Lombok Lull: the place

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Don’t you just love alliteration? Whee.
WARNING: Pictures galore.

Anyway, now that I have finished the wedding recap proper, it’s time to move on to the minimoon! It may have been just a short trip to our neighbouring island but we had a great time as newlyweds. If you are thinking of going to Lombok, Indonesia, for excitement, it’s best that you head straight to places with a pulsating rhythm, like Phuket or Bali, instead. No, Lombok is the exact opposite end of the spectrum – you go there to do nothing. People describe it as Bali before the commercialisation, I say it’s a quiet sanctuary perfect for hectic cosmopolitans like us.

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Nothing.
Doing nothing (such an oxymoron) on a holiday may sound alien to us because most of the time, we are trying desperately to fit in as many activities as possible. But it’s so easy to give in to the hypnotizing lull of Lombok such that you end up sitting by the beach and marvel at how sparkling blue it is. Everyday.

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We stayed in Qunci Pool Villas, the newer development to the popular boutique hotel, Qunci Villas. Since it was our minimoon, we decided to give ourselves a treat and get a one-bedroom villa with a private pool. Technically, all the “villas” are rooms too because they have the same floor plan, area and patio. The only difference is, the villas are individual buildings while the rooms are clustered together in two storeys. Rooms on the first floor also have a unique outdoor shower, which was both weird and wonderful. Before booking the room, we emailed the hotel staff for special rates and packages and they were fabulously prompt and polite. Highly recommended.

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When we got there via Silkair, we were seriously pooped from the wedding the night before. Had a great meal at the hotel’s Quali restaurant and went back to the villa to rest. Oh, one thing to note: there isn’t a television set in the room and while you could request for one (and a DVD player), the staff will inform you politely that there are no channels available. Poor Mr Thick looked at me with such abject horror, I almost laughed.

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You see, before we got there, he had been a little concerned about the lack of connectivity (the hotel’s computer was hooked to a 56K modem on our first night). “No wifi? No TV?” he asked incredulously as he packed his BundBook into his bag. But it was all good. We had our laptops so he watched all the television shows he had procured in the comforts of the deck chairs on our patio. Plus, Graec had graciously (hee) loaned me her set of hilarious and ingenious Thursday Next books so I was pretty preoccupied. And when you have nothing to do, you end up sleeping a lot. We were snoozing by 11pm almost every night and even took naps during the day. All the sleep debt that we had racked up were duly paid back during the trip. Yeah!

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Because the hotel had cleverly placed their happy hours from 4pm to 7pm, it gave us the excuse to sit by the pool to sip cheap cocktails and watch the sun set. And it was brilliant! Front row seats to the most spectacular show from Mother Nature. We would lie back in the chairs and watch as the sun sank slowly down into the sea, in silence and with a glass of margarita in our hands.

We really, really loved Qunci Villas during our short weeklong stay. The food was awesome (to be written about in detail in a later post), the people were friendly and polite and the peace was something we needed to slow the pace down and let ourselves breathe. The lack of activities meant that it isn’t a family-friendly place, which suited us just fine because the last thing we needed was screaming kids. Even Mr Thick, who had been skeptical at going to such a quiet place, was won over.

It is the perfect place for two people to start on their married lives together. We were cosily in love, always held hands and laughed a lot. And when you take away distracting things like the Xbox, Internet and mobile phone, you feel so much at peace. We spent lots of time with each other, be it chatting about everything or in silence, and it was just perfect.

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More photos in Mr Thick’s and my flickr sets