early monday morning, we woke up and checked out of our hotel. we got down to the harbor with plenty of time to board the first leg of our ferry-boat trip. it felt adventurous and exciting to board the big ferry!
we found some good seats near the windows. 
part of the ferry had seats, which was where we sat, but a large part of the ferry was just open space too. families would pull out their mats and spread out on the ground. 
it also made for a good sleeping spot.
people putting some extra cargo on the ferry. i'm not sure why they chose to load it this way.
we had to wait awhile for the ferry to start, which gave us a good opportunity to talk.
the view from the windows were great.
looking down into the water.
there was a little concession stand that had, of course, pop mie!
roro was very good at reading his book. none of the rest of us could or would do that.
more cargo coming aboard.
a couple fun pics of grannie and the kiddos.
i like these candid views into other people's boats.
one of the hard things about being on the ferries was watching people throw trash out the window. we saw that happen a lot.
that man behind me looks so comfortable.
unsurprisingly, there was a cincin market on the ferry. of course we had to check that out.
to w's chagrin, he didn't get one.
wah. look at that. ocean as far as you can see.
cathy ended up renting a floor mat and was kind enough to share it with the kids. they took turns lying on it. 
there was a tv in front of our seats. thankfully, it wasn't kick boxing the entire time.
an island!
i enjoyed looking out the windows during the ride. it was a lot cooler and breezier by the windows, which felt good. while looking out and down, i'd imagine what it would be like to jump out into the water. it was a loop in my head that i couldn't turn off. it didn't scare me--it just fascinated me. like looking into the yellowstone river at yellowstone. 
this little girl had her head out the window every time i went over to stick my head out the window.
the cargo hold.
this big wild boar was for a party on sumbawa. 
this man cared for the pig that would soon die. it was interesting to see a pig that would be eaten since in solo you would almost certainly never see that. pork is not cocok for muslims. the whole time we were in solo, we only had pork once.
lots of pisang.
b exploring the inner workings of the ferry.
it looks like some of this cargo is about to fall out this opening.
wah. a crate marked for the "bugis." if you don't know about the bugis, you should watch the "ring of fire" documentary. we have started re-watching it, and it's good.
this one is headed for sape, sumbawa (which is where we were headed too).
i'd love to try the edible flowers.
with or without a mat, it's easy to sleep on the floor.
a spewing volcano.
that's a great view.
there's the same girl again.
here we are arriving in sape, sumbawa. things are about to get a whole lot less peaceful.
thankfully, shortly before docking in sape, we learned that an indonesian man wearing a "believe me, lombok is fun" t-shirt would guide us to the next leg of our trip--a little bus. there were some other foreign travelers and indonesians making this connection too. so we all stayed very close to our "believe me, lombok is fun" friend.
honestly, i'm not really sure why indonesian ferries have "we love indonesia" in english. it certainly can't be because most of the people who ride them are tourists. 
some nice sape harbor shots.
note the mohon maaf lahir dan batin sign above the stairs. we were still in the middle of ramadan. 
w excited to the next leg...
which was crazy. 
we carried all of our luggage and tried to move quickly to stay up with our group. but it was chaotic, loud, and confusing.
we made it to our mini bus though, which was a relief. but it was crowded. when we got there, we saw that all of the luggage needed to go on the roof. so we got it up there, only to realize that they also thought we should all ride on the roof! b knew that his parents and our kids should not do that--so we got them set up inside the bus. but he could also see from my face that i wasn't going on top and that i didn't want him going on top either. so we all crammed (literally crammed) inside the little bus.
the inside was full of indonesian passengers. all of the other foreign passengers besides us rode on top.
to fully appreciate this mini bus trip--you need to understand the seating/standing arrangement. w and roro got put into the front seat, which was used like a long bench seat. from left to right it was a man holding his child in his lap, another man (he actually wasn't indonesian--so there was another foreigner inside the bus with us), william (sitting actually in a space between seats with the gears right next to him), the driver, and then roland. as you can see above, roland's spot wasn't really a spot (none of our spots were). roro was wedged between the driver and door. he quickly learned that by putting his arm around the back of the driver, getting half of his bum on/outside the window, and putting his legs up, he could sort-of fit in the tight spot.
but, oh poor roland. how uncomfortable he was. although in this shot he is drinking water--so he could move a little bit.
the water reminds me of another problem we had on this leg of the journey. there was no time to stop and go to the bathroom between the ferry and boarding the mini bus. so i hoped and prayed that none of us would have to go before we got to the bus station in bima. thankfully, no one did have to go. just one of the tender mercies of our trip!
so the rest of us were situated as follows. s had a spot to sit right behind the driver seat area. she had to be careful not to bump into william (since fighting would ensue if she did), and she had sit right next to the two indonesian men sitting at either side of her. the one man, sitting to her left was smoking for the first (at least) 20 minutes of the ride, blowing smoke in her face. 
smoking is a different beast in indonesia. 
after awhile, though, s decided to stand up. that worked well for awhile, then she'd sit back down, then stand up, then sit down. ultimately, she figured out a way to lie down on top of our backpacks at the feet of two indonesian men. 
a view from the open door next to b. 
as for me, b, and cathy, we were standing up behind s. the mini bus ride was only about 1.5 hours--so it wasn't too bad for the three of us. definitely roland had it the worst, then s, then w, and then the three of us. as rough as the mini bus ride was, it was the most adventurous and interesting part of our journey to bali!
our mini bus stopped a couple times to get cargo loaded on to it.
we were also able to look out the windows to see sumbawa, which was cool.
cute little decor hanging at the front window--watermelon and pigs.
the horse part of a horse-drawn carriage.
we saw that there are motorcycles on sumbawa too.
some shots of the countryside.
so this is me taking pictures now. the bus ride was bumpy, and i could only take pictures with one hand (because the other was being used to hold on to the pole above our heads). 
this man checked our tickets. but that's not the interesting thing about him. the cool thing about him was he somehow managed to get from the roof of the bus into the open door next to brian while the bus was moving! that roof was pretty high up, and our bus was constantly going around corners and moving quickly. we nicknamed him spiderman.
once he checked people's tickets, he just hung out by the open door for quite awhile. but, just as suddenly as he had appeared, he disappeared. presumably to the roof again. although i can't imagine how he made it up there.
you can catch little bits of the countryside. it was very green and, strangely, seemed to have some broad leaf-type trees, which surprised me.
a good view of roro with his leg perched up on the dashboard.
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