Mid-semester break in Lombok

Lombok... what a wonderful trip! I was there for ten days and feel so relaaaxed now! Very beautiful, restored my faith in Indonesia being pretty and tropical... its not all dirty bitumen roads and dusty streets :) Lombok is an island on the other side of Bali from Java. People say its like Bali was before all the tourists came and it got crowded. Just beautiful! We left last Thursday and got to Mataram, the capital of Lombok, late afternoon after a stopover at Surabaya. I spent four days, including Idul Fitri (the muslim "Christmas Day" I think of it as) with a family in Mataram, friends of Jess S. Then on the Monday I met up with Jess K and we got a perahu boat to the Gilis: a group of three islands off the coast of Lombok, gorgeous and a major tourist hotspot cos you can hop straight over from Bali. We stayed one night at Gili Air, then two nights on Gili Trawangan (known as the party island) with a couple of other girls from Jogja, Rachelle and Sarah. Thursday morning we braved the seas again, and Jess and I headed back to the mainland, to a town called Mangsit. I spent one night with her there, one by myself and one with Sarah before we flew back to Jogja on Sunday... I was sad to leave! Wondeful holiday tho, the break actually made me look forward to getting back to my kos and class. Lol...