap on it.  i think i ended up with one that worked. i was a little nervous but super excited.  i tell you what.  the views driving around were incredible.  i wish i could have shot a video of it while we were winding along the coast.  it was breathtaking and i couldn't believe that i was actually driving around in an indonesian island on a motorbike. i am so blessed!!

we first went into town to buy some sunscreen.  if you can believe it i wore sunscreen.  i was stupid enough to wear those pants (see above) and soon realized it was so hot they were being plastered to my legs.  when we stopped for sunscreen (suncream as the brits say) i found a pair of pants at the mini mart for $5.  i bought them, changed in a hallway area (the sweet store clerk stood guard) and ended up literally wearing these everyday until the vacation was over.

originally, we wanted to figure out how to get to the waterfalls but we were told it was a bit far and tricky to get to.  so we decided to head out to sira beach, about forty five minutes drive from our hotel.

nick and serena at the gorgeous look out we pulled over at

look at that view!  look at it!  it's just the best.

windy windy windy!

annie rocking the motorbike.  she was great.  she's 

never really driven anything before so i was impressed

that she did so well but we did start calling her grannie

annie because she drove about five miles an hour.

after a few wrong turns we finally made it to sira beach.

truly a beautiful sight.  i collected many pieces of coral 

and shells here and for the most part we had the whole

beach to ourselves.  what a treat!

cornelius the hermit crab.

we made it back in time to catch some of the sunset

after the sunset, we took a cab into senggigi

and had a fine meal at a place called yessy's.

i ordered thai green curry with chicken.  YUM.