Comments...

comment by Anonymous, 2009-10-28 16:15:59

Kuta Lombok
Just did a trip to Kuta area, beautiful beaches & probably the best I have seen here in Indonesia.Surf was good though crowds are building with up to 30+ in main breaks; Stayed @ Surfers Inn - rooms OK Food Crap.. tried on 3 occasions to give us green mouldy bread for brekky.. eat out even tho B/Fast included. Hired a car in Mataram - give locals a miss for hiring bikes it seems! Place will be entering big changes with International Airport... much of land already sold, not that I would recommend you buy any! Years to come may improve their (some locals) attitude to us whiteys & tourists! Ashtari on top of hill best value for views & food + nice people! Roads are shit, take care with bike or car travel! Time will tell with this surfing location! Jerry in Grupuk for boating to breaks, nicest guy we met. Waves average to serious, take your booties! Wise to buy up in Bali with any special items, food etc you want to take as you wont find any Mini Marts or Supermarkets in this area!Laid back but may well see a lot of change over these next few years..

comment by Anonymous, 2009-07-12 16:01:49

replies
Heaven on the planet is nice but relatively expensive. To get to outsides, the most consistent break, you need to pay alot for a boat unless you bike in. Then you better pay security to watch it while surfing. outsides can get very heavy at 6ft. or bigger. Insides is a walk but 15 or 20 min from room depending on tide. Inconsistent but can be good. Ya changes in store for Kuta but everything takes time. Some good may come from it. Clean up the few scamming locals. Attention to environment issues like reefs and beach litter. only rent bike from reputable shop not private individual. Watch it at night. Even at cafes. You can stay at other breaks if you learn how.

comment by Olivier COLIN, 2009-06-15 08:47:47

Stay at Heaven on the Planet ??
Hello, it seems that the only accomodation in Lombok with waves close by is this one ? Can you paddle to a lot of wave or need anyway a boat ? Or even a car or bike to go to some other waves ? Is it expensive to get a boat from the camp, or possible to get a boat with villagers nearby ?
Thanks for the info

comment by Henry Lima Carvalho, 2009-06-03 06:48:24

Place to Stay "Surfers Inn"
So many warnings about motor bikes in Kuta Lombok... That's my second time there and I could see that people are avoiding renting bikes and instead bringing cars from Bali (but also some cars been damaged by the bad locals). In this time I stayed at Surfers Inn, just because while I'm in Bali I met so many people coming from Lombok and every single one was staying there. No doubt the best place in South Lombok, with cheap or luxury rooms and wonderful people working there, also a 24 hours security guards.
I took a surfing package with car + driver + petrol that cost me Rp.550.000 a day for TWO times surfing. We share that in 4 people "nothing". I recommend. Good luck guys.
Henry Carvalho

comment by Anonymous, 2009-05-09 07:38:50

I went to lombok firstly stayed at heaven on the planet for 10 days. I'd go back only for the reason that we had so much fun with the staff from the local village. apart from them & having outsides at 5-7ft i wouldnt go back due to the fact the the poeple who own it are from NZ & they dont help out the villagers like they should. The big fat chick who owns it was there for a phew days i was n she was getting the massage lady to give her like 3 hours of work n not even paying her. i would massage that fat bitch if she payed me a million rupia! eww.. also watch out for MON! we called him Mr CON. he's known for being dodgy like getting you some weed n telling the cops to get his payoff whilst you get the death sentence! or charging 300,000 for s shitty sarong when u can buy them for 40,000 in kuta. we did however get our moneys worth out of that place in food! wich i cant complain about. In Kuta lombok things are about to change in possibly a bad way. If you have been there recently you might have noticed that they are in in the process of building an INTERNATIOINAL airport. this means, big resorts and more crowded waves! alot of land is for sale, well mostly all of it as the indonesian government continues to give up its country's beauty thats left for money. so any ways, land is for sale. so there are regular people trying to sell land that they dont even own. i stayed at surfers in for 10 days & for half of them i had to explain to a dude that kept rocking up that ''I couldn't afford to buy land''! other than these minor annoyences i just cant wait to go back!!!

comment by Ben , 2008-12-20 01:27:50

mid-January to end Feb???
Curious if this is a decent time to come to Lombok.....I am an intermediate surfer....would Bali be better? What kind of waves could I expect? General weather.....?? Thanks very much. Ben

comment by Anonymous, 2008-09-11 00:27:58

kuta locals
Agree with that comment about kuta-locals. Well not everyone we met some friendly ones as well. But u got this "gang" that hires out bikes, tried to sneak us first but luckely we had this huge finnish guy with us. He looks like a not-to-mess with kind of guy. so they didnt do anything to us.
knows a guy in grupuk that runs a surfcamp as well and he told me they have showed up freathning them cause they didnt wanna use their services longer (like suply food n stuff) cause they didnt care a shit about the agreement and just showed up shitfaced and asked for more money. they do seem nice in beginning but watch out for them. one guy got a weird eye thats all i can remember how they looked like. they also showed up 2 times when we had dinner at resturants in kuta. dunno but it looked really liked they go ask the resturant stuff for some procent's every time they have guestes. one of them also sat down at our table totally over his head n just talking shit. we ignored him for like 15min then he walked back to this poor guy owning the resturant, said something took a bottle of some alcohol n went off!

we felt sorry for this resturantowner so we gave him some more money after this assholes left n i reckon everyone shall do that cause they dont get many customers a day. reckon its at least the thing do to.
seen all others comments and it must be the same guys.
watch out for "weird eye" n his gang. we most have been really lucky not getting our keys stolen or something.
cannot remember where we stayed but it was a nice fairsized hotell kind of outside the the centre. n thats where they did hangout a lot.

away from that lombok is a really chilled place, no party just surf.. enjoy!

comment by John Thomson , 2008-07-14 07:34:21

if in doubt...
Kuta Lombok is an awesome place, although the waves are more in the fun category rather than all-time. It is a little wild-west style which adds to the adventure. As stated by others, Kimen Surf shop is the place to hit straight up to suss the set up - hire your bikes from here, get a surf guide from here to cut to the chase & get in the water rather than dicking around & wasting your time. Yeah, as far as the crap going on with the bike scams, this has been in existance for a long time by a select few scum bags - everywhere has them. Oh yeah, best place to retreat is up the hill looking back on Kuta at Ashtari - awesome resturant that you can eat the best food at after a surf then have alittle snooze on the cushions - best view - best people own it - Helen & Gaz, Aussies that have been there a long time & are just gems!!Things are getting better here all the time - Tomo....wish I was there now!

comment by René l'ours , 2008-04-06 02:53:03

Arnaque avec motos à Kuta Lombok
ATTENTION
Faites très attention au gars qui louent de motos à Kuta Lombok,ils sont roublards,voleurs et aggressifs, au programme de mon dernier voyage en décembre 2007:
-moto louées sans casque (attention dans les villes ils t'arrêtent),sans freins,sans lumières et sans essence (les gars se postent devant l'hotel et ricannent en vous montrant le shop pour faire le plein, d'entrée tu te sens vraiment pris pour un con...)
- ils viennent te syphonner l'essence la nuit
-s'ils te conseillent des coins pour surfer, c'est pour mieux te suivre et te piquer ton sac pendant que tu surfent
- quand tu batailles pour avoir une moto en meilleur état, ils te la changent mais t'en refilent une sans essence même si la tienne avait le plein...
- les motos louées sont pour certaines volées et sans licences, donc embrouilles avec les flics si tu te casses loin de kuta lombok,pour ma part en partant surfer à desrt point, près de l'aéroport,ça a fini par arrachage de clefs en pleine rue par un mec qui a reconnu sa moto volée, quiproquo et bagarre (pour me défendre...et éviter un lynchage par 30 mecs qui te gueulent dessus), flics qui comprennent pas l'anglais,(ou qui veulent pas comprendre), abandon des motos en pleine rue et on s'est cassé en catastrophe à l'aéroport suivi par les sbires des loueurs qui nous suivaient depuis 200 km!!!!!(bonjour la confiance, ambiance ex URSS) Ils voulaient qu'on paye pour les motos abandonnées !!!!

Il est à noter que j'ai voyagé plusieurs fois en Indonésie (Sumatra,Java,Bali,Lembogan...) et c'est la première fois que je vois ça. En plus on était 3 dont une amie Indonésienne elle même très choquée...
Donc faites gaffes à Kuta Lombok qui est quand même une île magnifique,paysages à couper le soufle, peu touristique en dehors de Kuta lombok donc dépaysement et ambiance locale,vagues sympa mais du monde sur les spots connus,méga blindé à désert Point,convois de surfeurs depuis Bali en bateau directement sur le line up de spots isolés que tu atteint par 3 heures de motos (expèrience vécue)

comment by Anonymous, 2007-10-17 11:08:47

Wazza
I second the comment on the scooter scamming. I went backpacking through the area about 4 yrs ago with my missus. I hired a scooter outside the Tourist Info Center (Kuta Lom.) - anyway half way to Grupuk one morning dudes jumped out the bushes and had a dagger at my throat and a machete at my arm. Stole my stuff and the bike. Owner would'nt let us leave until we paid for the bike. After 4 days of negotiating we came to a settlement. They found the bike and then wouldn't give us our cash back.

People at the place we stayed at were really bummed and sympathetic - because they need the toursim. Otherwise the the village leaders who did the 'investigating' and robbed us are all thick as thieves.

Take your surfing dollars somewhere else!