overland east of bali

There are some good wet season waves between lombok and sumbawa and Timor. On sumbawa west coast there are a fair few not many really surf, even in dry season as the roads are pretty bad and worse in wet season. there are a few villages you could live in along there.
There was also problems of pollution and outflow from the gold and copper mines near kongo.
If you head into maluk or balas beach (Supersuck) ask for a guy called Iponk (pronounced epoong)
he will tell you about a couple of waves and possibly shoot some shots of you surfing.
yoyos gets a lot of swell any time of year and isnt bad in the wet season but not as classy as the supersuck and scar reef kind of waves.
theres some real beasts of slabs further east but getting to know them and the currents would be worthwhile as the sea down there can get hectic. also some big fish and friendly fat tiger sharks sometimes.
i have heard of guys getting stuck down there for a bit in rains.
lots of malaria and dengue too. i caught malaria first time here and dengue the next trip.
The ferry isnt that bad but youd be best of flying into mataram rather than through bali to lombok then a bus or hitch a ride on a truck into sumbawa.If you bus it, its worthwhile paying the extra few dollers for a few more seats, for boards and feet room.

the transport and accom might be worse now and food availability since the closing of the mines has shut down some other businesses in west sumbawa including chemists, hair salons and places people used to hang out at night in Maluk.
accom can be super cheap or real classy such as nomad tropicals. if you have the cash this is a good place to hang in wet season as it gets a good amount of swell and theres a few wet season waves around. the roads west and north of here not bad,further east are pretty bad.
Another place id recommend is rantungs which is cheapish but often booked out. Near yoyos.
lots of options on south coast lombok and lots of places to stay. gets a fair few more crowds and more kooks with no etiquette.
The roads in good conditions even are going up and down mountains with nothing to stop you going off the edge if you slide out so be careful. The police in west sumbawa are pretty cool in lombok can be a bit more corrupt and greedy.
Have fun.
Another good place to hang is Merdeka house, in maluk/balas area. Check them out of facebook. good rooms, away from the hussle and bussle and good staff. excellent location overlooking some prime surf spots.

Great info groundswell.

desoutc, in regards to moped/bike, I've heard you are better off hiring on the island you're on. Heard quite a few stories of guys taking bikes from Bali only to have them stolen (number plate the giveaway) and them being out of pocket a bit. Lombok and Sumbawa have the hire bikes with racks available.

Going from west sumbawa to east (lakey) is hard but doable. Dont take the south coast, you have to go north coast as far as i know. i think it takes around 6 hours but not sure. You could skip west sumbawa and get a ferry or plane from bali or lombok straight to bima- near lakeys if you wanted.
Fitzroy is on the money with motorbikes, rent one or buy one when you get to west sumbawa, or in mataram. there is a bit of travel between airport in lombok to bus station but plenty of taxis or motorbike taxis (ojek) to give you a lift.
Im sure there is still good food just less range in maluk. it used to have to cater to a lot of miners and now mines have closed down so there are less shops, less food at night.
Im not sure if that means the rooms are cheaper,and more availability it might.
If your staying for around 6 months you can rent a kos (cheap flat) for around 500 000 to 700 000 a month. works out at around $1.20 a day.

Solo is the best way imo. best way to make friends with locals and tourists, learn the language pretty well and be where ever you want to be.
With the mine closing down, there might be more crime.
You should do lombok and sumbawa before heading onto sumba, sumba is way more hardcore and shittier conditions of living. Dog is the preferred meat and they can run out of petrol or diesel for days, massive queues when it arrives in town. A bit of conflict between districts sometimes is a downer on your trip.
Timor and roti on the other hand, some epic wet season waves there, its just that they need more swell from the SW and west, gets none from the ssw or south. as the other areas of nusa tengarra have a bigger window.
Lombok has more range of wet season waves, some way better than yoyos and tropicals. the best waves in west sumbawa are dry season.ie scars, supers although they could turn on if you're lucky. sejorong/kongo gets good for a wet season wave and is really long but rippy and fickle.
Lakeys area apparently isnt bad in wet season or offseason and the waves dont need that much swell.

Good post Groundswell.

Id love to get back down that way but i can't help but always go back to areas of Sumatra, just wish i had more time.

On the motor bike thing, different areas of Indo have different codes/numbers on the number plates so those locals in the know would know you have a bike from Bali and not there area and more likely to steal it.

Access will be tricky to get to some far away south coast sumbawa spots.lombok south coast has better access. why not do both coast lines?
I would pack-
-toiletry kit with 1 or two razors, charcoal tablets and Imodium, malaria tabs, mossie repellent, bactoroban for reef cuts, peroxide or chinese medicine for reef cuts, toothbrush for reefcuts, tweezers, spray jacket, or poncho and or warmer jacket as things can get chilly at night on a bike in the rain, use that as a pillow sometimes,..
one or two boards, one magic board if you have one is better than many for trips like that, like a mini driver style board would be perfect.
deoderant, vitamins, not many veggies on the menu in most places in indo. blue tac or similar for your ears if surfing rivermouths and polluted water, solar rez, duct tape, one small camera, fin keys and wax comb, a couple of sets of fins, spare key card on same account, a few guide books such as lonely planet, recent..sunscreen, wax, lots of it..you could buy a lot of that stuff in kuta.Boardies, leggy x 2, ipod or phone with music, that might be too much stuff hehe. Might have forgotten a few things.

I reckon you should ferry and taxi to west Sumbawa then hire a car. I can give you a name and number of a fella that will meet you at the port in Sumbawa and rent you a nice new Kijang for about $30 a day. Holds all your boards and you're free to roam in comfort, even sleeping it if you want. But keep that dark or Indo will end up looking like Byron with a thousand Euros sleeping in cars.

Give Leigh at Scar reef villas a visit. Good bloke and he might even give you a few tips. There might even be some sneaky waves in that area....

Like Bali ten years ago, not too many crew are on to that scene yet. Good luck.

The best treatment for reef cuts is a chinese red ointment called Tieh Tao Yao Gin. It burns like hell but dries out the cut, seals it up and i has special ingredients to specifically kill the bacteria from the coral. It can be bought at any chemist, seven eleven etc in bali.
Also not sure if you still can but you used to be able to buy antibiotics over the counter anywhere in indo, do yourself a favour, find out which ones are good for you and buy some.
One other thing is if you plan to be a while, buy a special tonic water, there is a rhino on the bottle and drink one per day.....I don't know what is in it, but an expat put me onto it and it is great to fight giardia and the other nasty stomach bugs you might encounter.

This stuff?…Never heard of that one will have to try it, it does taste healthy though like its got heaps of weird stuff in it.

http://www.sindebudi.com/page/show/20/larutan-penyegar-cap-badak-pt-sind...

BTW. I personally don't take anti malaria's but if you do the best is Doxcyline which is actually an antibiotic so has that added benefit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxycycline

Don't know if its true but i heard it so strong that it also kills your good stomach bacteria though, so they say you need to have those products that help with good stomach bacteria when you can or get home.

Yeah that is the one, it is also full of minerals that assist in dehydration. It is magic stuff.

I drink it sometimes but more just as a refreshing drink, there is another one that is harder to find thats similar that taste even better also a green drink.

I did have a situation last trip where my Indo friend filled an aqua bottle with well water and both me and my friend mistaked it as bottled water and both gulped a big swig, then shortly after found out it was well water, yes it did taste crap, it was from a seedy looking well that you wash at, so we both quickly drank a can of red Fanta and we never got sick.

Not sure if we would have got sick if we had not drank the red Fanta but thought it was worth a try as red cordial is said to kill stomach bugs, and we didn't have red cordial, maybe it did work.

http://www.abc.net.au/health/talkinghealth/factbuster/stories/2010/01/21...

Yeah Damo , that Chinese stuff is the go . ( especially in Indo )
I think Brutus was talking about it also earlier in the thread .

indo-dreaming wrote:

BTW. I personally don't take anti malaria's but if you do the best is Doxcyline which is actually an antibiotic so has that added benefit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxycycline

Don't know if its true but i heard it so strong that it also kills your good stomach bacteria though, so they say you need to have those products that help with good stomach bacteria when you can or get home.

Doxy gives me horrible issues with sunburn. YMMV but be careful.

indo-dreaming wrote:

BTW. I personally don't take anti malaria's but if you do the best is Doxcyline which is actually an antibiotic so has that added benefit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxycycline

Don't know if its true but i heard it so strong that it also kills your good stomach bacteria though, so they say you need to have those products that help with good stomach bacteria when you can or get home.

hey guys heres a bit of a heads up

your probably all over this already indo mate but any one travelling round malaria prone zones and doesn't want to take doxy or other prophylactics , try taking a hit of baroca every day. its loaded with vitamin b12 and mozzies don't seem to like biting you as much.

I got told this many years ago but still went the doxy route for years. mozzies have always loved me but when I finally started traveling with baroca I now hardly ever get bitten.
make sure you still cover in mornings and evenings and use deet if you can but baroca helps a lot.

ps it helps when you drink too much warm bintang as well.

Good tip Eat ya veggies thanks.

Desoutc, regarding staying in villages, i wouldnt advise people to expect to be welcome as many out there are rough or the sort that might upset local sensitive village people, and there are a lot of tourists who expect too much from even homestays and surf camps- ie complaining about food quality etc.
If you dont fit into that group and you make friends with a villager or two you might be welcomed in to stay with one. the food might be a lot more basic but it might also be a lot better in some instances than surf camps.
I dont mean to offend you personally, i mean that for other people who might come accross this page and think its cool to go and stay with local village people because its cheap and they are near epic waves but they end up disrespecting the people and traditions. A lot more westerners than you would think show lack of respect.

I didnt mean to sound like an asshole there... but a good sense of humour will go a long way especially if you can crack jokes in indonesian.
Also helping out in anyway.
A small thing to you or i, such as for me being a sparky, fixing a genset or wiring up some lights to eat near was piss easy (all that was wrong were some loose cables) but they highly appreciated that and offered some food and snacks after surfing or offered a lift if they saw me walking up the beach etc and we will be friends for life im sure.
Most want to learn english well so even just that will make you popular.
Also there are no hawker type pests around sumbawa like you get in bali.

The taxi drivers at Bima airport can do a fair impersonation of a pest.

groundswell wrote:

I didnt mean to sound like an asshole there... but a good sense of humour will go a long way especially if you can crack jokes in indonesian.

That sure is true, Indonesian love joking around and sexual innuendo.

That along with patience and not being pushy and having respect will get you anything and everything and anywhere in Indo.

desoutc wrote:

wonder how the situation is in aceh at the moment with ISIS apparently being a worldwide threat and aceh being one of the most islamic cities in the world

This year Sharia law was extended to apply also to non muslims in Aceh, a joke in which Indonesia's motto is "unity in diversity"

Technically this could effect how foreigners dress and act and in the future could restrict consumption or access of alcohol to at surf camps/losmens ( Simeulue and Banyaks) are also technically part of Aceh province.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2014/11/pictures-new-islamic...

Charcoal tablets are just handy for gazzo but i havent used them in a while. They supposibly absorb any toxic stuff in your stomach.
With aceh its always been a bit more strict with islamic rules than other places such as tourist women must swim fully clothed etc so it might be more of a risk with isis.
However as far as i know mostly muslim places are not that bad with isis, like turkey i dont think is in danger. As far as i know anyway and my girl is living there.Besides bali and sumba the rest of indo is mostly muslim too. But im hoping with their carefree friendly indo nature they wont get involved in that bollocks.

groundswell wrote:

.Besides bali and sumba the rest of indo is mostly muslim too..

Ha ha Groundswell sorry im pulling you up on this one :P

Flores= Mostly Catholic
West timor/Rote= Mostly Christian
West Papua= Mostly Christian
Nias, Telos, Mentawai's =mostly Christian in villages, mix of Christian/Catholics/Muslim in bigger towns in particular port towns (because people move to these areas from places like Padang etc, hence the muslim thing, the remote villages got converted by missionaries to Christianity.

Also pockets of Christianity and Catholics in places like North Sulawesi and Lake Toba area (batak)

Obviously Indonesia is mostly Muslim but thats because all these places listed above have relatively low populations especially compared to general Sumatra and Java.

Haha yeah i guess i shouldnt have written it that way, just saying the majority of indonesians are islamic and curious as to why Aceh is so strict compared to Sumbawa, and even south sumatra the people have a different vibe in general to other places. South sumatra many seem very stern, there are a lot of fun loving types just some that stand out to me up there seem anti western kind of. more fundamentalist muslim perhaps.
I dont know.
Kids in sumbawa would laugh and play soccer with me a lot or go surfing, in south sumatra it seemed like they just would pester me for money with no grace or tact. just demand money from me all the time.

From what I've read Aceh is where islam started in Indonesia through exposure from trading with middle east countries and India way back when, hence then it spread east through Indo, the areas that weren't converted to Islam in Sumatra where basically so remote back then they had no exposure to it or even Hinduism or Buddhism before Islam.

Christianity was introduced by Missionaries (from memory only a few hundred years ago) before that those areas like Mentawais, Nias, Telos still had Animistic beliefs, and the Mentawai people deep in the jungle of Siberut still practice this you know believe everything has a spirit, rock, tree, monkey etc, the missionaries where pretty hardcore in finding and converting but didn't get them.

Batak people at lake toba, i can't remember if islam never reached them or if they resisted, wouldn't be surprised if they resisted there real strong head people.(also regard as good business people)