I happened to chance upon a fb post by Tiger Air which featured a Facebook contest called Travel Less Ordinary in celebration of their inaugural flights to Lombok on 23rd Nov 2013. The contest required you to share Tiger Air's photo and get as many likes as possibe. I wanted to win it so badly that I ended up PM all my fb friends, my sister's fb friends and my besti's fb friends for help to like the posts. Over that 1 week, I was basically camping beside my laptop and iPhone. I managed to get myself in as one of the top 10 winner of the contest, a 4D3N trip to Lombok with a pair of air tickets, free accommodation (Qunci Villa), airport transfer and 50% off for all massage/spa service in Qunci Villa. No.1 winner can get additional $1000 as spending money for the trip. How awesome it is!
Where is Lombok? Lombok is an island which just located at east of Bali. This island is about the same size as Bali and just as popular holiday destination in Indonesia among tourists. However food and hotels are generally cheaper in Lombok. The best time to visit Lombok is during the dry season from May to Oct.
After being transferred to the hotel from Lombok international airport, all winners (about 30 of us) were welcomed at Qunci Villas with frangipani leis and invited to a cocktail party reception at the resort’s beachfront. I was very surprised by the hospitality and warmth of Lombok .
Qunci Villa is located in the main tourist district, Senggigi and 5 mins drive to the main street. 1.5 hrs to airport. We stayed in one bedroom garden view villa at ground floor. The room was very comfy and clean. I did not have any problem with mosquito. There are 2 restaurants in Qunci, Western cuisine and Indonesian cuisine. Both serve good food. You can opt to have your breakfast in your villa.
Open concept bathroom is very interesting, can be cold if you take a bath at night or in early morning.
What to do in Lombok? One of the main attraction is to hike Mount Rinjani. It is the second highest volcano in Indonesia (3726 meters height). It is a volcano with huge crater lake and active volcano inside it. The trekking tour usually consists of viewing the crater's rim, waterfall, lake and summit. We spent 1 night on the rim.
Mount Rinjani is quite a tough mountain and needs quite a bit of of fitness to get through. Safety measurements are minimum. Trekking path are steep, sandy and sometimes slippery especially during wet season. Mount Rinjani is usually closed from Dec/Jan to Apr due to bad weather. When it is slippery, it is dangerous. Most serious injuries are caused by falling from the cliff and hypothermia. Check out the Rinjani National Park website for more information. Always sign up with reputable tour operators only.
What to Bring:
- There is no place to bathe so don't bring too many clothes. Keep your bag light.
- Dry tissue to go to toilet. Wet tissue to clean your body. This is important.
- Long trek pants to keep yourself warm.
- Girls, wear long sleeve if you do not want to get tanned
- Extra socks
- Wind breaker. Weather up there is cold and windy.
- Thin down jacket. I wore Uniqlo ultra thin down jacket.
- Scarf
- Rain coat (Rudy Trekker provided it to us FOC)
- Trekking stick (Rudy Trekker provided it to us FOC)
- Gloves (Rudy Trekker provided it to us FOC)
- Flash light. There is no light up there except moon.
- Head light (Rudy Trekker provided it to us FOC). It's important. The summit trek starts at 2am, with no light available except the head light
- Hiking shoes are highly recommended. I wore sport shoes and it was badly damaged.
- A guide who knows the place well
- Hire additional porter to carry your bag, about USD25/porter/day
We did the 2D1N summit hiking package with Rudy Trekker. We started at 9am and reached crater rim at 6pm to catch the sunset. We spent a night at crater rim 2649m and woke up at 1:30am the next morning and continue our journey to the summit 3726m.
Our tour guide, Hero, is experienced, patient, considerate and helpful. I did not train myself prior the trip and I had problem with my bag pack (I carried a 1.5kg camera in my bag pack), my husband carried for me and Hero actually offered to carry for me even though we didn't pay extra for it. He also helped me when we came down from summit as the path was very sandy and slippery. And I was really slow since I'm not physically fit, but he's very patient and walked behind me slowly.
We were provided with mattress, director chairs, sleeping bag, pillow, tent and toilet tent, so it's very comfy, no problem at all to fight against cold temperature on top there. Water and food was more than what you can imagine and they were tasty. We had pasta, burger, banana fritter, salad, fried chicken etc. Rudy Trekker's guides and porters are environmentally conscious and not only pack all their own garbage, they even clean up for others.
All porters hiked with bare foot or just a pair of sandals!
The quiet crater rim is the best place for star gazing.
Tiger Air operates 3 direct flights between Singapore and Lombok 3 times per week, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Flight journey is about 2 and 1/2 hours. Silk Air has direct flights too between Singapore and Lombok 3 flights per week. Garuda Airlines flies between Kuala Lumpur and Lombok everyday with a stop over at Jakarta. Air Asia operates direct flight between Kuala Lumpur and Lombok too. Jetstars flies from Australia direct to Lombok also.
[Update 23rd Apr 2014] Tigerair is no longer flying to Lombok as of 22nd April 2014 due to network review.
Airport departure tax is Rp 30,000 for domestic departures and Rp 100,000 for international departures. Cash only on departure.
[Update 23rd Apr 2014] Tigerair is no longer flying to Lombok as of 22nd April 2014 due to network review.
Airport departure tax is Rp 30,000 for domestic departures and Rp 100,000 for international departures. Cash only on departure.
If you are transferring from Bali, you can travel by Garuda Airlines, Lion Air, Merpati Airlines and Trans Nusa Air. There are also numerous speed boat services operating between Bali and Lombok.
