Though Kingsley and I have been to Bali many time and absolutely love Bali, I really enjoyed our time in Lombok. Bali has many more five star hotels and fancy restaurants but it is also overrun with tourists and the traffic is almost unbearable. I personally loved the simple natural beauty and quiet pace of life in Lombok.
Lombok and Bali are very close neighbors, you can even see Mount Agung in Bali across the water in the photo below. However, interestingly the two islands are separated by an imaginary boundary know as the Wallace Line which marks the division of Asian and Australian flora and fauna. Lombok's fauna has more in common with Australia.
Lombok is also a melting pot of cultures with 70% of the islands population being Sasak which are the indigenous people of Lombok who follow the muslim religion. The remaining population are Hindu. Both of these cultures have many religious ceremonies, dances and traditions but the two cultures live harmoniously together. In the Kampung (village) in the Keradangan Valley where we stayed in Lombok there were Balinese Hindu and Sasak living side by side. Driving through this village one day we say a muslim tradition called "funny soccer" where the men dress up in womens clothing and play sock in a muddy wet field while the whole village watches and cheers them on. On another day we visited a Hindu temple and observed a formal Hindu ceremony take place.
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Indonesia
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