After a quick stopover in Bali it was a short flight to the island of Lombok, a mere 35 minutes with Garuda Indonesian airlines. I had a good view of the whole of Bali and most of Lombok as the plane only flew at about 10,000ft which was pretty cool. I had loved Bali on my last visit so I had high hopes for Lombok and had the impression it would be even more beautiful and unspoilt.
In a nutshell, I was a little disappointed and frustrated at times with Lombok. Whilst the island itself has some real beauties and hidden gems, it was let down on a few points. You would think that being more less touristy and more underdeveloped than Bali it would be a tourists dream, however, most of the people we encountered appeared to want to just rip you off and the lack of signage anywhere on the island makes finding these hidden gems a bit of a nightmare. Maybe not everyone has this experience but we did it on our own and struggled somewhat.
To start with, we arrived at the airport and jumped in a taxi, only a short while later to realise that this was some dodgy taxi driver who started panicking as there was some police cordon ahead, so we were bundled in to another ‘official’ taxi on the side of the road like some secret drug deal. All fun and games! On arriving into the coastal town of Sengiggi, we stayed in a lovely quaint boutique hotel which was family owned and run with a pool in the middle. We headed into the town to have a look around, forgetting it was rainy season and the heavens opened! After getting drenched we found somewhere to eat until it cleared up. Walking back we found some pretty cool street art and watched the artist working doing the next wall.
We hired a car for the next two days to go and explore the island. We picked it up with an empty tank and were running on the fumes for the first 15k until we thankfully found somewhere to fill up pretty cheaply. All I can say is thank goodness for Google maps! We had planned out a route and sights for the two days but the first few things on the list we just couldn’t find and no one could help us. Unlike Bali which is well signposted, there is hardly anything like this on Lombok and a lot of the roads are uneven or paved. After giving up at the first few, we found the fourth one, a beautiful bay with the green vegetation on the mountains at either end. The beach was pretty deserted and at both ends is a natural swirl that comes in from the ocean which is pretty cool to watch. A lone fisherman was also there trying to catch something. We also past one of the other hidden treasures which was a cave with thousands of bats in. Unfortunately, again the roads were so impassable, we could see it but not reach it. Very frustrating considering there was a big sign at the entrance all about it but it’s just not set up for tourism.
We headed back home and came across a great view from the top of one of the hills which had a beautiful view of southern Lombok, the rice fields and bay below. we stopped for a drink and laughed at how unsuccessfully we through the day had been in terms of finding the things we had wanted to, hoping that would be it and what the next day in northern Lombok would bring. After saying all this, we drove round a corner and came to a landslide! Huge boulders blocking most of the road. Thankfully our tin can of a car managed to just squeeze through - if it was anything bigger we would have been stuck! After laughing that off, 5 minutes later we hit a river that had flooded the road in a dip. Luckily that was just enough passable!
Day two in the car was a lot more successful. We found some limestone cliffs and stunning waterfalls in the north. We only couldn’t find one waterfall, well, we could see the top of it but couldn’t see how to enter it. The locals sent us in all directions so we gave up on that one. We did find the spectacular Tiu Kelep waterfall which was about a 15 minute trek too with lots of cheeky monkeys on the path down. This waterfall is really impressive and looks like someone is turning a tap on. It goes into one pool then flows down into another, pretty cool. We also found another waterfall called the ‘Curtain’ and a free flowing waterfall that came out in three separate parts. You can jump off about 11 metre’s into the pool below which I would have done but it was about 5.30pm at this point and getting dark soon, so we needed to do the 30 minute trek back to the car.
Overall, Lombok Island does have some hidden gems, beautiful scenery and great restaurants, I felt it was let down by the things I mentioned above. Next stop is the Gili islands off Lombok’s north west coast. Let’s hope they deliver!
