Senggigi

Before arriving at our hotel our guide took us to a local restaurant and showed us the menu, recommending the food. We thought it looked alright and they agreed to pick us up from the hotel and to bring us back when we had finished our meal. The guide told us , rather worryingly we thought, that it wasn't safe for us to wander around in the dark outside of the hotel.

 We were booked into our room and had to wait some time whilst they converted two single beds into a double. The room was upstairs and as I had to carry one of our suitcases upstairs I wasn't in the mood to tip the porter. Whilst we were settling into our room we began to notice that things were not quite right. There was grass on the floor, the bathroom light cover was full of dead insects, and you could see on the bathroom walls where previous guests had killed insects. As we sat on the bed watching the news a wasp appeared, apparently out of one of the pillows, this was killed unceremoniously. Both of us also caught our foot on a nail that was protruding from the floor. The final straw was finding two more wasps and the remains of one on the wall, killed by a previous occupant. 

On our way to dinner we decided to complain and the result was that we were offered a different room and that we could change rooms when we returned from eating. We had a pleasant meal although the gloss was taken off it a bit by the thought that on our return we would have to move. However, that is exactly what we did. Imagine our surprise on our return to find all our complaints had been dealt with, the light cover had been cleaned , as had the bathroom walls, the remains of the dead wasp had been removed and the offending nail had been hammered back into the floor. However, as I am allergic to wasp and bee stings we still moved rooms, and from the new room, on the ground floor we could see the ocean.

There is nothing quite like going to sleep,whilst being caressed by the sound of the rolling waves.

By the way the guide had been quite right about the area outside the hotel, which is very dark and a good half mile from the main road, we were very grateful for the transport provided by the restaurant.

Our first night in Lombok had been fairly eventful.