One of the must sees in Lombok is the Pink Beach on the Far Eastern coast. The photographs do make it look flamingo pink which isn’t the case but the journey we had there and the people we met made out experience.
First of all we had a ‘Lost in translation’ situation with the tour guide. He had me believe we got a car to the local port 10 minutes away and got a boat for the day that we could fish from and take us to the beach.
However when our lovely driver arrived called Sinah he numbed us with his amazing air con and then after half an hour we got worried as we still hadn’t reached the port. He then explained it’s an hour and a half journey to the dock where we get a little fishing boat to the beach but it’s OK as he’ll come with us. Since being in Bali both kids have an aversion to car journeys so the groans and muttering then began….
When we arrived at the dock there was a fishing market on and our boat was nowhere to be seen so we took the kids to see what slimy fish delicacies were on offer. The locals LOVE Bule (Indonesian: [ˈbule]) is an word for foreigners and/or non-Indonesian national, specifically people of European descent ('white', 'Caucasian’) children, white skin, blue and green eyes they’re like dolls to them.
Ensue old toothless women with slimy fishy long nailed hands launching at Nula and squeezing her cheeks with their fishy fingers. I was taking photos laughing my head off then realised she was actually teary eyed and hyperventilating at the smell and the facial abuse.
So we swiftly made our way back through the iced plastic buckets of bulging eyed big red fish, eels, clams and medley of sea goods.
Sinah finally located our boat and we were bemused to see it was named ‘Titanic Lombok’ and prayed there were no icebergs straight ahead in the Lombok waters!
A jukung or kano, also known as cadik is a small wooden Indonesian outrigger canoe and they’re usually painted in lovely bright colours.
Our yellow one was glorious and cut through the water therapeutically - the captain even let the kids sit up on the roof. Looking out for said Icebergs… Like Waterworld there were scatterings of floating net raft huts for fishermen and the Pearl farmers.
Then there it was a soft pink hue, spam colour to be precise. However only to the naked eye so when we look photos you could barely see the pink - anti climax for photos but it was beautiful and when we jumped off the boat the sand was so fine between out toes and the tiniest bits of red coral could be seen.
There were no other tourists just us and the crystal waters and spam beach, bliss.
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