About an hour and a half later, your ferry rounds the corner of a grassy, arid, hillside and docks at the port of Sumbawa. “Ah, so this is Sumbawa” you say to yourself. Its big, very big! As far as the eyes can see, only big and then bigger mountains make up the island. It is about 8,493 square kilometer wide and almost 3 times the island of Lombok. Looking around at the arid landscape and oak-like trees, if it wasn’t for the tropical humidity to remind you, one might forget we were in the tropics!. Once we we’re on the small highway, one sees the motto  “Sabalong Samalewa” written in many places. It captures the  local spirit of collaboration, meaning to move together towards development. It is wise of Sumbawa's government to draw attention to this traditional saying as the island is inhabited by many different ethnic group, the majority being the indigenous and friendly Samawa, and other groups such as Javanese, Arabic, Chinese, Sasaknese (Lombok) and Balinese totaling to less than a million inhabitants across the island. Nearly everyone on the island follows the Islamic Faith.

On our way along the 2 lane simple asphalt road to Sumbawa, we have to drive a bit slow to avoid the various domestic animals wandering around loose along the roadside, goat, cows and even big greedy water buffaloes. The owner lets them roam free, so they often disturb others agricultural plantation. The farmers in turn have to protect their farming land from this hungry guest by making pen around it. The land around us is largely uncultivated and we see groups of houses few and far between in this big open land. We suddenly pass a large crowd of people on the edge of a field, they are watching “Karapan Kerbau” or buffalo races, a traditional game held to bring in the rice planting season, the underlying purpose is a mystical plea for good rains and fertile in fields. Ten, even hundreds of pairs of water buffaloes from all parts of Sumbawa take their turn racing in the wet paddy fields. The buffalo race is also called a magic race of magic competition, because local magic men show their power in order to win in these races.

Turning of off the main road, you wind down a single lane dirt road heading for Sumbawa you have gone about  45 km [but almost an hour] from the small capital city of Sumbawa Besar, and 3 hours from the port along the side of the pot-holed road you see some farmers taking their buffalo to the field to feed them, a few with kids on the back of buffalo, as we continue towards the furthermost sub -village near the sea, you pass a large pool that is full of free-roaming water buffalo passing the hot afternoon in the cool muddy water,  the houses that you pass are almost all built on stilts about 1 meter off the ground, and mostly built with wood and bamboo, with thatch or tiled roofs, people here say that the houses are based on the housing style of the Bugis tribe in South Sulawesi a long time ago Sumbawa was led by a powerful king from South Sulawesi therefore influencing local culture today, that style of architecture is closely linked to daily social life; we pass many houses with women and children gathered on the stairs of their house to chat and pass the day, while the man are working hard in their rice fields. Only 2 from a hundred households have a toilet.  They prefer to go to the jungle, bush or other empty safe places for their routine work.  But the tradition of stilt house has already been moving towards the more modern houses. This situation caused by lacking of wood to build the wooden house.