Hitting the Indo tourist trail

I imagined that Lombok would feel like the start of the Indonesian tourist trail but as we pull into Medana Bay in the north, it looks too quiet for anything of the sort. The bay is home to a strategically located 'marina' popular with the cruising community, there are a few moorings as well as a haul out facility for long term storage of boats. Quite a few other kid boats we know are already here so it's a treat to hang out together for a few nights, both adults and kids getting their social fix as well as enjoying having food cooked for us by the small but excellent marina restaurant.

We're the last boat to arrive and everyone is raving about the main attraction nearby, Lombok Wildlife Park. I am nervous about visiting a zoo in Indonesia but online reviews are predominantly positive so the very next day, we decide to give it a go splashing out for a private guide and a three course lunch.

Nestled on a gentle hillside, the park is covered in lush vegetation giving it a cool and shady vibe. White cockatoos form a noisy welcoming committee at the entrance while we purchase feeding baskets full of fruit and vegetables and meet the guide who will join us on the trail that loops around the whole park. The place has the feel of a beautiful tropical garden filled with our favourite wild animals, most close enough to touch.

As we walk along the shady path below the fancy looking restaurant, black and white cockatoos, colourful parrots and stoic looking hornbills perch on branches all around, most apparently happy to jump on an arm or a shoulder and pose for photos.

I love birds but having one sit on my shoulder is intimidating; instinctively, I expect the bird to peck me, and although none do, one cockatoo lives up to expectations when it gently starts pecking Jake's head, buidling up to an excited flapping of the wings before flying off. In fact, more than one bird is interested in pecking Jake's closely shaved head, for reasons unknown.

Then, its's onto Asian elephants, orangutans and gibbons, African pigmy hippos, and two South East Asian forest dwelling (and therefore heavily endangered) spieces we've never seen before - binturongs (tree-dwelling bearcats) and sunbears. Our guide instructs on the best food to offer each animal, the hippos love the water spinach but elephants are more into watermelon and cucumber.

The sound of gibbons reverberates across the park long before we see them, and as we walk past their acrobatics to reach the snake enclosure (Graham's personal favourite), the decibels reach a crescendo. The adult orangutans perk up as we walk by, motioning with their hands for bananas and recover one from the pond after a badly calculated throw.

We also enjoy a ten minute play with Kiki, a five year old orangutan born at the zoo. Kiki is most interested in the kids as she swings from a small platform purposely built for the encounter; at one point she grabs Lara's face to stare intently into her eyes for what seems like a long moment.

Kiki is magnificent and the experience overwhelms and delights us all. However as we spot the next group lining up for their own private encounter, I can't help but wonder if this is how Kiki would design her day, given the choice.

Most animals here look relatively happy in large and well kept enclosures but a few things bother me. The pacing of the two sunbears on show is disconcerting despite their very roomy home, some large birds of prey are caged in spaces way too small for them (is any confined space big enough for an eagle?), the adult orangutans look decidely bored sitting under a concrete platform with nowhere else to hide, and a pair of proboscis monkeys are cooped up in a cage no bigger than a very small bedroom.

I am not trying to make it sound like the place is awful (we've seen some truly awful zoos and this is not one of them), but despite the beautiful surroundings, largely happy looking creatures and workers who clearly care for their animals deeply, on reflection the experience does leave me questioning the ethics of keeping wild animals in captivity, especially primates and birds. This post-visit rumination aside, the day is an absolute highlight and we leave buoyed by time spent with such georgous creatures.

After this, the plan for Lombok is fairly light; our six month visa is almost out therefore we need to leave the country by the end of April or fork out thousands for another six month visa, an option we don't much fancy. Our Lombok itinerary is consequently short, stop to reprovision and maybe catch some surf before moving onto Bali from where we plan to fly out in order to get a new visa. It's a bummer as this small island has so much to offer, including multi-day treks up to the summit of spectacular Mount Rinjani with volcanic lakes and waterfalls ripe for exploration (which no one but me was keen on). Another time!

We spend a few days enjoying the next bay along with our friends on Wild One, where we are surprised by the cleanest beach we've seen in the whole of Indonesia, no doubt thanks to the fancy resorts which face onto it. It seems like a nice to place to chill for a while but next on the agenda on our blazing tour of Lombok is surf, so we backtrack along the south coast to reach Ekas, where some good beginner waves can be found. Rounding the south west corner of Lombok is not an experience any of us ever wish to repeat, with competing currents and headwinds churning up the sea to a very hostile and uncomfortable state.

Thankfully, it doesn't last and we make it to Ekas after a couple of night stops. Our NZ friends from Brave are already there, so kids and Graham go out with them to check out the waves as soon as we get there and Lara catches the surf bug straight away. Quite a few surf resorts are scattered around the anchorage so the single reef break available under the prevailing conditions is quite busy. Undeterred, Lara and Graham go out every day, while Jake and I paddle in the two seater kayak to watch them. We share a nice meal with Brave at a restaurant in town for one of their kid's birthdays before they leave for Bali, and we follow a couple of days after.

The sail to Bali starts off beautifully, we sail downwind along the south coast of Lombok with the spinnaker out until we hit the Lombok straight, the 35km wide body of water that devides the two islands along what is known as the Wallace line, extending north along the Makassar Strait between Borneo and Sulawesi. It's a deep water channel created when the ancient supercontinent Pangea broke up, leaving Gondwana (the grandmother of Australia et al) separated from other parts of the world. The faunal boundary was drawn by the British naturalist Alfred Wallace to mark two distinct ecozones of Asia and Australasia, with completely different animal spieces on each side of the line. Asian elephants for example end in Bali, while komodo dragons and kangaroos stick to the east. Why did the animals not cross this line given that the vegetation is largely similar on both sides? Well, the ocean was too deep and currents too fast, as we are about to find out.

In the Lombok Strait, 8kt currents rage throughout while whirlpools and waves appear from unexpected directions as far as the eye can see, daring you to make a passage plan. We battle through for hours and watch in horror as small local vessels dissappear then reappear behind waves, as if manouvered by a puppeteer. After hours of bobbing around in this manic washing machine, we finally catch the current into Serangan and breathe a sigh of relief.

Serangan is a small harbour on the outskirts of Denpasar, the capital of Bali. We've arranged for a mooring here, a safe place to leave the boat while we do some land exploration. As we approach this rumoured safe harbour, we note boats moored haphazardly with sometimes only centimetres between them hugged by a few navigation channels barely wide enough to pass. Turning around is not recommended and involves at least a three point turn, something we discover as we happily drive past our designated spot along the one way channel. Finally our contact shows up to lead us to the plastic bottle mooring wedged between another catamaran and a huge phinisi currently under construction. After we squeeze in and tie up, a wreck shows up at low tide, not two meters behind us. Luckily we're stern tied to another bottle somewhere behind us and secured as well as a boat in Indonesia can be.

Denpasar is swamped with traffic but super entertaining after many months in isolated anchorages all over Indonesia. We go hunting for burgers in Kuta and find time to catch up with our 2020 sailing friends Chris and Sayo who now live in Uluwatu in the south of Bali.

Excitement onboard Ausbos peaks when we fly out for a five day city break in Kuala Lumpur, where a 45th floor apartment awaits, with amazing food in every direction. Air-conditiong, fast WiFi, a TV and a food delivery service, is there anything else in life when you have been living on a boat making your bread from scratch for the last eight months? As this trip costs just marginally more than extending our current visa type for two additional months, it feels like a win before we even get there.

The flight is only two hours and we arrive in KL on time. The apartment is even nicer than pictured, in a brand new building with amazing views over the city skyline.

We spend four days browsing shopping centres, eating our way through food courts and sampling delicacies at the night markets. The highrises and all the modernity overwhelms at times, but when Lara mispronouces Gucci as Guki while we gawk at things we can't afford in the fanciest mall in KL, I feel like we're on the right track with our family values.

One day is designated for sightseeing and we have chosen Batu caves as the site. It's famed for the Hindu temples cleverly built into the caves but that's not the star attraction here, at least not for us.

Long-tailed macaque monkeys rule here; strategically spread out all over the long, colourful steps leading up to the caves, they wait to jump and intimidate humans who dare to look away. As we start our walk up, one jumps on a woman's shoulders from behind, grabbing the flower arrangement carefully weaved into her hair bun. Yanking it out, the monkey jumps back down with flowers in hand, jerking her head backwards at an uncomfortable angle as we all realise the strings have not fully detached from her hair. Her companion hurriedly pulls at the arrangement and after a few seconds, the monkey is free to leave with what look like daisies on a string. Everything is fair game, but water bottles and bags with long straps seem to be favoured. This despite the fact there are small piles of bananas left out as a monkey offering everywhere. Even phones are snatched as people take photos in the knowledge food will be exchanged for the phone. The temples are interesting enough but the monkeys really make the day.

A personal highlight comes when Jake mocks one by doing a monkey dance and the creature, after observing with apparent interest, suddenly retaliates by hissing in his face, making Jake jump back in record speed.

The rest of KL is really just a blur of shopping centres, restaurants, food (and wine!), eaten out or delivered to our apartment depending on the mood. Pigs in mud seems like an appropriate term for the whole experience - we leave a couple of kilos heavier. Each.

The monkey themed land break continues when we return to Bali as our Ubud hotel is located adjacent to the Monkey Forest. They hang around in the gardens, on paths and balconies, steal food from the open-air restaurant and just generally harass anyone they want. We booked here purposely after reading the reviews which all warned about the monkeys and we are not left dissappointed.

All staff carry slingshots here and guard the restaurant at every meal. On our first night, the monkeys wake us up trying to open our balcony sliding door, which we'd locked after warnings from staff.

When I return to the hotel with a couple of smoothies and some food in a plastic bag, I am escorted to our building by a member of staff carrying a slingshot. It's comical and fun but it's not for everyone.

We soon realise that the best spot for catching the antics is right where our hotel driveway joins the main drag packed with souvenir shops, restaurants and most importantly, unsuspecting tourists carrying all sorts of stealable merch.

The monkeys take turns sitting on a shop sign on this corner, waiting for the right target. One evening, as we are eating dinner at a restaurant straight across the road, one of them steals a paper-wrapped souvenir from a woman and climbs back on the sign to taunt her. He first slowly unwraps the item chucking the paper down at her. Local shop owners spring into action and throw bananas up which the monkey artfully catches without dropping the prized item. It's the perfect heist and free entertainment throughout our dinner. Later, one of them crosses the road to our restaurant to sit on the illuminated restaurant sign, no doubt with food in mind. This is as much as the table next to us can take, moving inside to finish the dinner.

So do we get up to anything else other than monkey watching while in Bali?

Not really, but does getting covid count? We think Lara got it in KL but she seemed to be a little off for a day then back to normal so we didn't even think to test her. The good news is that everyone but me gets away with a sore throat and some aches and pains while I endure the worst fever ever which thankfully only lasts for 24 hours. It's like my immune system decides to go nuclear on the virus regardless of collateral damage (my body), however I recover pretty quickly after even though a feeling of weakness stays with me for weeks.

Once we shake covid off, we sign up for a whitewater rafting adventure just north of Ubud. The canyon is absolutely stunning and we float downstream surrounded by green forest undisturbed by humans. It's been pouring rain for the last 24 hours so the river is engorged and the waterfalls rage down the cliffs as we speed past, the kids squealing in joy so much that even pouring rain cannot dampen the spirits.

We don't bother with any tourist attractions other than the Monkey Forest in Ubud of course, instead it is all about scouting for trinkets and finding new restaurants to try. Graham and I play into the Bali expat stereotype, hiring a scooter one day to ride out to the rice terraces but that's the extent of our sightseeing.

The boat is still standing when we return to Serangan, and we get out of Denpasar quickly after shopping and fuel. Time to battle the Lombok Strait again, this time going north directly against the prevailing current as we round Bali to continue our journey westward. This should be fun!