portraits from Lotim

Lotim is a contraction of Lombok Timor which means East Lombok. It is the site of my frequent forays in Lombok for it is here that seaweed abounds. Production is healthy in this part of Indonesia thanks to a reef protected from strong winds and a steady ocean current action that facilitates nutrient circulation.


girl with a comb, Kaliantan



giggling girls in Kaliantan



man with bushels of seaweed, Kaliantan


Seaweed does have its season in Lombok. Heavy monsoon rains in December to March disrupts production in that drying of the wet harvests is interrupted frequently so farmers tend to lie low during this period. By May and onwards though, farmers get busy expanding production so by middle of the year, cultivation would already be in full swing.


woman sorting seaweed, Kaliantan



woman cleaning the seaweed harvest, Kaliantan


It is June now so perhaps I should pay Lombok a visit once more. Could be a good time to do more portraits too.


smiling at Serewe



woman spreading seaweed on the sand for drying, Serewe

the Selong that I knew and not

The trimmed flower shrub-lined highways, the tall glass-walled commercial buildings, the modern street and direction signs, even the uniformed policemen patrol cars surprised me. This was not the Selong I knew thirteen years ago.


drying rice (?) by the road at Selong, Lombok, Indonesia


Being the capital of Lotim (short for Lombok Timor or East Lombok), the city Selong has always been the epicenter of business in this southeast corner of Lombok. However, way back in 1993-1995, the period of my life that I was its constant visitor – I typically stayed there for a week 4 times a year – Selong was as backwater a town bereft of tourism can be. It was contagiously slow, defiantly unharried and relatively uncrowded.


women going to the market in a cidomo (horse carriage)


Except for the regular Monday cattle market, nothing much disturbed the pace in Selong in the early 90s. Not the constant and inescapable calls for loudspeaker-blared calls-for-prayers by the mosques that are everywhere, not the transiting traffic of inter-island buses (Selong is at the crossroads to many destinations in and out of Lombok, including Sumbawa in the East), nor the daily bustle of horse-drawn cidomo ferrying people from place to place.


a colorfully-painted public bus


I remember vividly jogging almost every day break on the asphalt roads, passing by the small scattering of warung stalls openly peddling freshly cooked food. Now, more than a decade later, there are already numerous eateries and restaurants dotting the streets that are now in paved cement. When before these same thoroughfares were only notable for the wide, relatively clean Dutch-made canals at the side – granted that they often were used as open-air toilets by the people but they were highly effective in controlling flashfloods and sported surprisingly clear running waters – today, billboards and posts with advertisement signage are everywhere.


menfolks going to the mosque


At its core though, I sense the same religious fervency. Islam was and still is the center of life in Selong. Mosques are still full especially during Friday. From seniors to adults to school-age kids, people still sling their sajada prayer rugs on their shoulders and march cheerfully to their masjid of worship. I witnessed a funeral march and like before, it still is conducted by men, with the women segregating themselves and waiting at the mosques. More and more mosques have sprouted, with few more in various state of construction, as evidenced by scaffolded minarets and the omnipresent men flagging motorists for donations.


minaret under construction


men leaving the mosque after the Friday prayers


Ah, conservatism runs deep in Selong. This, time probably will not be able to alter.


a funeral march performed by men

beautifully desolate is a place called Sekotong

Lombok is blessed. Only 25 minutes away by plane from Bali, it has a coastline that rival the best of Bali but minus the crowds and for now, the egregious development. Among the innumerable beaches and lagoons that I’ve been lucky to visit is a still undiscovered place with a sing-song name, Sekotong in the bay of Siung in Lombok Barat.


an endearing mother and child pair in Sekotong, Lombok
Canon PowerShot S40, 1/125s, f/4, 7.1mm


Getting there was tedious to say the least. While my friends said that it is only about 50 km southwest from the airport, it probably is further than that for getting there took us more than 2 hours. The road was winding and narrow. Access by boat is also possible and it is a little more than 30 minutes by speedboat from Lembar harbor or from Senggigi.


the puffed sail of our small boat while we went around the gili islands in Sekotong, Lombok Barat, Indonesia
Canon PowerShot S40, 1/320s, f/5, 7.1mm


Aside from the prerequisite requirement of white sand, Sekotong is a springboard of a number of small islets (like Gili Asahan, Gili Gede and Gili Poh). Further west in Tanjung Bangko-Bangko is worldclass surfing as well. Then, there are panoramic views of Mt Agung to the East and Mt Rinjani in the Northwest.

Nothing much is happening there for now. While there is a friendly local market and an accessible fish port, the Pelabuhan Poh (Port of Poh), the place was truly desolate place and empty.


a woman curing the freshly harvested tongkol fish with salt, before boiling. The resulting delicacy is called pindang and is popular in Indonesia; in Pelabuhan Poh, Sekotong, Lombok Barat, Indonesia
Canon PowerShot S40, 1/60s, f/4, 8.6mm


In most of Eastern Lombok – take the capital Mataram for instance – Balinese comprise at least 50% of the population. More so here in Sekotong, where the Balinese are an almost overwhelming majority. Nothing makes you feel that Lombok is Bali 50 years ago more than that.

having fun with flower macros

I have an avowed lackadaisical disinterest with flower macros. I’ve seen simply too many sensational flower macros in flickr that I don’t think I can add more to this colorful form of entertainment. On occasions though, when I am idle and when other photographic subjects are not available, I give in.


a kamboja (frangipani) macro in Sukawati, Gianyar, Bali, Indonesia
Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/200s, f/2.8, 100mm, ISO 400, -1.0EV


As I would find out, macros, even when using the dedicated 100mm f2.8 macro lens, presented special challenges.

Composition. To remove extraneous elements which are distracting, I filled the frame entirely with the flower. Natural colors cannot be beat anyway and the hues of the flowers could be without comparison. I focused on an interesting point, say the pistil of a bougainvillea, the inner heart of the frangipani, or the petal edges of the gerbera, and had them swim in one singular color. I also flushed the focal points off-center to ensure more dynamic interest as a full central symmetry could be too static.


a bougainvillea macro in Selong, Lombok Timur, Indonesia
Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/80s, f/2.8, 100mm, ISO 100, -1/3EV


Exposure . In this age of digital photography, the exposure of a photograph can be calibrated countlessly and in real time. I chimped a lot, which meant that I checked the output in the LCD of my camera immediately after taking the shots and did the adjustments thereafter. What I found out was that sometimes I had to underexpose the shot by several stops to get the right amount of light.

As in most of photography, daylight is your best friend. I could not shoot with a flash anyway as I often leave my Speedlite 380x behind when I travel. There is one indoor macro here though – the mum macro in Jakarta – and I had to jack up ISO to 1600. I was not about to setup my tripod inside the restaurant where I was having breakfast.


gerbera macro in Jakarta, Jawa Barat, Indonesia
Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/60s, f/2.8, 100mm, ISO 1600


Manual focus. The macro lens has a pinpoint plane of focus and beyond this plane, the foreground and the background come to a blur. Autofocus then becomes a problem as the lens had trouble delineating sufficient contrast. I had to go full manual. To select accurately the focal point that I wanted, I had to move towards or away from the subject. This to me is the greatest challenge.


adenium macro in Pantai Mengiat, Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia
Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/500s, f/2.8, 100mm, ISO 100


Although I still don’t find flower macros a photographic pursuit of my choosing, I have to confess that the pictures come out appealing, especially with the collage of the four macros. A final homage to the visual power of flowers I say. T’was definitely fun, if I may complete the verbal pun.


a collage of the macros presented below using picasa3

the many faces of Rinjani, part 1

Life should not be spent looking back at the what-ifs and what-might-have-beens. I admit though that there are occasions when I cannot help but reminisce at all the places I’ve visited through the looking glass of photography and I could only let out a sigh. I could not kick my shin any harder than when thinking of the time that I lived in Lombok.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 2.50s, f/20, 18mm, ISO 100, +1/3EV
From Gili Trawangan in the west, the Rinjani volcano doesn’t stand out in a solitary grandeur as it is flanked by a compound mountain range.


In short periods between 1993 to 1995, I was a constant albeit transient resident of this island east of Bali. For more than a week at a time I lived in Selong, a real nothing-is-happening town in Lombok Timor (East Lombok). There was practically little to do there except work, eat and sleep. On weekends, we sometimes went to the island’s nothing-much-too-is-happening capital of Mataram, or perhaps strayed to its then only leisure destination, Senggigi. If I were lucky, I could orbit back to the much livelier Bali, or even Surabaya and often, I planned my darn best to find some important chore to do so. But really, most of my time would in the stupor-inducing Selong, or another silent town called Tanjung Luar and the desolate but gorgeous beaches of Serewe, Sumerang or Kaliantan.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 2.50s, f/5.6, 54mm, ISO 100
Its western face is also interrupted by the caldera of Segara Anak.


Imagine what I would have done had I taken up photography. Oops, digital photography was still in its incipient stage in the early 90s so the only choice would have been film. Thinking about it, I can assure myself now that no, film photography was not a viable hobby for I definitely could not afford an SLR camera (I only had an instamatic), suffer the development costs of film, nor wait for the long lag between clicking the shutter and seeing the prints. My impatience is not tailor-fit for the delayed gratification of film photography.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 8.00s, f/16, 55mm, ISO 100, +1EV
Rinjani takes a more pronounced conical silhouette when viewed from the east.


Still, what if I had the chance to engage in photography? What if I had the luxury of wielding a manual camera as I do now? Then number one in my list of what I would have been shooting in Lombok is Gunung Rinjani.

Rising 3,726 metres from sea level, Rinjani is the tallest peak in Indonesia save for Gunung Kerinci in Sumatra. Rinjani looms large and Lombok lives under its shadow and on occasion, its fury for the volcano is quite active.

aside from
Canon EOS 350D Digital, 4.00s, f/18, 55mm, ISO 100, +1/3EV
Rinjani rises more dramatic especially from the flatter hills of Sumbawa.


The mountain-climbing bug has never bitten me but definitely, had I have the disposal of a good camera, I would have explored its foothills, checked out the Sasak villages in the lowlands and perhaps dared further upwards as far as the car could take.

So today, I find myself playing catch-up. In recent months, I was fortunate to have gone back to Lombok and further east, to the island of Sumbawa. Let me share then my photographic takes of this sublime peak. Being tardy has some rewards.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 10.00s, f/10, 18mm, ISO 100
During sunrise at Gili Trawangan in the northwest of Lombok, the beauty of Rinjani can be ethereal.

a cacing legend in Kaliantan

the heavenly beaches of East Lombok- part 5

continued from part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4

Kaliantan, aside from boasting of one of Lombok’s best beaches also is one of the hosts of the island’s more popular festival, the Bau Nyale.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/1600s, f/5.6, 270mm, ISO 100, -1/3EV


The festival recalls the legend of the princess Putri Mandalika. Beautiful and beloved by all, she had many suitors from different kingdoms. However, when it came to choosing a husband, she could not decide among her suitors. Her vacillation resulted to turmoil and strife among rivals. Her father King Kuripan ultimately gave her a deadline to choose a husband before sunrise. The next morning, Putri Mandalika, fearing a war, professed that she loved her parents and the people even more and in an act of self-sacrifice for the greater good, threw herself into the sea. It makes me think of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid, doesn’t it?


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/4000s, f/4.5, 105mm, ISO 100, -1/3EV


But there is a local twist. When everyone tried to scour the seas for the princess, they only discovered a mass of sea worms, called nyale in the Sasak language. Thus these worms became a traditional symbol of the Sasak people. (In Bahasa Indonesia, nyale is called cacing but or course!)

Yearly, the people of Lombok celebrate Bau Nyale which literally means “to catch the worms”. It takes place every tenth month of the Sasak calendar which often falls around February or March. This season is chosen as during this time, thousands of sea worms would spawn in the beaches.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/1000s, f/6.3, 120mm, ISO 100


Celebrated with much fanfare, the festival is best appreciated at nighttime when fires are built on the beach, pameran stalls are set up and traditional Sasak dancing, singing and drama are held. The climax is catching the sea worms at dawn.

Another ritual is for the local priest or dukun to read the future rice harvest based on the number of sea worms, just as if they were a crystal ball, or tea leaves. Some sea worms would then be ground and scattered over irrigation channels in the rice fields to ensure a bountiful harvest.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/1250s, f/8.0, 4.6mm, ISO 100, -1/3EV


Nyale are eaten raw or they can be steamed or fried. A local specialty is pepes nyale which are banana-wrapped rolls of ground worms with coconut and spices.

It is believed that the sea worms are a symbol of fertility. No wonder that young people also take to flirting with each other all throughout festival time, which is unusual in a conservative Muslim island like Lombok.

So cacing seaworms as aphrodisiac anyone? If not, there is always the fabulous beach.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/2000s, f/5.0, 220mm, ISO 100, -1/3EV

Seaweed time in Indonesia

For people in Northern Hemisphere, there are four definitive seasons- winter, fall, summer and spring. Not from where I live in tropical Asia. We only have the wet and the dry season, yet at all times, temperatures would still be moderately warm by most standards.

Summertime in perennially sunny Southeast Asia is defined as that period of no rains, that intermission between stormy monsoons. This time is important in agriculture, or more particularly in seaweed farming.

Seaweed mariculture is agriculture but not on land but at sea. Growth-out period is around a month and a half, afterwhich the harvest is dried openly under the sun to be dried to commercial moisture levels. Drying time takes 2-4 days, depending on weather. Obviously, the stretch of dry season termed “summer” in Asia is favorable for harvesting. Cultivations cycles are planned to peak during this time to take advantage of the heat that allows faster turnover.

This series of pictures are taken in regions that are two of the seaweed hotspots in Indonesia: Bali and Lombok


Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia

Ironically and fortunately, the farms of Nusa Dua also happen to be located in beaches that are beautifully pristine and heavily favored by tourists. Hotels practically are facing these farms. Tourism and seaweed farming seem to cohabitate together. For now.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/1000s, f/5.6, 205mm, ISO 400, -1/3EV
at Sawangan, Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia



Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/400s, f/5.6, 300mm, ISO 100
at Geger, Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia



Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/500s, f/5.6, 300mm, ISO 800,
at Sawangan, Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia


Serewe Bay, Lombok, Indonesia

It would be difficult to outdo Serewe Bay in East Lombok when it comes to spectacular sandy beaches, what with numerous outcropping islands and steep cliffs spread over the bay. Roads are still rough though and visitors, if any, are sparse. While still a whispered secret among beachcombers in the know, these beaches are only a heartbeat away from commercial development.



Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/2500s, f/5.6, 190mm, ISO 100, -1/3EV
at Sumerang, East Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia



Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/1600s, f/5.0, 190mm, ISO 100, -1/3EV
at Serewe, East Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia

Take me to Kaliantan

the heavenly beaches of East Lombok- part 4

continued from part 1, part 2 and part 3 and more in part 5


My list of fabulous beaches in Lombok Timor just keeps on getting longer. My newest addition is Kaliantan. Last month, I visited this sleepy village and I am awed by the vistas it offers, which to me are as impressive as its neighbor Sumerang.

While the much more crowded villages of Sumerang and Serewe (or Seriwe) are not identified in commercial maps, Kaliantan is often identified.

It is difficult to explain this anomaly. Perhaps Kaliantan was originally more populous. It appears to be less peopled now as seaweed cultivation has attracted more and more farmers to Sumerang and Serewe which are more sheltered from the wind.

Kaliantan could be the older village and is most probably the cultural center of the bay. After all, it is one of the few places which hold the annual Bau Nyale Festival which celebrates a local Sasak legend involving sea worms.

more on this festival soon




Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/250s, f/14, 55mm, ISO 100, -1/3EV
the beach at Kaliantan, East Lombok, Indonesia




Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/500s, f/20, 205mm, ISO 100, -1/3EV
a view from Kaliantan beach, East Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia




Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/500s, f/20, 170mm, ISO 100, -1/3EV
a cliff by Kaliantan beach, East Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia




Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/640s, f/5.6, 55mm, ISO 100, -1/3EV
villagers herding sheep by the road at Kaliantan, East Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia




Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/2000s, f/4.5, 90mm, ISO 100, -1/3EV
a village shed by the road at Kaliantan, East Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia

Cidomo- Lombok’s horse-drawn cart

The horse is a beast of burden utilized for human and cargo transport for centuries. Different societies have various horse-driven carts but ever since the invention of the car, they have become obsolescent. While images of royal carriages, Western stagecoaches or old frontier wagons are still indelibly etched in the modern mind, they are paraded only in ceremonial affairs, touted as leisurely promenades for tourists or displayed as relics in museums.

In the Philippines, the horse carts, invariably called as the calesa, tartanilla or caratela, have also become rare, having been relegated in the most far-flung nooks in the countryside. The same is true in Indonesia. Bali’s version, the dokar is mostly for curious foreigners nowadays and Java’s andong or the delman are being pushed more and more into rural areas.

In the island of Lombok, there is one particularly unique variation, the cidomo, which remains highly popular. It is all over the towns, even in the islets as a means of public transportation.

Cidomo is a contraction from three words:

CI, for cikar, a traditional handcart
DO, for dokar, a pony cart
MO, for mobil, or sometimes montor, the car

The unique thing with the cidomo is that the cart uses car wheels instead of the regular wooden spoked wheels. Obviously, the preference was born of practicality as probably, automobile wheels, albeit expensive than wooden wheels, are longer lasting and easier to procure. Whatever the reasons are, the cidomo remains popular in Lombok, especially in routes which the public utility bemoh (vans) or bis (buses) do not ply.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/800s, f/4.0, 27mm, ISO 100, +1/3EV
Keruak, Lombok Timor, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia


The cidomo design is basic. Seats are arranged sideways. While they are often padded, they are not the most ergonomic in comfort. To put more load on the wheels, the cart is made to actually tilt slightly at the rear so the cart jiggles. Most first-timers get unnerved when getting on and off. A see-saw balance is not one thing we practice a lot in everyday life.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/100s, f/3.5, 22mm, ISO 100
Gili Trawangan, Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia


Modernization, howevery, is creeping up. Already, in Mataram, Lombok’s capital city, the cidomo’s routes have been curtailed from the main hi-ways as they slow down vehicular traffic and pose as safety hazards.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/80s, f/4.0, 22mm, ISO 100, +1.0EV
a “parked” cidomo at Gili Trawangan, Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia


Meantime, cidomo continues to be a charming way to get around. Think of bells chiming with the gallops, bright painted patterns competing with yarn bonbons and tassels, and well, some malodorous poop dropping here and there. This is what local color (or smell) should be- raw, earthy and memorable.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/80s, f/5.6, 55mm, ISO 100
Gili Trawangan, Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia

Countdown to a sunset- Gili Trawangan, part 2

continued from Gili Trawangan escapade, part 1

For one afternoon and a night in August, I willingly got “stranded” in Gili Trawangan. I was coming off from work and the Gilis are only an hour from Mataram, the capital of Lombok. It was past 3PM when we got there, which left me just enough to see what the island has to offer.

Gili Trawangan has a sophisticated feel. August is high season so visitors mostly were white although there was a sizeable presence of domestic tourists. As expected of a really small island, the place is already peppered with hotels, villas, restaurants, bars, and diveshops and yet, it still is spilling with empty sand and undeveloped beachfronts that I bet more commercialization is yet to come.

After finishing our thirty minute tour, on a horse-drawn carriage called cidomo, we settled for refreshments in the bar in front of Villa Ombak, our hotel. The island is hot as it barely has vegetation over its predominantly sandy terrain so we wallowed in the comfort of our ice cream and sweets.

The sun was coming down slowly. At 5:30PM, the cidomo (horse-drawn carriage) we hired earlier came back to take us to the nearby Sunset Bar to, what else, view the sunset.

The Sunset Bar lies at the southwestern tip of the island, facing Lombok Straight and the island of Bali. The bar sprawls widely over an empty sand beach, just below a small hill. The architecture is modern Asia, unobstrusive in its all wood structure, and boasts a sunken watering hole station open only in the late afternoon. It also offers a wide promontory deck with benches that anyone can freely partake regardless of your intention to buy a drink or not.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/200s, f/5.0, 18mm, ISO 100
5:45PM, waiting for sunset at the Sunset Bar balcony, Gili Trawangan, Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia


Sunset that day was 6:15 so we had ample time to observe the world. Slowly, people arrived, some on foot, others on cidomos. Others were on bicycles or on horseback.

I’ve done countless sunset photographs over the years and I thought it would be fun getting something different. Enviously, I looked at the hill over the bar but it was a private hotel and surely I could not gain access. A silhouette of the cosmopolitan bar could work but it sat too near the hill to shoot it from any appreciable distance. Ditto with the cidomos parked nearby. There was a large rock beside the bar but it got too much human traffic.

By 6PM, it became obvious that it would just be the sun and the horizon. As the clock clicked, I took several sunset photographs on the fly, with whatever came to my fancy. Here is then my own photographic countdown of the sunset at Trawangan.


6:12PM, 3 minutes before sunset

This is a pretty standard shot. I used the tidal flats to create the horizontal lines. That said, the blush of yellow crowning the fully circle of the sun is marvelous even to my sunset-cynical eyes.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/80s, f/5.6, 255mm, ISO 100, +2/3EV
6:12PM, the sun setting down over Lombok Straight, at Gili Trawangan, Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia


6:13PM, 2 minutes before sunset

I decided to move and saw that my friends have settled on the sand. The scene looked romantic and they did not even notice that I took a photo.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/80s, f/5.6, 170mm, ISO 100, -1/3EV
6:13PM, viewing the sunset at Gili Trawangan, Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia


6:14PM, a minute before sunset

The sun was sinking quick. Suddenly a girl in hijab came out from nowhere and walked across the beach. There was little time to move forward so I could not get a tighter shot. The photo below is a crop to compensate for this.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/160s, f/5.0, 210mm, ISO 100, -1/3EV
6:14PM, sundown at Gili Trawangan, Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia


6:15PM, sunset

Just when the sun appeared to touch the horizon, I decided to get closer to the beach. The exact moment of sundown is always magical. Enough said.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/125s, f/5.6, 300mm, ISO 100, -1/3EV
6:15PM, the moment of sundown at Gili Trawangan, Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat, Indonesia