At dawn the cool mountain air was clear and for the first time this visit I saw Gunung Rinjani looming over us behind the lower crater. The morning light bathed the mountain's lower slopes, terraced for rice and looking like a great emerald staircase to the volcano. Riding down I knew that yesterday's bemo (small bus) ride was worth every cent of the dollar it cost us to come up. We rocketed down the bumpy road some 450 meters before leveling out and travelling upon the coast. Luckily we'd started out early; by nine-thirty I was already sweating as we rollercoastered through seaside kampungs.
I'd thought that we'd be greeted by fewer schoolchildren the farther we got from the \"touristy\" areas of Lombok, but more and more came out from their schools to shout at us familiar greetings like \"Hullo Mister.\" Others more inventive said \"Hullo Tourist\" or \"Hullo Bule\" which means literally \"hello whitey\". A few days later we joked about the perfect comeback being \"Salamat \_\_\_\_\_\_ orang chocolate,\" meaning \"Good \_\_\_\_\_ brown person.\" It was harder to figure out something to shout back to the little kids who yelled \"I love you\" as we pedaled by. Breakfast in the mountains was less satisfying than the last few days.
I'd already become accustomed to an Indonesian traditional breakfast of *nasi goreng* (fried rice). A toasted Australian banana sandwich was all they offered at our accommodation, leaving me hungry after about 250 meters of riding. A kampung kitchen offered us white rice with some sort of beef sauce, but we somehow convinced the cook to cook us a couple of respectable *nasi gorengs*. After our hilltop snack, we got our reward for having climbed a hundred meters. A gradual downhill and tailwind swept us along through more rice fields in the shadow of Mount Rinjani. Another gradual uphill came as the sun and humidity began to bake us.
Normally what would be a really easy hill left us dripping with sweat. I was now used to the sound of it dripping off my chin onto the top tube of my bike making a faint pinging sound. Again another perfect downhill accompanied by a tailwind as we turned east towards the main port of Lombok, imaginatively named Labuhan Lombok (literally: Lombok's Port). Here the villages seemed more Muslim. Sasaks wearing their agouti-fez-like hats and tropical nehru jackets strutted down the street to mosques. Just before arriving in the port we took a dip in the ocean in order to cool down.
The water felt good, but just a little too warm to do an adequate job cooling me down. Black sands and shallow waters kept the coastal tides close to the temperature of the air. Some relief came as the water evaporated off my skin when we sat in an Indonesian hangout hut readying to push on. In Labuhan Lombok we looked for a cold drink and transportation to take us into the foothills of Gunung Rinjani for the night. We sipped cold water and negotiated a charter to a little town some forty kilometers away. The price was an \"outrageous\" four dollars; the driver thought he was getting the best of us.
The glee of our negotiation wore off all too quickly. As we gulped down the last liter of water we saw the bus driver throwing passengers off of a bus to accommodate our non-stop charter. We'd thought that we were renting one of the small empty busses. Our protests came too late and fell upon deaf ears. A deal was a deal. I dozed while Andy chatted with the driver. Sitting in the cab of the bus I couldn't bear to stay awake and watch his careless driving. While I was sleeping he chatted endlessly about the power of his *dukun* (black medicine man) and the power of his charms.
When questioned about it, he indicated that there was no conflict between these practices and his Muslim \"faith\". In transit we negotiated travelling just a little bit further, directly to our intended stop for the evening. There we had yet another snack and watched the driver proceed to drink up all of the profit he'd just made on us. He and his assistant drank beer after beer before leaving just after we checked into our hotel. We suspect that he got some kickback for getting us to stay there. He kept asking us insistently if we had checked in, if we had a key and finally disappeared silently when we did.
A little boy well coached in guiding tourists and soliciting their financial support offered to give us a tour of his mountainside *kampung*. He led us through the *padi* (Indospeak for still-growing rice), filling us with facts about the flora, fauna and cultivation techniques. He also managed to slip in that his dad had recently died of cancer. Later he told us that a rich Dutch man had bought him a bike and an Australian was paying two hundred a year to keep him in school. That was due to end this year because he had failed to write his patron.
When he tried to take us to his uncle's house for tea I feared that we were in for the real \"shakedown\" and politely turned down the offer. When we finally reached the end I reached for a customary amount, but Andy insisted on giving him four times the sum. He asked for more and then told us we should have only given him the original amount I suggested and asked we tell no one we gave him more than that. Tetebatu itself is aspiring to be the Ubud of Lombok. Ubud is the traditional cultural center of Bali. Tetebatu has a long way to go to make their goal.
Fortunately we were two of perhaps six tourists in town so our evening was a quiet one. We looked for a phone in town to call a friend who was to meet us in Sengigi the next day only to find that there were none, the closest being in Masbagik, forty-five minutes downhill by motorbike. A hotel manager offered to shuttle one of us down later on his motorcycle in exchange for petrol money. We agreed and the deal turned out to be mutually beneficial. When Andy went down the hill he discovered a line three hundred folks deep waiting to use the phones.
*Bule-bule* (whiteys) have the right to trot right up to the front of the line and use the phone. A situation his driver took advantage of, since he too got to skip the queue. The crowds left Andy asking the question \" Why are so many people waiting to use the phones?\" It turns out that many have left Indonesia during the KRISMON to work in Malaysia and the crowds were waiting to call their families there. I read in the room until the power went out. Then I was lulled to sleep by the croaking of frogs, the calls of geckos and the rhythm of a gamelan practice in the distance.