Tetebatu

At first, there's just one voice. The lone tenor travels strenuously through the midday heat and slips into our fan-cooled room. Soon it is accompanied by a second, then a third. They set each other off like dogs in a kennel. A multitude of wailing, Arabic exclamations that seem completely at odds with the lush environment.



As one more muezzin joins the call to prayer, I exit our little bungalow and take a seat on the terrace in front. It gives out on an impossibly green rice field. Yesterday we saw black monkeys in a nearby tree. Today, however, there are none.

Mr. Philip Morris

At one edge of the field sits a traditional brick factory, of the kind that went out of fashion in Europe over half a century ago. The family who owns it hasn't stopped working despite the pious singing. A young girl, maybe twelve years old, piles an impressive stack of red bricks on her head and carries them out of sight. I consider how great it would be if my brain could carry more bricks. 

There's not much to do in Tetebatu, this small village in the center of Lombok. You can hike through the surrounding paddy and tobacco fields (Grade A crops for Mr. Philip Morris) to a nearby waterfall. You can navigate a motorbike over bumpy roads towards one of the nearby villages and buy some pots. That's about it. Tetebatu is blissfully quiet, apart from the muezzins and the symphony of frogs that commences at the first hint of dusk.

Penis-shaped sword

The manager of our hotel - really a small cluster of bungalows - worked in a Dutch IT-company for many years, but decided to come home because he missed the lifestyle. One day he tells us we shouldn't look for him on his porch this evening because he will be performing a sacred ritual behind closed doors. He's a follower of Wektu Telu, a religious mix of Islam, Balinese Hinduism and the animism of the indigenous Sasak people. Our broad-minded host eats pork, only prays three times a day and will be honouring the spirit of his ancestors tonight by kneeling in front of a penis-shaped sword.

For dinner we usually go to a little restaurant called Bale Bale, owned and operated by a character straight out of a Gabriel-Garcia Marquez novel. He's a permanently lovesick quadragenarian in the  throes of his third unsuccessful marriage to a much younger girl. With his sullen eyes and slow gait he really is a pitiable character, but he also makes a mean Sasak-style chicken. After his shift is over his mood magically lifts, a horribly out of tune guitar appears and we enjoy his very tolerable rendition of the reggae classic Lombok, I love you.

Lombok, I love you

This is something we first noticed in Kuta, the surf town on the southern coast of the island (not the surf town on the southern coast of Bali with the same name): everyone in Lombok can play the guitar and they all know the words to Lombok, I love you ("Manjakarapoo Hunghablamapo oh oh").

Kuta Lombok is a lot more charming than Kuta Bali, by the way. The town itself has a number of low-key bars and guesthouses for tourists, but the beaches to the east and west are completely deserted. I myself tried surfing there for the first time and ended up in the doctor's office with a cut above my left ear. Not to be outdone, Hannelore spent too much time in the sun and assumed the colour of a ripe strawberry. Never try, never know, as my surf instructor would tell you.