Lombok | Indonesia

We've been in school for a month and it's already time for a holiday! My friends and I are jointly  celebrating Indonesian Independence Day and the end of Ramadaan by island hopping around Lombok. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Indonesian geography, Lombok is the second island to the east of Java (where I live), right next to Bali.

Our flight took off, on time, Wednesday which is a rare occurance here! We got to Lombok where we were able to stuff ourselves into a car to go to a city called Mataram, where we're staying. We all split up here because two of my more adventurous friends decided to hike a volcano for a couple days; I decided the beach would be a bit more relaxing.

On Thursday, we drove down the coast to a harbor town that chartered boats to a cluster of gili (small) islands called Gili Bedis, Gili Sudak, Gili Tangkong, and Gili Nanggu. 

I don't know if Gili Bedis (below) even classifies as an island (it looks more like a sandbar) but google labeled it that way so that's what we'll go with. We went snorkeling around the islands and I discovered that I am downright terrified of fish.

In fact, on one of the coral reefs, I almost drowned myself by accident. Upon seeing some fish coming out of the coral that I was floating a mere foot above, I flinched, which caused my snorkel to fill up with water which meant I couldn't take a breath. I also didn't want to take my eyes off the fish so I couldn't take my head out of the water and with all of my thrashing, my mask also filled up with water. Definitely one of my finer moments.