I wanted to visit Mt Rinjani and Sendang Gile waterfall on the 2nd day. I negotiated with driver with whom i visited Lombok beaches during the first day and he quoted me USD 40 for the tour. I accepted the offer with both hands. Lombok was a big island and Mt Rinjani was situated at the northern part of the island.
We started the tour around 8 am. It was around 2 hours ride in order to reach the view point near Bukit Selong. During the last half of the trip the route passed through deep forest and mountains. I stopped at multiple points along the way in order to take pictures of the mountains and forests.We reached the viewpoint around 10 am. There is also a small traditional village situated at the foot of the hill. After a short hike we reached on the top of the small hill. One side of the view is completely covered by Mt Rinjani and another side is covered by rice fields. The color combination of the rice field is brilliant and I was able to see almost all the shades of green. The first viewpoint is flat and there is another viewpoint after a short climb. This climb was little slippery because it was steep without any support. The view from the second viewpoint was better than the first viewpoint. Mt Rinjani looked beautiful on the background of the small town situated at the foot of the mountain. The rice fields were looking beautiful on the background of the mountains. Mt Rinjani is the 2nd biggest volcano in Indonesia and it is an active volcano. Lots of streets inside the small town is marked with an escape route in order to save people from volcano eruption.
The locals will always force you to take the guide to the waterfall. Please don’t take any guide you can directly walk to the waterfall. I followed a group of local people and reached Sendang Gile waterfall. It was just 30-minute walk. It was a nice walk inside the forest and most of the path is already laid out with signs. At the end of the trail you have to follow a downward path in order to reach this waterfall otherwise you can turn right and can go straight to the Tiu Kelep waterfall. The structure of the waterfall is unique because it is a two tiered waterfall and also because there are two separate waterfalls inside this big waterfall. The waterfall was not that crowded and it seemed most people were going towards Tiu Kelep waterfall. The flow of the water was very good and you could hear the sound of the waterfall from far.
After spending 1 hour at the waterfall I moved on to Tiu Kelep Waterfall. I had to come back to the initial trail and followed the path to the right. The path eventually became a muddy trail and I had to cross two streams during the trail. I was really careful while crossing the streams because the rocks underneath were very slippery. I was wearing sports shoes so I had to remove the shoes and I crossed the stream with bare foot. The water was very cold. You have to cross through narrow path between two boulders in order to reach the top view point. The place was very crowded and I saw lots of people were slipping while crossing the boulders. Tiu Kelep waterfall is suitable for people interested in swimming. The water was very cold and swimming was definitely not in my mind. It took around 30 minutes to reach the waterfall from Sendang Gile waterfall. The waterfall has a raw feeling to it. The waterfall is a combination of two waterfalls. One flow was broad containing higher volume of water and it was falling from greater heights. Another section of the waterfall contains lots of flows having low volume of water and it was coming down from lower height. After spending an hour at the waterfall I came back to the parking area.
We started around afternoon 3 pm and it took us roughly 3 hours in order to reach Senggigi from Senaru. Towards the end of our journey we stopped at a place for some snacks. It was a viewpoint situated near the Senggigi beach and you get to see great views of the beach from the viewpoint. It was a great day trip and we covered the entire section of road circling Mt Rinjani.
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