Oh hello there! I am back with my #letsgoto series, where I feature places that will make you want to drop everything and book a ticket right away. Or at least add a new place to your bucket list destinations!
CORON, Philippines and the second on Jaipur, India in you want.This is actually the third entry in the #letsgoto series. You can check out the first on
Ok, back to the main topic, this post will be all about Lombok, Indonesia. Nearly everyone has heard of Bali. Have you heard of Lombok?
Lombok is an island that is east of Bali and west of Sumbawa. The island itself has been described like Bali 20 years ago. Meaning, there are still less tourists with more amazing places to explore. So if you are looking for a peaceful retreat like Bali without the complete tourist infrastructure, less crowds, and more of the local feel, then perhaps Lombok is what you seek.
It took about a 2 hour car ride from the airport to get to this secluded cove with pristine white sand beaches.Me and @eoj explored Bali, particularly Ubud, for a few days and decided to spend at least 2 weeks in Lombok. We flew less than an hour from Bali via Garuda Air to Lombok. We decided to have a little splurge for a true get away and headed to the southeast of the island, where we checked in to Jeeva Beloam beach camp for a week.
It ranks in the world's Top Ten beaches according to Harper Bazaar, UK.
There were only 11 huts available and we just saw a few visitors during our trip.
The beach any time of the day is incredibly inviting. It's like having your own private beach!
We hiked up a hill and explored the other side of the cove, Tanjung Ringgit.
No soul in sight especially during the morning.
@eoj and I spent most of the day on the beach, reading and one of life's greatest pleasures - napping! If you want to unwind and be disconnected from the world, this is a perfect place. No wifi!
Theres @eoj trying to get the perfect angle of the waves hitting the rock formation.
We also checked out a little island nearby. The tide was low and I remembered me and @eoj were looking for sand dollars around sunset because the water was out. I guess these are the kind of things people do when internet or other modes of communication are taken away from them!
As much as we wanted to stick around, after a week we went to the south central part of the island, Kuta. Not to be confused with Kuta in Bali! We were back to "civilization." There were few restaurants and hotels starting to sprout up. 
We checked into Kies Villas, which aside from the unique eye catching villa design, have a pretty cool pool. Why is the pool cool? Well, it has an underwater music system! You can just float and have your ears submerged into the water and listen to cool tunes. We did that one afternoon and that pool with music really made an impression, we'd both never experienced anything like it!
We spent the days exploring the south part of the Island. We rented a motorcycle and just drove around seeing what we could see.
The locals all told us that Bali was like Lombok before it got famous. This was the beach in the center of the town.
We headed way down south and checked out some surfing spots. Along the way we made a couple of stops at some beautiful empty beaches.
It was hard to keep a record of all these beaches - we'd just ask the locals which spots to check next and they would point us in the right direction.
The locals speak a little English and @eoj knows a little Bahasa Indonesia because he lived in Aceh, Indonesia for a year after the tsunami, so he was able to refresh his language skill.
I, on the other hand, after staying for more than a week - my Bahasa Indonesia is only good for one thing, ordering food! Enough to order some yummy ayam (chicken) satay and veggies!
We'd stop over at these little hut restos and grab lunch. I fell in love with Indonesian food. I'd still dream about having some Nasi Goreng (fried rice and egg) in the morning with Kecap Manis (Indonesian Sweet Soy Sauce).
Or sometimes, we'd just stop over to these little stores that sell refreshments and grab something like this to go: Nasi Lemak (rice, shredded chicken, peanuts,eggs) in paper.
Lombok not only has beaches, it has pretty green surroundings as well.
On the way to check out some surf spots, I was almost convinced that we were nowhere near any beach because of how lush and green the surroundings were.
We met some local boys who were around 8 or 9 years old and driving a motorcycle already! No helmet nor any safety gear, I doubt they even have a drivers license. But this is pretty common in Lombok.
After staying a few days in Kuta, our days were up so we headed over to the northwest part of the island. We took a car going there. It was a few hours ride until we reached Rinjani Beach Eco Resort.
Unlike the east and south of the island where the beaches are mostly white, the northern side has dark sand beaches.
In the northwest, we again rented a motorcycle and explored the places nearby. One of my memorable times was asking @eoj to stop when I saw a hut near the side of the road selling grilled fish. We bought some and the vendor accommodated us by letting us use their utensils as we ate rice and grilled fish on the side of the road.
Exploring the northwest one afternoon led us to this beach featuring Batu Payung (Stone Umbrella). A local just pointed this place out to us. We had no itinerary or whatsoever.
Watching fishermen wrapping up their day's work as the sun began to set.
Most of our days in Lombok ended with a great sunset.
I hope you had as much fun reading this post as I had fun sharing my photos, stories, and experiences with you! If you have any questions about travel in Lombok, please feel free to ask me and I'll try my best to help.
If you enjoyed reading about Lombok's natural beauty please feel free to check out my other recent posts:
- How I Saw America (Part 2)
- #letsgoto: Jaipur, India
- #letsgoto: CORON, Philippines
- My Favorite Cooking Class in Bangkok
- A Two Week Adventure Camping in Western Australia with a Toddler
hey, awesome travel blog, you should consider getting a WordPress blog via @vornix then at the WordPress you can install the Steempress plugin, so whatever you post at WordPress will also be shown at Steemit. that way you can reach out to both audience as well as promoting steem outside of Steemit when WordPress travel bloggers stumbled upon your blog.:)
On top of that, occasionally you will get upvote by @steempress too.
#steemitmamas
Awesome! I did not know that, thanks for the tip, will look into it.
Said the esteem curator.. hahahah :P jk!
Congratz you won the Gogreenbuddy contest! MAX upvote for you!
Thanks so much for the support @gogreenbuddy!
Congratulations! Your high quality travel content caught our attention and earned you a reward, in form of an upvote and resteem. Your work really stands out. Your article now has a chance to get curated and featured under the appropriate daily topic of our Travelfeed blog. Thank you for using #travelfeed
Learn more about our travel project on Steemit by clicking on the banner above and join our community on Discord
Thank you @travelfeed!! You pick the best travel posts, i'm honored!
I love the scenery! You did a great job showing us how beautiful it is in Lombok.
By the way, we are having a contest collab with #sevendaysoutside challenge, i think it fits your style :) feel free to check it out in our feed.
Oh no, i used up all my tags already! But thanks so much for the suggestion!
You may join anytime soon. The contest officially start on 1st week of august :)
Cool! Thank you!!!
Look at those beautiful beaches! ❤️ It looked like you both enjoyed the getaway. I am sure it was quite relaxing. Good food, beautiful scenery, naptime..:) @eoj had mentioned when I would visit you two in Thailand. I'm sure it's just as beautiful there as it is in Indonesia. Tell him one day, for sure!
We had a great time in Lombok, its still has parts that waiting to be explored. Naptime is definitely part of the itinerary specially for @eoj! Lol please come and visit us and allow us to show you around our city, wed love to do that. :)
Congratulations, Your Post Has Been Added To The Steemit Worldmap!
Author link: http://steemitworldmap.com?author=suitcasemamaPost link: http://steemitworldmap.com?post=letsgoto-lombok-indonesia-0c1b9d3902446est
Want to have your post on the map too?
Yey! Thank you!!!!
Thank you for your contribution to the "photocircle" tag
Cheers,
Check out this post for information on all the Photocircle tags
Learn about this photo curation project by clicking >here
To stop receiving comments then reply
!STOP!@photocircle TeamHey. I am from aceh. I waiting you here. Really nice travel
Thank you @gumegxgolgom! My husband, @eoj, spend about a year in aceh after the tsunami.
@suitcasemama you have taken so many beautiful pictures! 😮 Lombok looks great! After what you have written and shown me, I would like to visit this place very much! I like such non-tourist destinations! Wonderful photos and a super smile! 😉
Thank syou so much @see-it-feel-it! i hope you get a chance to visit Lombok! There are some tourists, but not as many as in bali. I hope you can make it someday!
Heya, just swinging by to let you know you're being featured in our Daily Travel Digest!
great, thank you so much @steemitworldmap!!!
I love it!! One thing I’d say I think would help, or at least from my point of view just add the prices for some of the stuff to give people an idea how much their trip could cost them! Just an idea though!
I certainly would love to know :)
Enjoy your travels!
Thank you @kryptocek, that's a good idea! I'll try to include prices into my next blog. For Lombok, I'll ask @eoj to look back in the records. I do remember Jeeva Beloam was quite expensive! But it was for a very special occasion ;)
Ahh okay fair enough! I think lots of people tend to look at prices! As much as how beautiful places look lots of people will pick affordable stuff first!
Looks great! Hope it does not get the infamous plastic season Bali is expierencing right now :/
I hope not too! There are tourists around but not as many as next door in bali ;)
LOLOL to many nationalitiesss. You are a serious writer!!! Where have I been all this time.. Awesome informative travel blog and now I would love to check the place out!! never been to Indonesia ever...
haha, that's right and our poor toddler is going to be super confused speaking some thai words, filipino words, and english words!
Thanks so much for the compliment and yes you should visit indonesia, both @eoj and i love it! there are direct flights from bangkok to bali too!
Hahaha yeah, I sure will do soon-ISH.. :D ❤️
When you go, you should meet up with nice stemmians based there like @nomadicsoul 😎
She based nowhere from what I see haaa ❤️
Lovely pictures! Must be awesome to stay at Jeeva Beloam. Too bad this beach is not accessible anymore since it's private. Before it was a popular photo spot for locals and a true insider tip. Missing my former second home Lombok :)
wow, you lived in lombok, cool! @eoj lived in aceh for awhile, but it was our first time to lombok and really want to check out the islands east of lombok too!
Nice, I beliece Aceh is very beautiful but also still much different than Lombok. Definitely I wanna visit Aceh someday. Which places should I see first @eoj ? :))
Great post, Beautiful Content.Keep up your good work.
thank you @uday20!
I'm just so in love with your pictures!!!!!! Your pics of local kids always get me. I remember the ones in Cambodia were adorable.
It's pretty common to see kids driving in Bali, too, even in tourist towns. Well, idk about Ubud, but in Canggu yes. Do you see it in the Philippines?
There was an earthquake in Lombok today!!!! I'm sure you know!
I'm so glad you guys aren't there NOW and that this was from a while ago.
aw, thank you so much! not many kids drive in PH, but they do pack on the people, ahaha! @eoj and i joke that we're disappointed when we only see 4 people on a motorbike, we say 'they could do better!' :)
@eoj showed me your island post, i'm glad i made it to the island!!! :) i hope you come to visit us in our little bangkok island soon too <3 @suitcasemama
Congratulations @suitcasemama! You have completed the following achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on the badge to view your Board of Honor.
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPThis post was shared in the Curation Collective Discord community for curators, and upvoted and resteemed by the @c-squared community account after manual review.
Thank you so much @c-squared!!
Hello! I have just featured one of your images that you recently submitted to my 7 World´s Continents Photo Challenge in today´s color challenge. Feel free to attend the post to interact with other users through answering some of the comments. Thank you. Have a great day. Tomas
ColorChallenge - Green Thursday - @suitcasemama in 7 World's Continents Photo Challenge!
Thank you Tomas!
This was well documented, too bad Curie didnt find this! Or maybe needed more stories too? Who knows 😁
Love Lombok. Whenever we visit Indonesia, Lombok is our destination 😊
Thanks so much for the kind words @thekitchenfairy! @curie has supported me quite a bit in the past, so no big deal if it misses one, I'm very thankful for the past support and glad people are enjoying my work!
@eoj and I love Lombok too, although hes wanting to explore the islands to the east next ;) <3 @suitcasemama