Today we went to Lombok.
Lombok is about 20 minutes away by boat. We traveled to Gili T earlier this week from Lombok and it cost us a whopping 350,000 rupiah to get here (over $30 Canadian). They definitely overcharge for that short trip, but when you arrive at 9pm, during a rainstorm and have a bunch of luggage… You don’t have a lot of options!!
Today, though, we had options. The pubic ferry goes from Gili T to Lombok in about the same amount of time as a speedboat, but for a fraction of the cost (less than $3 Canadian).
Now, I realize that taking a ferry isn’t usually a complicated task… But in South East Asia, things don’t always make sense to my Western brain.
After buying tickets for the ferry, we asked when the boat left. The woman replied “no time…40 people”. The boats here don’t leave on a scheduled time… They leave when they’re full.
I asked “where do we find the boat”. She pointed to an unspecified area of the beach (where 10+ boats were floating and loading passengers).
We walked outside and saw that there were about 200 people all standing around… Not getting on any of the 10 boats waiting there…
Nobody seems to really know which boat they should take and nobody really seems to be responsible for sending people in the right direction, either.
After waiting in line for a while to get on the biggest boat we saw (public ferries need to hold a lot of people, right??), we found out it was actually going to Bali…
So, we walked down the beach and just started asking people where to go! Before long, we were on our way, but I have to admit… It was a lot more complicated than I expected!!
