Met our boys at Denpasar only to find their prebooked tickets to Lombok were somehow not valid (Word to the wise: Garuda has no agreement with Merpati Airlines) so we had to ante up and buy new ones. However they were much cheaper than the travel agent later refunded back in NZ.  As if to let us know we were heading back in time, we heard a rooster crowing from the twin-prop's hold on the 20-minute flight to Lombok. We met H's bro Rob and his little China girl Cathy at Mataram airfield (they had winged in direct from Hong Kong), which, to be fair, HAS a sealed runway, but you still have to walk 100m from the plane to the arrival lounge. As it was raining, brolly's were provided at the foot of the plane's steps.  While the baggage arrived the rooster got loose in the arrival lounge but was soon rounded up. Found a not too exey hotel in Sengiggi on dusk. Woke to the startling sight of a squillion dhow-sailed outrigger canoes spread across a cobalt sea. Moved on to the tiny island of Gili Trawangan where we holed-up at a dive facility. Diving or snorkelling is the island's main focus, although there was actually a rideable surf the day we arrived. Of course it then went flat for the remainder of our stay. No cars or bikes on the island, just horse-drawn carts. The jingling of harness bells makes you thing Santa has arrived! Very peaceful, although pounding techno music is permissible at night. The snorkelling was great and fish and even turtles abounded, but the coral was grey and broken c/o bombing, a heavy storm a few months back, and bleaching during the last El Nino. There's a new awareness of the side on which the fiscal bread is buttered however. A local cheerily told us that if they hear of anyone fish bombing, they simply burn their boat. After 4 days we headed to Kuta on the opposite side of the island. It's a world away from Bali's Kuta. Muddy buffalos still graze amongst the coconut palms and many locals live in for-real grass huts with dirt floors. Occasional scraps among wandering packs of dogs, the thock of wooden buffalo bells and the crackle of the occasional motorbike exhaust punctuate the background boom of surf on the reef fringing a huge bay. At the other end of the spectrum, and the bay, is a USD 100-300 per night hotel, beautifully designed and appointed, where one can almost forget the desperate poverty in the wider neighbourhood if it wasn't for the kids stalking the water's edge, some with cleft palates so severe you can't believe they're still alive, hawking pineapples, coconuts and sarongs. We did spend a day here, but slunk back to our USD 20 hotel after dinner. We surfed at "Inside Gerapuk", the local bunny slopes that at times sported more Japs than Pearl Harbour, but by rising at dawn we usually beat the crowd. Gerupuk is a fishing village a couple of bays east of Kuta, and the local lads will ferry you to the break for 20K Rp per head. The reef is surrounded by hills but has a narrow window to the open sea. It consists of a hard coral base frosted with sand and garnished with a layer of sea grass - good enough to eat! The wave is delightfully friendly and perfectly suited to one who hasn't surfed for months and is gun-shy at the best of times. It peels nicely and was often very glassy. On several occasions we saw what looked to be turtles popping their heads out of the water, but were actually metre-long sea snakes. We guys did take a trip west to Mawi one day, another fishing village set in the hook of another breath-takingly beautiful bay. While we sat on the beach waiting for a boat to be readied locals sat on the sand around us and gawked like we'd just beamed in from Mars. Again we piled into a basic dugout outrigger canoe and motored out to sea and around the headland. The swell had picked up a bit and the boat took alarming gulps of water over the bow as it dipped in the troughs. We re-trimmed and headed onward. All of a sudden the skipper switched off the motor and indicated that we could paddle from there as he wasn't going in any closer. Our nerves were already keyed-up and the break looked at least half a km away and seemed to be sectioning rapidly. Suddenly Rob pulled the pin and told the skipper to head back. Even our new friend Rasta, a dread-locked Aussie who had surfed there many times, thought conditions were sketchy, though he also reckoned it'd be "going off". Still, one man's "going off" is another man's "over the falls followed by forward rolls across the reef". Sam later confided to Heather that "the old men had lost their balls". Rob and I happily admitted we were over the ideal of Indo reef barrels and that Inside Gerapuk was the place for us. So we left Lombok with sunburn, surf-weary joints, good memories and assorted craft items in the form of the carved masks and pottery that the island is famous for. Our flight from Denpasar had been delayed 2 hours and rerouted via Suru-buggery-baya which meant that we got in to Brunei at 2am. The icing on the cake was having to push-start the car.