Indonesia is the world´s 4th most populated country after China, India, and USA. Kind of hard to believe when you just glance at a map, the cluster of islands doesn´t appear to comprise that large of a country but looks can be deceiving; Indonesia 17,508 islands are home to 237+ million people. How would we possible decide which of these islands to visit in only a few weeks?
Well, Hari and I started with probably the most well-known island: Bali. I´m sad to say that we were both disappointed with our first choice. For me, Bali had always been built up in my head as the epitome of island paradise, but it was quite different than I had imagined. We arrived late in the evening and headed to Kuta Beach, the backpacker hub. We drove past huge shopping malls covered in advertisements for Cartier and Louis Vuitton. There was even a Planet Hollywood, not exactly the Bali that I had pictured in my mind. I knew that Bali is a tourist hot-spot but I guess I more pictured it as a small, sand covered island. I did not expect the city center to be so developed. Nevertheless, I still couldn´t wait to get to the beach scene. We got to our hotel just after 11pm, dropped off our bags, and went down the road 5 minutes to the beach. Sadly, it was covered in trash. Covered. We learned that because it was low season the tides changed and washed garbage onto the beaches. We didn´t let this get us down, though.
The next morning we got out early on motorbikes to explore other parts of the island. Fortunately we did find some really cool secluded beaches, coves, and cliffs, but again there was so much garbage covering the beaches and in the water. Bali is a big island, and I know I did not see all of it, so hopefully we just had some bad luck and missed out on the good beaches. We were also there in low season so I hope it is nicer and cleaner in high season. We did some research and asked around and decided to cut out stay on Bali short and head to Lombok the next morning, another island just a 30 minute flight away.
A definite highlight of Bali, though, was unexpectedly meeting up with my dive team buddies from Koh Tao, Steve and Matt! We actually knew that they would be in Bali but we did not plan on meeting anywhere specifically. I had sent them an email telling them the name of our hotel and surely enough after we had gotten back from exploring and were relaxing/taking showers and such, our room phone rang; Steve and Matt were standing in our lobby. We were so excited that they found us, we all went to dinner to catch up. They told me and Hari of their Cambodia experiences (they had some crazy stories) and we caught them up on our diving trip to the Similans. After dinner we all went to town and hit up some bars. We did get to stop and see the site of the 2002 bombings that killed 202 people. The memorial was very nicely done, it listed the names of everyone who had died and their nationalities. While it was a sombre sight, it was surrounded by bustling shops, restaurants, and bars that gave a positive vibe that despite the tragedy that occured there, Bali is still thriving and will not let the past bring it down. We had a great night with Steve and Matt and were glad we got to see them again.
The next morning Hari and I got our stuff together and went to catch our short flight to Lombok. As we were sitting in the airport waiting to board we saw Steve walking towards us - the evening before we tried to convince him to come to Lombok with us (Matt couldn´t come, he was heading back to the States) and he decided to come along. So in his hungover state he trudged to the airport and got on our same flight. After an extremely turbulent but short flight, we landed in Lombok. This island was much more what we were looking for - the center of town was not at all touristy and really authentic feeling, the island was covered in green palm trees and forests, and the black sanded beaches were lined with people watching surfers riding the huge waves. We found a cute guesthouse near Kuta beach and spent the day exploring and watching the surfers, they were awesome.
Over the next few days we rented motorbikes (I told you that we are all about motorbiking) and drove all around the island, through the main town and the lush palm tree forests. There was just so much to see, it is one of the most beautiful islands I have ever been to. After Sarah´s Malaysia adventure, we all agreed to meet on Lombok. After a few days her flight landed and she, Hari, Steve, and I were reunited. It was great to all be together again. I´ll let Sarah pick it up from here and tell you about the rest of our time on Lombok...
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