Lombok and Eastern Indo October to December 2012

[colmrua]

Hi everyone,

I am heading off to Indonesia next week for 2 months. I will be there for 60 days with my girlfriend who does not surf. We are starting off in Lombok and hope to work our way east to maybe finish up in Timor/Rote. Having said that if we find a nice spot we could end up just staying there...

I have a few questions that I would be really grateful if people could answer:

1.I will not be flying with a boards. What are the options for picking up a 2nd hand board cheapish in Kuta Lombok? I was hoping to get something that would do for the couple of months and then leave it behind...

2. I know that this is not the ideal season for heading to Indo, bearing this in mind is it still worthwhile crossing over to Rote? What about Sumbawa?

3. Has anyone come across anywhere nice for a surfer and a non surfing partner? We're not mad into partying etc more just chilling out and exploring the country!

thanks in advance for the help,

C

[swiggy]

Lakeys is good in off season, as is south coast lombok around kuta. Rote not so much, it is a long way east and needs west in the swell, the wet season souths don't get into that part. I was told that it does get good waves occasionally in off season, there are a few spots that are offshore in the winds, but its an unpleasant place to be, mostly flat, very humid and stormy, all the roads get washed out etc. and real bad mosquitoes with all the nice diseases that goes along with them. Nobody goes there then for a reason, theres a couple of expat aussies living there with indonesian wives and they bail back home for the 3-4 months that its real bad.

No decent surf shops in kuta lombok when I was there, best bet would be buying from another surfer. I'd get boards in bali.

[colmrua]

Thanks a million for all the info Swiggy.

We will definitely be avoiding Rote and Timor then...

Would you know anything about Sumba? (Tarimbang etc) at this time of year?

Thanks again, by the way was over in your part of the world in 2007 for a few months working in BC, spent some time in Ucluelet and Tofino and loved the place.

[swiggy]

No worries, I can't wait to get back to indo, been thinking about it a lot recently! You'd probably be ok in rote if you were there right now, but nov-feb are definite not the time to be there. Never been to sumba, but second hand knowledge from a few people I know is that it is best just either side of dry season when winds are a bit lighter. Its probably going to be stormy, but if it gets good you will be surfing solo.. Tarimbang needs decent swell, unlike a lot of sumba which is very exposed and gets big quickly, you can find out a fair bit of info on spots from the internet.

A lot of these places have fairly limited stuff to do outside of surfing, unless your girlfriend is happy to be hanging around on beach/doing a bit of snorkelling places like lakeys could get boring after a while, I wouldn't really have wanted to spend much time there if I didn't surf. Depends what you want though.. Sumba is supposed to be really interesting culturally, although its a pretty primitive place compared to more well-travelled parts of indo, you might struggle there without speaking a bit of indonesian.