Lombok island sits just across a narrow strait from Bali. But unlike its sister island — a travel Mecca that has become even more popular thanks to Russian and Chinese package tours — Lombok has remained largely in the shadows, save for a trickle of foreign travelers who have discovered its charms.
Now the bucolic island is gaining a following among tourists turned off by the commercialization of Bali. A number of posh boutique resorts have recently sprung up along Lombok’s western coast to cater to this crowd. They serve capiroscas and other fancy cocktails on the beach at sundown, but are just a stone’s throw away from rural, unspoiled countryside, much as Bali was four decades ago.
Lombok’s new wave of resorts marks the latest attempt by the island to become a serious tourist draw. Like travel destinations throughout the region, Lombok has battled to overcome a series of setbacks, including the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s and terrorist attacks in Bali a few years ago. Despite new challenges on the horizon, including a global recession, locals here are hoping that a major investment from a Middle Eastern developer, combined with Westerners’ desires for less expensive resort alternatives in the area, will finally put Lombok on the tourist map.
The standard rooms at the stylish Qunci Pool Villas, which opened this summer near Senggigi Beach, cost less than $100 a night, at least a third less than rooms at a comparable upscale hotel in Bali. The resort also has a top-notch spa offering lulur, a traditional Indonesian body scrub that uses a paste made from sandalwood, tumeric and rice flower.
About 15 miles up the coast, the newly opened Hotel Tugu Lombok, part of the high-end Indonesian Tugu chain, has rooms appointed with antique Javanese furniture that evoke the Dutch colonial era. The Lombok Golf Kosaido Country Club, designed by former British Open champion Peter Thomson of Australia, is just next door. Farther north, there’s an Oberoi Hotel, part of the India-based chain of luxury resorts.
And just off the coast, on the largest of three tiny islands known as the Gilis, an Australian couple has opened the 23-room Beach House Resort, one of a handful of modern hotels that have sprung up there in the past few years. The resort ships in fresh water daily from the Lombok mainland to fill its private-villa pools. (Fresh water is in short supply on the island.) It’s quite a change from even five years ago, when accommodations on the Gilis amounted to little more than spartan bungalows with saltwater showers and catered to scuba divers and backpackers who arrived by traditional fishing craft. Still, the little islands retain their rugged feel, with horse and carriage the only mode of public transport.
Lombok’s shabby-chic image and stunning natural beauty (Mount Rinjani, Indonesia’s second-highest peak, is a popular destination for trekkers) is also attracting big outside investors. Emaar Properties, the Middle Eastern developer that is erecting the world’s tallest skyscraper in Dubai, is investing $600 million in a joint venture with the Indonesian government to build a five-star, 10-hotel complex on Lombok’s south coast. The plans include an Armani-branded resort, vacation homes, exclusive shops and marinas, according to Maureen Ferry Cuellar, Emaar’s assistant director of development.
Lombok’s potential has been touted before and never come to much. Some people in the travel business here fear the global economic recession could thwart the island’s latest ambitions once again. “Every time Lombok is ready to take off, something happens,” says American Scott Coffey, a former stockbroker who owns the Qunci Pool Villas.
In the early 1990s, the then-government of Suharto, the dictator who ruled Indonesia from 1967 to 1998, developed the beach at Senggigi, which has a big Sheraton resort. The area did well for a while but the Asian financial crisis in 1997-98, followed by the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings and another attack on a Bali beach in 2005, had a devastating effect on Lombok’s tourism industry.
The financial crash also put on hold another ambitious plan by Suharto’s business cronies to turn a 10-mile stretch of pristine beaches and bays on the southern coast into a mega-resort. It was modeled after the luxurious Nusa Dua complex, which kick-started Bali’s development in the late 1980s. This will be the site of the venture by Emaar. The company agreed to buy the land from the Indonesian government, which took it over after the financial crisis, and plans to begin construction next year; phase one is scheduled to open by 2011.
Indonesia has made huge strides in the last few years to curb terrorism, including making scores of arrests. Earlier this year, the U.S. lifted its travel warnings on the country, and travelers and expats here say they feel perfectly safe.
But the difficulty of getting to Lombok has continued to stunt its growth. While many international airlines fly direct to Bali, Lombok has only a few flights a week from Singapore. The usual route to the island is a short hop from Bali in a twin-prop plane, but since mid-2007, the European Union has banned EU-based tour operators from selling Indonesian domestic flights, after a series of deadly crashes in the archipelago in recent years.
None of those incidents involved the private operators who run flights between Bali and Lombok, however. And Indonesia has taken serious steps to improve its overall air-safety record in the past year, raising hopes that the EU ban soon will be lifted. In the meantime, many tourists buy tickets directly from Indonesian travel agents to work around the EU ban.
As part of the deal with Emaar, the Indonesian government is constructing a modern airport only 20 minutes from the planned development. Roads are being upgraded across the island as well.
Lombok’s boosters want to avoid the kind of overzealous building that some say has scarred large swaths of Bali. “We can set up regulations to stop it becoming too crowded,” says M. Zainal Majdi, the governor of West Nusa Tenggara province, of which Lombok is the administrative center. “We can learn from mistakes over there.”
Visitors who want a taste of Lombok’s southern coast before Emaar’s development gets underway can stay at the four-star, 100-room Novotel Mandalika Resort, the only large hotel in the area. Putri Nyale beach, on which it is situated, rivals anything on Bali, say tourists and expats. On a hilltop overlooking the beach, Pierre Emmanuel Barthe, a former French movie executive, has built an isolated villa with stunning ocean views. “It’s really beautiful,” he says. “Bali is too overcrowded now.”
Those selling Lombok as the “unspoiled Bali” have many historical connections to draw upon. In the 18th century, a Hindu Balinese king conquered much of the island, and his progeny ruled until the Dutch pushed them out at the turn of the 20th century. Today, 10% of Lombok’s population, mainly in the western part of the island, are of Balinese origin, and the island is dotted with Hindu shrines. In the town of Narmada, the same king built a temple on a hill as a replica of Mount Rinjani, an ancient pilgrimage site. On days leading up to a full moon, the temple in the palace is festooned with garlands of flowers and baskets of fruit offerings.
Yet Lombok’s culture is also distinct from Bali’s, and is the product of a complex cultural mixing. Islam arrived here in the 16th century and over time the dominant ethnic group — the Sasaks, who today make up 85% of the population — became Muslim. But as in many parts of Indonesia, orthodox teachings were only partially embraced. The mountain village of Bayan, in the northern part of the island, is the center of Wetu Telu, a religion that blends elements of Muslim, Hindu and animist beliefs. Followers pray three times a day, instead of Islam’s standard five.
Nearby, Mount Rinjani is the spiritual heart of Lombok’s animist traditions. It is also the place where Alfred Russel Wallace, the noted Victorian explorer and naturalist, observed the differences between bird species on Bali and on Lombok. He later identified the Wallace Line, which runs between the islands and divides Indonesia into two distinct parts: one where the birds and animals are more closely related to those found in Asia and the other to those in Australasia.
Taking a two-day trek to the 12,224-foot-high summit of Rinjani is the perfect way to crown a visit to Lombok. Starting off under the jungle canopy at its base, travelers are likely to see wild pigs and black-leaf monkeys along the way, before arriving for the night at the rim of the mountain’s lake-filled volcanic crater.
The steep push for the summit begins before daybreak the next morning. As dawn approaches, the circular contours of Lombok become visible below. And to the west, across the Lombok Strait, a faint outline of Bali’s Mount Agung becomes visible through the morning mist.
News by The Wall Street Journal Travel - online.wsj.com
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