The Islands of Indonesia
- Ian Sharp
- 4 days ago
- 7 min read
Our last few weeks in Indonesia have been focused mostly on the beach, the ocean and all things outdoors in this gorgeous country. A little factoid about Indonesia is that the archipelago has roughly 17,000 islands, this puts it at number 6 on the world ranking. We learned new skills, met new friends and slowed down to take a vacation from our travels. This much needed rest and recuperation felt so good. We are stunned by the value on offer in Indonesia – our quality of life has been exceptional, enjoying adventures, lovely resorts, incredible food and drinks for cheap. Not only are things inexpensive here but the exchange rate is also very favorable, $1CAD~12,500 IDR (rupiah), getting a bill for dinner for 1,000,000IDR gives you a bit of a shock until you realize it's only about $80 for the family. The math lessons for the boys on currency conversions requires carrying a few extra zeros. About half what we were spending elsewhere has the four of us in 4 star beach front resorts, 3 wonderfully fragrant meals per day, and all the extras described below – ALL IN – with the ability to do it for MUCH less if we weren’t in ‘relax’ mode. We are by no means the only ones to have discovered this place – it is a haven for travellers, especially the young.
We arrived the day after ‘Nyepi’ – a 24-hour “Day of Stillness” in Bali where the entire island comes to a halt (the airport is closed, the government shuts down the internet, and all people remain indoors visiting family). We were sorry to have (inadvertently) missed this experience that feels very rare for our times.
Bali
We spent the first four days on the island of Bali. We opted here to focus on surfing again and stayed at the SurfWG Camp in Canggu, an urban neighbourhood a short drive from the beach. We surfed twice per day (early morning and mid afternoon) at Kuta and Seminyak beaches where the easy beach breaks had us learning lots from the fabulous instructors (terima kasih (thank you) – to Pulba, Denny & Harry!). The warm water meant no wet suits (good) but more surf rash (bad). The surf camp life provides a great place to hang out, grab good cheap food, swim in the pool and chat with others from around the world. Our surf buddy for the week was a nice young man from Switzerland named Yannick, we bonded over our shared love of all things hockey and sport. Yannick played competitive hockey in Switzerland for many years before becoming a plumber-he came to Bali to escape the European winter for 3 weeks to learn all he could about surfing. We met many other young people at the camp/hostel mostly from Europe – it sure seems these Europeans have this vacation thing figured out!
An evening at the beach showed us the best sunset any of us had ever seen, lighting up the sky and reflecting off the water for over an hour. Finlay is currently working on a homeschool project on dams and waterways – and he and his brother built some intricate ones on the beach that night.
Lombok
We rented a family suite at the Holiday Resort Lombok and spent 10 days winding down. With their freedom to roam around independently and charge (virgin) cocktails and meals to the room for cheap, the boys eased into “resort life” like a couple of pros; including a family spa trip which had the boys experience their first real massage ($20 each for 60 mins); Jasper fell asleep and Finlay came out asking why we had been hiding this from him for so long. This is where we really came to understand the distinction between “travel” and “vacation”, with one requiring significantly more effort than the other. We met tons of new friends by the pool, pool table and beach that led to easy plans to meet up again and more time for relaxing for all. The boys now have buds to keep in touch with in Europe and Asia – who knows where this could lead someday – hopefully to some visits in the future. We could surf and snorkel right out front of the resort, with sea turtles looking like they are playing in the waves as they break near the beach, they look like they are indeed surfing themselves riding the waves and saying “right on dude”, very reminiscent of the sea turtle character in Finding Nemo. Finlay even spotted a 6 foot long leatherback!
The island of Lombok is about the same size as Bali but significantly less busy or touristed. Both are volcanic islands with giant mountains that trap the afternoon clouds leading to the occasional afternoon downpour. We travelled there by “fast” ferry (3 hours). Each Indonesian Island has its own local flavour – for example while Bali is 80% Hindu, Lombok is 80% Muslim. The five times daily call to prayer can be heard from the hundreds of mosques around Lombok – also likely influencing the much more subdued nightlife and fewer tourists. Outside of tourism, Lombok’s primary economies are rice, tobacco and pearl farming. Erin did walk away with a new pair of pearl earrings for about the price of a cup of coffee back home.
We did leave the resort to explore the rest of Lombok – with a day trip to Sendang Gile Waterfalls on the North side. We were told we NEEDED a local guide to trek to the tallest and best waterfalls on Lombok, thanks to some fear based marketing (they told us the local grey monkeys would attack us), but otherwise the waterfalls and trek through the mountain river was super fun. Some enterprising locals also sold Finlay on an innertube ride through a very narrow concrete aqueduct on the way down. Our efforts were rewarded by a lovely meal of Nasi Goreng and Coconut Curry overlooking the rainforest (4 meals, 2 beers, 2 smoothies = $23 Cdn).
On another day trip, we travelled to the villages of Koeta and Selong Belanak Beach on the South side of Lombok. Jasper found the best grilled street corn on the beach there (a new favourite snack) and we were able to see more of what life is like in the interior of the island.
Gili Trawangan
There are three Gilis (the Indo word for island) off the Northwest coast of Lombok. Each one can be walked around on foot in a couple of hours, and none of them allow cars. Everyone travels by bike, electric motorbike scooter or horse drawn carriage. They boast some of the most pristinely clear sea water filled with turtles, fish and other marine life – drawing thousands for snorkelling and scuba diving every year. We opted to stay on Gili Trawangan “Gili T”, the largest of the gilis. We are told that in high season, Gili T can be quite the party; as we arrived at the tail end of off season (not sure why, the weather is gorgeous right now?!?!?), we found it to be a great blend of fun and chill.
A highlight for us was spending the day with our new Danish friends, a family we met at the resort on Lombok who had an eerily similar schedule to us. They are 2 doctors taking a break for some extended travel with their family of 3 kids. Our kids and their kids all intertwined in ages and hung out effortlessly. We all met on Gili Meno for a day of snorkelling and hangouts before heading out in opposite travel directions.
We spent most of our four days on Gili exploring by bicycle. We found cool beaches, nice cafés and restaurants and a free beachside movie night where we watched the Pixar movie Coco surrounded by 100 other intrepid travellers on bean bag chairs drinking cold beer and eating pizza with the sun setting in the background and geckos scurrying across the screen. This made for a memorable experience. The boys were able to cruise around much of the island themselves. On our final day we rented e-scooters – the boys had noticed that children of all ages in this part of the world seem to be allowed to drive these. After some patient instruction from Ian (reminiscent of when he used to be a flight instructor I think!), the boys took the lead on driving around the island multiple times, and both did well, without hitting anything!!!
The scourge of plastic
A major eye opener for us in Indonesia has been the garbage. This is a problem on land and in the water. In most areas there does not appear to be any organized waste disposal, or education about how to reduce, reuse meaning you often see garbage piled in empty lots or being burned by the roadside. It also regularly washes up on the beach (at one beach on Bali, we were literally surfing through plastic bags – gross - but the next day the beach was clean thanks to a wind shift; we were left wondering where it all floats off to). As you cannot consume the water out of the tap, the single use plastic water bottle, along with the plastic bag, are the most common sites in garbage – piling up and never breaking down. Our surf camp provided reusable water bottles to refill with bottomless filtered water; Gili Trawangan as an entire island has started moving back to glass bottles, for all water in hotels and restaurants. We hope these efforts can turn the tide against this scourge.
Time Flies
We now have only 2.5 months to go in our travels – and time seems to be accelerating. We leave Indonesia feeling wow’d by the little slice of this country we have experienced, everywhere people have been so happy, friendly and welcoming. Looking forward to returning one day to experience more of this country, for those keeping track we explored 4 islands. Only 16,495 to check out next time. We are excited about our next adventures in Vietnam.
Jasper
My favourite part of Indonesia was meeting new friends. Their names were Alfred, Valdemar and Elvira and they are from Denmark. We played a lot and we stayed at the same resort as them called Holiday Resort Lombok. On Gili Trawangan we got to DRIVE electric motorbikes. It was harder than it looks, you can over control a lot but I got the hang of it.
Finlay
I really enjoyed Indonesia. It is a wonderful country because the people are so nice and the stuff is so cheap. While we were here, we went to a wonderful surf camp with really nice staff. I feel like I learned so many new things about surfing. After the surf camp we went to a resort on Lombok where we met a whole bunch of new friends from Denmark, Jakarta and Turkey. One family we even reconvened with a week later on Gili Meno, an island next to the one that we were staying on called Gili Trawangan. While we were there I got to drive a motorcycle.
And... you got to drive a motorcycle, Finlay & Jasper?!!!! How cool!
Fantastic photos!! The sunsets - WOW! And so many of your other photos also struck me as really beautiful/great... because of the subjects (of course!), the stories they tell, and also just for composition. 👍👍 Thank you for sharing them, and continuing to tell us all about your adventures! Sending love from Calgary.