The day of the big climb. I was feeling pretty good, wounds look all dried up except the palm, but hopefully that won't cause a problem. Infection doesn't look present but what the hell, I'm going up anyways.

Opened my door to a stunning view of Mt. Rinjani majestically standing as the sun slowly blessed the mountain peaks with its rays. I sat and watched in awe at the beauty in front of me. I would be at the rim of the mountain tomorrow morning as I receive the same warmth of the sun. 

After breakfast was done, dry bag packed, off I went with Ditte and Pak Alam (our guide) to the start of the climb. It wasn't such a steep start but I could feel my knees starting to hurt, and mind you, it's just the start! 40 minutes in and we got to only the Senaru gate where the climb actually starts! What did I get myself into?

As early as 8am we set off to Senaru from Mataram, which is the base camp for climbing Mt. Rinjani. We stayed at Sagara Anak in Senaru where our operate is Ahmed's Expedition. There are many operator or guides to choose from. Our package included a one night stay here, it's nothing fancy but it would do for a night. It's a very basic room and cold bloody showers, which I hate!

There isn't much to do here other than going to the waterfalls and visiting rice terraces. As soon as we got into our rooms we headed off to the waterfalls that we've heard so much about from people in Mataram. Just a short walk up the road you'll see a sign saying waterfalls. Before you can take that path, you'll need to pay an entrance fee of 10,000 rupiah per person. 

"We will be landing in Lombok shortly" came the announcement over the aircraft PA system.

So this is it, the real adventure begins. There was almost 40 minute wait to clear out immigrations and I was last in line with the guys. Now none of us had return tickets and since the boys are from the EU they both needed to get a visa. 

My turn came up and guess what? I got pulled over for not having a return ticket. So there I went into the immigration waiting room to have a 'chat' with a zit faced officer.

"Miss can you speak Bahasa Melayu?" 

   "Yes"

The rest of the conversation was continued in Malay and I was arguing over why I needed a return ticket and the boys don't. According to law, if you have a free entry without having to pay visa you need a return ticket which is valid. And since I'm Malaysian I have to have a return ticket. I explained to him that I'm willing to purchase one now, right there and then. But he kept saying,

"Oh but that is not it, you should have one even before you left your country. So now we have to send you back"

   "No you're not. You are not sending me back plus the next flight is hours later and I'm buying a ticket now and you are going to print it!"