Broke Down in Lombok – And a Side Trip to Bali

We have been cruising for 5 1/2 years, and luckily in that time we have never been delayed by a break down….until now. It happens to everyone eventually. We noticed a crack in our engine mount as we were leaving Komodo and hit some rough head winds that we had to motor through on the way to where we are now…Medana Bay. Turns out, the cracked engine mount and rough weather caused all kinds of ugliness which made our engine make a horrible noise as we got ready to leave on the next leg of this journey. Luckily we were in a good secure place and went about ordering new mounts. However, things take time in SE Asia and we have been waiting for a month for the parts to arrive. Today at least one package arrived and hopefully the next will be here soon. So the repairs have begun.

In the meantime, however, we made the most of our time off and took several trips around the area. Renting scooters has become our favorite thing to do to explore these beautiful islands. A few weeks ago we went to check out the island of Bali, land of the terraced rice fields.

Bali is a very unique Indonesian island. Where most of the islands are either Muslim or Catholic…or mixed, Bali is Hindi. They have their own language, Balinese, and follow many customs of India…including the very unique Caste system.

The higher the caste of ones family, the larger your family compound and standing in the community. The large family compounds are surrounded by beautiful ornate walls with inner walls to trick the evil spirits from entering. Usually there is a rice loft built on stilts above the entrance. Rice is worshiped and is everything to the way of life here. Every family compound also has a temple built inside so the can make the daily offerings to Shiva.

Typical villages have family compounds lining the streets and the streets are decorated with religious offerings.

The whole island is absolutely beautiful and the getting up into the less tourist filled mountain region is beyond rewarding.  The Balinese are extremely hospitable people and do everything the can to make your trip pleasurable.

While on Bali we scootered to Mount Batur, a town built inside a volcano. Mount Batur erupted some 20,000 years ago and left a massive caldera. Over the centuries people moved into the caldera as the land was fertile for farming. There is also a fresh water lake where they farm fish. A new lava cone has formed inside the caldera creating a new Mount Batur. It erupts frequently; the most recent eruption was in 2000.

On the back side of the newly formed volcano is where the lava fields are. The fields are mined for volcanic rock to build temples and sell overseas.