Southern Lombok, near Mawe
I spent the past week in southern Lombok, the Indonesian island to the east of Bali. While getting there from Vietnam involved three flights aboard cramped budget airlines, the long journey was worth it. From Jakarta there are direct flights to Lombok’s new airport in Praya, from where it’s about a forty minute drive to Kuta Lombok, which is (thankfully) nothing like Kuta Bali. Since my husband loves to surf we spent a lot of time riding a motorbike along incredibly rutted, steep and treacherous dirt roads in search of waves. While the area’s unpaved roads aren’t for the faint-of-heart, again, the trips were worth it, offering views of steep mountains, terraced rice paddies and coconut plantations and access to utterly deserted beaches that fit my definition of paradise.