Visiting Lombok

Lombok was my next stop after Jakarta and immediately showed me a completely different side of Indonesia. Located just east of Bali, the island has beautiful beaches, mountains, traditional villages, and a much quieter atmosphere than its famous neighbor. Lombok is predominantly Muslim, while nearby Bali is predominantly Hindu, adding another cultural contrast between two islands separated by only a short distance. I came here looking for a more relaxed island experience, but some of my favorite memories ended up being exploring the countryside, visiting the Gili Islands, and scuba diving in the clear tropical water.

Compared with Jakarta, Lombok felt much more relaxed from the moment I arrived. Tourism was well established, but the island felt far less crowded than Bali and accommodations were reasonably priced. I stayed in this simple bungalow, which gave me everything I needed without spending much money.

Taxis and motorbikes were common ways to get around Lombok, but I also regularly came across horse-drawn carts. Known locally as cidomo, these small carts were one of the more distinctive forms of transportation I encountered on the island.

Lombok also had plenty of restaurants and resorts, especially around the more developed tourist areas. One evening a higher-end hotel let us have dinner directly on the beach, complete with some surprisingly strong tropical drinks. It was a very different atmosphere from the enormous city I had just left behind in Jakarta.

Away from the resorts, I visited one of Lombok’s traditional villages where local families produced handmade goods. Weaving was an important craft here, and everything I saw was being made by hand using traditional techniques. I was told that a single scarf could take well over a month to complete. Seeing how much work went into something that might otherwise look like a simple piece of fabric gave me a much greater appreciation for the finished products.

Another memorable stop was one of Lombok’s monkey forests. There was certainly no difficulty finding monkeys, and once you got out of the car they quickly came over to investigate whether you had brought them any food. Most kept their distance, although a few were considerably more persistent. One of my favorite sights was this mother sheltering and caring for her baby during a rainstorm.

One of the highlights of visiting Lombok was taking a boat out to the Gili Islands just off its northwest coast. Since everything needed on the islands has to arrive by boat, the docks were constantly busy with people and supplies moving back and forth. I watched workers unloading everything from everyday necessities to beer destined for the island’s restaurants and bars.

The Gili Islands are famous for their beaches and diving, and getting out on the water was the main reason I came. This was the type of boat I used for my diving trip, taking us away from shore and out toward the reefs surrounding the islands.

Of course, you don’t need to go underwater to appreciate the Gili Islands. Beaches like this were exactly what I had imagined when planning a tropical trip through Indonesia. With clear water, sand, and small islands surrounded by the sea, it was easy to understand why so many travelers make the Gilis a major part of their visit to Lombok.

The diving around Lombok and the Gili Islands was very rewarding, with plenty of marine life and beautiful coral. From shore, the bottom gradually transitioned from sand into coral before eventually reaching a steeper underwater drop. Much of my dive followed that deeper edge, while the shallower sections offered some of the brightest colors. These two coral photos were taken closer to the surface where the sunlight could still bring out much more of the reef’s natural color.

This was one of the strangest creatures I encountered while diving. From a distance I initially mistook it for an octopus because of the way it moved through the water. When I got closer, it looked so much like a leaf or piece of vegetation that I wasn’t even sure it was an animal. The divemaster eventually gave it a gentle nudge and it immediately swam away, answering at least that part of the mystery.

I also came across this unusual fish, another species I hadn’t seen before. Discovering animals I couldn’t immediately identify was one of my favorite parts of diving in Indonesia. Every section of reef seemed capable of producing something completely new.

My underwater camera setup at the time was pretty basic and didn’t have a strobe, so the deeper photographs lost much of the color that was visible in person. Even so, I was able to capture some of the smaller reef life hiding among the coral and anemones.

The highlight underwater was seeing sea turtles. I encountered two during my dives around Lombok, and this one surprisingly allowed me to get quite close without immediately swimming away. Between the reefs, unusual marine life, sea turtles, beaches, villages, and the Gili Islands, Lombok ended up offering far more variety than I had expected when I first arrived.