Read an Excerpt
Bali is the original magical isle. From the earliest years after
its bloody incorporation into the expanding territories of the
Dutch East Indies in the early 20th century, Westerners have
been entranced by the heady combination of fabulous landscape
and mesmerizing culture. Streams cascade down impossibly
green mountainsides from sacred crater lakes, while dance
dramas are performed to please the gods. Artists and the
artistically inclined settled, worked and died amidst the rice
fields and temples, reluctant to leave their Garden of Eden.
The advent of cheap air travel has brought increasing numbers
of visitors, interested more in the attractions of the beach than
of the temple and theatre. Today, hundreds of thousands of
people visit Bali, many scarcely aware of the world beyond the
sun lounger and the cocktail shaker. But while Bali may have
changed – and the notion that the island is on the verge of being
‘ruined’ is a constant motif in writings about the island from the
1930s – the singular magic of the place has not been erased.
Lombok has been earmarked for tourist development for
decades, on the pretext that it is in a position to emulate Bali’s
success. Whether the development plans will ever come to fruition
is another matter and for the time being it remains a relatively
quiet alternative to Bali, although considerably busier and more
developed than the islands to the east. The number of visitors
to Lombok is generally dependent on the numbers visiting Bali,
and since the bombs, tourism in Lombok has very much taken a
beating. While there are a number of first-class hotels along the
beaches away from these tourist areas, Lombok is still ‘traditional’
and foreigners are a comparative novelty.
