Lombok is an Exotic Bali Siblings

Lombok is a Exotic Bali Siblings


Lombok is only a 20-minute hop from Bali, but could not be more different from its sister island overdeveloped wild

This is the end of the rainy season in Lombok, but the storm has not been a break. Air, heavy with moisture, collecting in the hole and resting my elbows on my upper lip like milk. Even the wind and sticky solid. A horse and carriage rattles along a narrow road and then moped scuffed, its driver unplucked chicken resting on the pillow. Are small, independent volcanic island is really into, like embryonic tourist board suggests, the new Bali?

Twenty minutes away by air, Bali itself exploded. This year the state is targeting 7 million foreign tourists - traffic jams blocked roads, the hotel complex has been built on top of the rice fields, visitors tweet about pollution. But Lombok, one of the 27 provinces in the Indonesian archipelago remains, if not touched, then certainly unbruised. In 1966 50.000 people died of starvation in the island; the hope of a slow infusion of foreign wealth will prevent it from happening again. Over the years the island has been thought for tourism each year, but only now, as a plan for an international airport and a $ 600 project to put 10,000 luxury villas on the south coast of Lombok is formed, that the industry showed real growth - boutique tastes spread around the coast.



After a 13 hour flight, my boyfriend and I took a three-hour connection from Singapore to Lombok, where we queue for $ 25 a tourist visa and fatigue appear to be wet dusty from dusk busy. It is a two-hour trip to Sekatong Bay, where recently become Cocotinos first hotel to open on the east coast of the island. We passed Mataram, the capital of this island, then exit through the villages, where the closed platform road lines and acts as an umbrella for workers tired of Lombok. Of shelves on each child's house by the roadside selling glass bottles suitable fuel mopeds and package beans. Hotel rickety dock strike through the dark sea like a Christmas tree falling, and with light candle which we ate our first fried rice, fried rice dishes are served for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

A day later, we traveled to the west of Senggigi, Lombok closest thing to have a holiday resort. Each drive here is in the shadow of Mount Rinjani, an active volcano that tourists can camp to photograph the sunrise and honeymoon vigorously. We passed through the rice fields where women stand in conical hats, casual thrashing rice while their babies run naked through the puddles. From a distance I saw a flash of silver on the road - as we approached I realized it was a blanket spread with small dried fish. Looks like a sequined jacket discarded after party.

Senggigi is a concrete collection of karaoke bars and red male chest. Here's what it might look like if the Lombok island was not 80% Muslim - Hindu culture in Bali is more friendly to those who are looking for all-day happy hour and bikini competitions, but humility Lombok that locals hope will ensure that it does not 't collapse under the weight of tourists. We stayed in one of the mid-priced hotels in Senggigi, Qinci Villas, where the tide came this far spark diners in the restaurant. Hawkers shouting from the beach, selling their local pearls and gloves in the "special price of sunset". The restaurant down the hill offers a taxi service from the hotel, which we use to visit Warung Manega, a seafood restaurant sitting right on the beach. They barbecue fish over coconut husks and serve accompanied with rice and spinach salad colanders water - a large plate of squid, king prawns and fish cost around 100,000 dollars, less than £ 8 Tip: If, in the excitement in choosing your greatest shrimp see, you dropped it in the sand, rinse with Bintang beer. It still would have tasted better than most of the dinner you enjoy.

Posher hotel, we learned that night, cost more because they are built away from the mosque - mosque broadcast their call to pray very hard from 4:30 pm until breakfast. A blogger on the island remember a recent story in which the owner of the hotel "dare to suggest to the local village meetings that they might be able to turn down the volume touch on chanting. The police then arrested him." Blogger continued: "He received death threats and his villa looted To date no one has been arrested for property damage Lombok is a whole different kettle of fish from Bali ..."

In Qinci, slapping mosquitoes juicily against the mirror, no television to watch when the storm finally breaks and AC spit strange smell of urine through the vent. We are pleased to continue along the coast, and stands selling roasted corn (corn on the cob) and a bar where the band cover increasing U2 song with lyrics slurring into a stream of pure emotion, to Lombok, sparkling boutique hotel with quiet. In the morning we get a ride to the local market - on the way, we are reminded that point with the left hand will cause offense, and I felt out of place as snow, feeling that returns every time I met locals, my giant white body towering above a height of 5 their feet.

In the market, women sit on the floor balancing bananas and peanuts Hyacinth Bean under the shade of an umbrella. Chili (Indonesian translation of Lombok) cascade from the basket, boy topless palm hack into a skull-shaped hunks neat, rice and salt weighed by hand and, in the vast dark warehouse, served red meat and semi-live in heaving trestle tables. The island grows everything you need, and every village has its specialties: one produces bean curd out of her, another brand of paste, which is another famous for its salty shark. All available here, in addition to the chicken coop life, are sold not so secretly to fight. We walked past the cidomos (small horse and wagon) and through a fishing village, where the thatched hut squat meters away from the sea and narrow boats (catamarans) moored after they delivered the red snapper.

Small islands of Gili visible from the beach, with Gili Trawangan (most advanced) popular backpackers destination '. We slippage at sea in rickety and greeting cidomo speedboat in the dock. No cars or freshwater in the Gili islands, but to make up for it there are many Australian teenagers sing Katy Perry. Our horse totters drunken dwarf us to Gili Eco Villas, a collection of houses at the end of the island where a small room containing a little more than a mosquito-netted bed. On the beach, snorkellers and divers coo over the reef, and we see the clouds gather from the bar scene in the water. When the storm came, it was so powerful cutting electricity, so we sat in the dark under the roof of the wall-less and watch the lightning rip across the ocean. Outside the bathroom mirror life with frogs and hot steam with dense tropical. When we are hungry, we pick through the woods, stopping in wet crowd between flashes, and eating fried rice under a canopy of bamboo.

In the morning, everything was wet, and everyone was asleep. Back on the west coast of Lombok, another stormy night in an eccentric Puri Mas Hotel means we are bound to balldancing themed bar, where local bands persuade my girlfriend to join them in the hour of Elvis blanket.

Tugu Lombok, our sixth hotel, looks like it was carved by talented giant. Spectacular and beautiful large, with a trail of colorful Dutch colonialism, features ancient statues of Hindu gods scattered among the loungers, and the sea is quite clear to see the blue fish nodded past the knee. We were awakened by the chirping of birds and the pad outside the bathroom with a large copper bath.

We spent the last night around the bay in the famous Oberoi. The first luxury hotel on the island is an elegant temple of excess, where a waiter watches quietly sunbathing, swept with sorbet on banana leaves when they start to sweat. The air is clean here, the money obviously. Cycling out of the gate past the zinc shacks that make up the nearest village, I feel as though I look like a comparative wealth guilty blush. I've heard stories of Indonesian people farther inland threw stones at tourists, but we found just the curiosity of the women rested on the roadside and excitement of uniformed school children who run alongside our car, thumbs up. Our final meal, rijsttafel a - Indonesian party - served on the water in a hut candle. Poolside an orchestra of local children traditional picking (if no tone) song while dancing woman slowly.

On the way to the airport we stopped at Pusuk Forest, where the gray monkeys huddled with my feet for peanuts. The larger one nut swipe away from the smaller, stalking, hoodie like, with the car. As we drove away, I'm sure I saw one swears.