The days passed between Gili Air and Lombok have certainly been more relaxed than the previous ones, I have been forced not to go hiking / difficult and challenging paths, but to enjoy the sun, the sea, obviously exploring the surroundings, because as you know how I can stand still for a long time.
Already from my visit to Gili Air, I have been able to see with my own eyes how little tourism is happening to places, identities, and landscapes. It builds for tourists, those coming from here to say they’ve been to Indonesia when Indonesia has not seen anything. Here, that tourism there, that crap, that superficial, is ruining the landscape and the identity of the paradises of Southeast Asia.
Because in the end, it is always demand and supply, it is market law, and this law has no limits.
And the hardest and most interesting aspect of this phenomenon is that those tourists, always looking for someone unique and extraordinary, when they realize that that much different and unique moment is more, they are heading towards new goals. Because that place until a few years little known or beautiful just because it is quiet now is a succession of hotels, resorts, etc.
This is the feeling I spent a few days at Gili Air, a place definitely suitable if you are interested in diving. But if you are looking for places not too frequent then maybe we recommend opting for Gili Meno or directly other more difficult islands to reach.
Anyway, after a quick stop at Gili Air, I spent a few days at Lombok Island.
The island of Lombok seems to be a place not yet influenced by mass tourism with wild beaches and landscapes. Moving from one beach to the other with the bike, I had the opportunity to also enjoy inner areas, rural areas, where you can have a true idea of how real local life and where there will be no tourists where men, women, and children, are amazed and happy to see strange and different faces.
The beaches of Kuta Lombok, Tanjung Aan Beach, and Pantai are a bit marvelous, the pink beach because it is not easy to reach, is not very busy and very quiet.
There are so many beaches that deserve to be visited and quoted, but the time I got was unfortunately not so much so I decided to pick an area and enjoy it fully without running and without haste.
But unfortunately, the shadows of mass tourism seem to change this island too soon.
Walking through the streets, now with small shops, owned by the inhabitants, is aware that this will probably disappear or at least change. In Kuta Beach people are already transforming a sandy area into a cemented and tiled unit with probably an attached parking space.
Going to Lombok now means tasting a tourist atmosphere, but still authentic, not changed by tourists and tourists.
We must let governments understand that places should not change because of tourists. Tourism can be an opportunity to live better, not to destroy the countries, landscapes or even more serious cultures.