Blogs from Lombok, Indonesia, Asia

We spent the next week at Hotel Gengong in Candidasa, a lovely beachfront hotel. New Year's eve included a very good meal at Vincente's the local restaurant and then an amazing fireworks display, about 50 feet from our balcony, compliments of the local Silver businessman staying at the hotel. It was impressive! We enjoyed a day trip to a local bee farm that was set among a gorgeous botanical garden. They raised both Asian and Balinese bees. The Balinese bees were tiny, the size of very small ants and produced a sweet and sour honey used mainly for medicine. The Asian bees produced an excellent sweet honey. Continued on to Tanganan - a traditional village - Before the 1970s was known by anthropologists to be a secluded society in the archipelago, known for its gamelan selunding ... read more

Things are amazing on Gili Air. We have had a bit of rain in the afternoons with amazing rolling thunder! We have met a few locals and are having dinner with an expat from South Africa tomorrow. We are trying to learn the Indonesian language and it seems to be appreciated. People are amazing, food is amazing, vibe is amazing. We have gone snorkelling a few times, took a cooking class and continue to chill. Really appreciating getting to know more about Gili Air and the people. The motto here is ‘slowly slowly’ and moving through the days like this is so freeing. We have so much stress around us at home. Things are pressured with full calendars, and I am seeing how much of life I am missing by being so fully booked. Hoping to ... read more

Gili Air – water (Air) Island (Gili) We love this little island! We were tempted to explore Gili T and Gili Meno, but once we landed, we finally found the sweet pace of nothing. The hardest decision is what to eat and should we watch the sunset? There are no vehicles, just horse and carriage or bike. The people here are friendly and lovely and really do have that island feel. Lots of smiles and easy going attitude. To point where one of the cashiers was napping on the floor of the store using napkins as a pillow. And no one cares. The work gets done and people just get to be people. It is noticeable here, and in Bali as well, that rules are from we can tell, take of yourself and each other. If ... read more

Travelling in Indonesia now since 3 weeks, we only had 8 days left with our free visa on arrival. Having seen and experienced so many incredible things in the last weeks, basically only 1 thing was missing: a super relaxed beach time in a tropical paradies where we could simply enjoy the hours watching the ocean, doing some meditation and just be. There are many options for this in Indonesia, but we decided to go to Lombok as this was the cheapest and easiest option for the remaining time and for both of us, Lombok was a new destination. Well, I (Nina) have been to Gili Trawangan and Gili Meno 9 years ago, but I never explored Lombok island itself. So early morning, we took a propellers flight from Labuanbajo to Lombok Praya. The sky was ... read more

I flew into Bali from Kuala Lumpur on what was a very turbulent flight. I got a bit braver than normal on the approach to Bali Denpasar airport and took some photos out of the window - very unusual for me to do that, but I did get some cracking photos of the mountains poking through the heavy cloud. We circled a few times before we were able to land and then on the approach to the runway, I actually started to wonder where it was! For quite some time it looked like we were going to land in the sea!! Needless to say, we didn’t. I went down the steps from the plane and was greeted by the most amazing sunset. Beautiful pink and orange skies. I was out of the airport and in to ... read more