Today dawned sunny and bright— not that we have ever seen the sunrise on this trip— and the executive caucus made the decision today would be devoted to eating and drinking, snoozing, book reading, blogging, stitchery and Lombok viewed from the promenade deck.
At Lombok there’s no port facilities, no shuttle bus service, in fact not even an air conditioned Toyota Kijang with driver.
What a dreamy island!
Back to the grind of daily ship-board life. But someone has to do it!
Everybody’s favourite holiday place. What more can I say?
Another Toyota Kijang car with driver and this time we invited another couple, Terry and Sally, from our dinner table to join us.
Our collective intention was to find opulent resorts we can visit at a later date, lunch on the beach at Jimbarin Bay and buy a knock-off Rolex watch .
Mission accomplished!
No traffic grid-lock, air conditioned comfort and The Westin within the Nusa Dua locale was the unanimous choice should we venture back next year. Enjoy the pictures.
Note: The ship’s tendering ferry service was an endurance test, akin to unloading a sheep ship. But fortunately there was no-one from animal welfare to video the abuses for next Monday night’s 4 Corners program
While the local people gave us a genteel welcome, the local sea water gently lapped 200mm above the surface of the wharf!!!; requiring a longer than usual walk-way to avoid a rusting of the wheels of the Zimmer frame.
A youthful dance troupe added to the anticipation of a day in our first Indonesian port-of-call. And quickly finding our driver displaying our name on a stick, meant our ordered Toyota Kijang (google it) would fulfil our hopes of a trip to the famed Borubudur temple.
The journey, (we will never again complain of the Perth traffic volumes), was a nightmarish 0 to 15 km an hour for the first half until I spied an overtaking police car with sirens blaring followed by 3 big tourist coaches. “That’s the folk from the ship…..quick, follow them” I blurted out and our driver Mr Suderman (we called him Mr Superman) responded with great alacrity.
In a flash we went from dead-stop to 90 km an hour for the final 20kms of our journey, all on the wrong side of the road. A cop car, 3 big buses and a limpet hanger-on
The skies opened up as we arrived at Borubudur and covered by superman’s umbrella made a dash through the plethora of 300 stalls to get at least a picture of the mighty temple, beiged as it was by about 10,000 or more locals for a Sunday festival, a quick toilet stop and back on the road again.
The scenery was quite breath-taking, wall to wall villages of the very poor to the well off, rice paddies, an endless ribbon of roadside stalls, gentle people and 4 million motorbikes.
Upon our return to the ship (we beat the cop car and the buses by a couple of hours) the charge was sixty bucks instead of the quoted $90 and so we gave superman the $30.
“When are you coming back to Semarang?” beamed a happy Mr Suderman.
While an armada of illegal boats land every day at Christmas Island the mighty Dawn Princess was unable to land it’s cargo of 2,000 eager tourists
The Captain wimped out of allowing the usual conga line of Zimmer frames to stretch their feeble legs; something about the swell; and opting instead for a circumnavigation.
But my thoughts are with the island’s 2,072 residents forlornly watching today’s hoped for cash injection float out to sea.
Today the business people invested in more lettuces ($7.00ea) and cucumbers ($4.50ea) which obviously will now be heavily discounted or sadly binned. The hugely increased order of Mrs Mac’s pies and sausage rolls in the warmer might also suffer the same fate.
Passenger excitement continues unabated, from the luxury of the Horizon Court chow house, as we watch HMAS Armadale towing today’s latest smuggler boat arrival out to sea and to be sunk in a 5km deep watery graveyard.
What a stark comparison! We float around the Indonesian archipelago for 16 days in pampered luxury at around a fifth of the cost of a smuggler’s tour offering.
As the advertising blurb says “escape completely with Princess”
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