Lombok, storytime: A scooter girl is born

For those who didn't know. I'm currently in Lombok, Indonesia. It's an island next to Bali.

Let me tell you the story of the day. It was very exciting to me! I've learned how to ride a scooter. Whuupwhuuupp hehehehehe! I've never drove a scooter before and I was scared to drive one here in Asia. Probably bc I've never done this before, but also bc the locals here don't care about any rules. Their driving style is very chaotic and unpredictable. So here I am, a little scared. So today the owner of the hostel I currently stay in, motivated me to testdrive a scooter. It all went very fast and I couldn't resist to not go on the streets, after he motivated me to do so. I realised it wasn't that scary and if I'm really focused on my environment it works very well. It took me 10 minutes to testdrive the street and I returned to the hostel.

It gave me a feeling of momentum. (eventho it's just scooter driving lol)

A new friend and I decided to go to the city to buy some clothes. I want to look proberly. I want to wear more skincovering clothing while I'm near Mataram. I do respect the traditions of muslims here in Lombok. A lot of woman cover a lot of their skin. I don't wanna change completly but I want to bring a bit of respect towards them.*¹ So me the newborn scooter girl is driving towards Mataram. It's the capital city of Lombok. In Mataram I found what I was looking for at a local market. Bc we were ready to explore more, we decided to drive all the way down to Kuta. Kuta is the most popular place in Lombok. Most of the tourists get there for surfing and sunbathing. It was sooo nice to drive a scooter on my own. I've always imagined sitting on the back of a scooter, driving around Lombok. But now I'm not on the backseat, I'm the actual driver. So after over one hour of driving we arrived in Kuta and went eating some gooooooddd foooood. LOL it was my first time too of not using a "sitdown toilet". These are right common here actually.

We also went to a beach for a walk and I was collecting some shells. Long story short, we went home bc we didn't wanted to drive home when it's already dark. But guess what, not even half way back, my scooters backwheel got a flat tire. Luckily we just came out of the highway and the next scooter repair was just 150m away from us. After communicating with hands and feets and some google translate they were able to fix my scooter. This time around I got a little moody bc now we have to drive home in the dark which we really wanted to avoid and bc of all the impressions of driving around I got really tired. It probably took them 10-15 min to repair my scooters backwheel, what was really impressive to me!! The owner of the scooter repair shop told me it's my choice how much I want to pay them. I had zero clue about the prices. I ended up paying them 200'000 indonesian rupiah, which is almost CHF 11.-. In Lombok you get dinner for 6 people with this amount of money. After 40 more minutes we arrived at home. To me this was a crazy experience bc on my first day driving a scooter, I've already spent between 3-4 hours of driving + I had a little interruption while driving. At the end of the day I was a little proud of myself for learning pretty fast in this "crazy-driving-area" and eventho I was tired and scared to drive in the dark I mastered it. Thanks Lord i wasn't alone and my friend teached me some good skills and information which I needed to start off as a scooter girly.

*¹ The place where I'm at is full of locals, the hostel I live in is the only hoster in this region, which means the locals barely get used to tourists. If I'm going to a touristic place, I do dress the way I want. In my opinion it's appropriate to dress a little bit alike here.

once again sorry not sorry if there's some wrong grammar spelling. hiihi, feel hugged!

bisou bisou