Bali and Lombok – Tourist Paradise and Real Life Experiences in One

Bali and Lombok is in many ways Asia’s perfect summer travel destination. While Thailand goes through their rainy season over summer, Indonesia actually has it’s dryest months from May to September. This means that if you were planning to travel in Thailand for your summer vacation, you might want to re-think and change your destination to Bali and Lombok. My favorite two islands in the world.

In many ways Bali and Lombok are comparable to Thailand. The islands are extremely tourist friendly, safe and easy to get around. Just like Thailand. They are also fairly touristy, which means mostly everything is catered to you. Everything from transportation, lodging and food is prepared for the tourists who want to be as relaxed as possible. But here is the important little twist: On Lombok, you can easily get out off the beaten track, and find places barely ever seen by other travelers.

From Tourist Paradise to Real Life Experiences in 2 Hours

When I was on Lombok (5 years ago, things might have changed), I started off with a few relaxing days on the Gili Islands. They are perfect for snorkeling and scuba diving (lots of turtles!). And each little gili has it’s own feel to it, party, family, or just laid back. After a few days there, I climbed Lombok’s larges volcano, a comfortable three-day hike. However, my point is that all of these places were pretty touristy at the time, and probably is even more now. But one day I got a ride with a random motorbike, and just a couple of hours later I was in a small village where they had never in their life seen a blond giant like me.

This village was definitely one of the greatest parts of my four months of travel in southeast asia. I stayed there for a few days, living at the local teacher’s house, the only man in town who spoke english. He treated me as a king, giving me the most amazing food, inviting me to meet the local “VIP’s”; chief of this and chief of that. And when I was walking around, I had hordes of people following me. Not just kids, but whole families. Even the animals were curious and joined the parade (dogs mostly, it was not like a movie scene with elephants and tigers uniting in peace).

During those few days I was constantly reminding myself how crazy it was, that “I am here, living in their house, taking part in their life, it’s not staged for tourists, it is real”. And that is what I loved about Lombok. It is such a small island, but have so much to offer. I have to be honest and say that I often enjoy tourist traps, as long as I can relax in a nice pool. But it doesn’t take long before I get restless and want to explore. And that is what Bali and Lombok have. They have both worlds, both the comfortable resorts, tourist towns and amenities that even backpackers enjoy while they pretend to be roughing it. And they have the real life, so accessible, friendly and welcoming, where you can experience so much more by just slightly moving off the charter bus routes.

I realize now that this article ended up being more about Lombok than Bali. However, Bali was very much the same as Lombok. The few differences were: Religion; Lombok is mostly muslim. The tourists; Bali has a greater share of vacation-tourists (a lot of Australians), while Lombok was more of a backpackers destination.

There is way more I could write about these two beautiful paradise islands. But I will do that another time. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think about Bali and Lombok as a travel destination!