TOURIST INFORMATION

CENTRAL LOMBOK

SUKARARA

This is a village of weavers south of Cakranegara. This traditional village lies 28 km southeast of bustling Mataram that has a bustling weaving industry.
Lombok is known for its brightly patterned songket cloth. People have been making it on their handlooms from generation to generation. These traditionally trained villagers produce an exquisite array of fine woven cloths, using cotton, silk or gold and silver to create their original designs, for which Lombok is now famous. Penujak Pottery

PENUJAK

Penujak villageis located in West Praya district, Central Lombok, which is less than an hour by car from Mataram or two hour’s drive from Bangsal Harbor (if you stay at Villa Ombak in Gili Trawangan). The village is on the main road between Praya, the capital of Central Lombok and Kuta, a tourist resort on the South coast. Penujak is one of Lombok's main pottery producing village and probably the best as far as seeing and understanding the unique Lombok pottery making process.

Penujak, Banyumulek and Masbagik are the three main villages in Lombok where the pottery comes from. These villages had their own distinct styles and methods which were further developed and improved under the aid plan to an extent that now their pottery products are exported around the world.

In Penujak village, for example, with the increased volume of production due to the export demands it is now necessary for men to join in the production process. It used to be that the woman produced the pots and the man marketed them. Now they work together from design process till the marketing. The decoration itself is quite specific to the pots origin. In Penujak, their specialty is to the design all their earthenware with their special mark. Banyumulek village uses rattan and old coins to decorate their products and Masbagik, being near the sea, uses the star fish motif.

The clay for making the pots comes from hills nearby these three main villages, where it is brought to the potter's home by horse-drawn cart. The clay has to be inspected to ensure there aren't any stones or other impurities in it. The clay then will be cut into small cubes and dried in the sun. When the clay cubes are dried, they are pounded into clay flour, and stored before being used as dough. What is fascinating to see is that there is no potter's wheel. Instead, layers are continually added to the original piece of dough while the maker herself moves around the object pressing it into the desired shape.

After decorating, the pots are then left in the shade to dry while waiting for the next step in the process which is the varnishing. The pots are varnished with a mixture of coconuts oil and another special type of clay which comes from a different village. Different colors are produced from different clays. The pots are again left to dry before they are scraped with a black stone so that the surface becomes shiny and ready for the next drying process. This takes places in the hot sun and takes almost a full day. The pots from Penujak are usually thicker than others, that are why the pots look stronger and heavier. Generally during the preparing of clay, in Penujak the clay is not soaked in the water to get flour of clay (very fine clay) as other villages, but pounded before mixed it with sand and water.

SADE VILLAGE

Sade Village is a traditional Village on Lombok Island. This Traditional Lombok Village located on Central Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat. Their house are stil traditional.

The roof made from alang-alang and the wall made from combinations of clay and cow faeces. For them, cow faeces have many functions for their live such as for cleaning the floor, washing, bathing, etc. Wew..I can’t imagine if I’m taking a bath with a cow faeces as a soap. Yiieks…

The people in Sade Village specially the man must sleep outside the house. Why?? They have a traditions, If they have a daughter, they have to protect their daughter from kinapted. In Lombok Island, If a young man want to get married with a young girl, he must kinapted the girl. Now the reason was clear right!!! Ohh…Come on…Who wants to kinapted me, my father didn’t sleep outside the house, he sleep on his own room, btw i can open the window so you can kinapted me easly. Hehehe…

Sade Village have a beautiful traditional waven. I’m so interesting with their waven. They still make the waven with a traditional way. One waven can take 1 or 2 months to get ready for sale. Ohh..So hurd!!! Sade traditional waven have a unique design,