Lombok is what Bali was thirty years ago: dreamy, almost empty beaches, rice paddies, traditional villages and a giant volcano presiding over the horizon, but without the crowds or traffic of its famous neighbour. A short hop by plane or ferry east of Bali, this island offers a more authentic and peaceful Indonesia, home to the Sasak people, majority Muslim, with their own language, woven textile crafts and spicy cuisine. It's the perfect destination for anyone seeking nature, surf and culture away from the hustle.
The soul of Lombok is Mount Rinjani, a 3,726-metre volcano that is Indonesia's second highest and one of the great treks of Southeast Asia: climbing to its crater, with its turquoise lake and smoking cone inside, and watching sunrise from the summit is an unforgettable experience. But Lombok is much more than its mountain: in the south are the surf beaches of Kuta Lombok, Tanjung Aan and Selong Belanak; in the north, the jungle waterfalls of Senaru; and all over the island, Sasak villages where time seems to stand still, plus the legendary pink-sand Pink Beach.
This guide covers Lombok with a practical eye: how to get there and get around an island more rustic than Bali, how to organise (or not) the Rinjani trek with its permits and prices, which beaches and waterfalls not to miss, how to approach Sasak culture respectfully, and when to go for the best weather. One tip: Lombok rewards the patient, curious traveller who goes slower, respects local customs and is willing to step off the well-trodden path.
Lombok's history is the history of its people, the Sasak, descendants of ancient Austronesian settlers who populated the island millennia ago. In the 14th century, Lombok fell within the orbit of the Javanese Majapahit empire. Islam arrived around the 15th-16th century, but the Sasak blended it with Hindu-Buddhist and ancestral beliefs, giving rise to a unique syncretic religion, 'Wetu Telu' ('three times'), whose followers pray three times a day instead of five, still alive in remote villages such as Bayan, at the foot of Rinjani. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Balinese kingdom of Karangasem conquered western Lombok and imposed Hindu rule over the Muslim Sasak, a tension that shaped the island. In 1894, the Dutch intervened, taking advantage of a Sasak rebellion against the Balinese rajas and, after a bloody campaign, annexed Lombok to the Dutch East Indies. With Indonesian independence in 1945, Lombok became part of the province of West Nusa Tenggara. For decades it lived in Bali's tourist shadow, until in the 21st century it began developing its own nature and beach tourism, shaken in 2018 by a series of devastating earthquakes from which it recovered. The full story, with the Sasak, the Balinese rajas and Rinjani, is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The arc of islands east of Bali: Lombok and the Sasak, the Komodo dragons, Catholic Flores with its prehistoric 'hobbit', and Wallace's biological frontier.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The history of Lombok is, above all, the history of the Sasak, the people who have lived on the island for thousands of years and who today make up about 85% of its population. The Sasak descend from ancient Austronesian settlers who spread across the Indonesian archipelago in waves of prehistoric migration. They brought rice farming, seafaring and a way of life organised around villages. For centuries they farmed the island's fertile volcanic soils, weaving, growing crops and honouring the spirits of nature, with the great Rinjani volcano at the sacred centre of their world.
Rinjani is not just the highest mountain on Lombok: it is the island's spiritual heart. For the Sasak (and also for the Balinese Hindus who live in the west of the island), the volcano and its crater lake, Segara Anak, are sacred places. According to legend, the mountain is the throne of the goddess Dewi Anjani, queen of the spirits and daughter of a king and a fairy, who rules the unseen world from the summit. Even today, Hindu and Sasak pilgrims climb to the crater lake to leave offerings and perform rituals, throwing gold objects into its waters as a prayer.
Little is documented about the early centuries of Sasak history. Even so, their language, their 'ikat' and 'songket' textiles, their thatched-roof houses and raised rice barns ('lumbung'), and their traditional villages, which you can still visit in Sade or Rambitan, are living proof of an ancient culture that outlasted every empire that passed through the island.
In the 14th century, Lombok came under the influence of Majapahit, the great Hindu-Buddhist Javanese empire that spread its reach across much of the archipelago under its famous prime minister Gajah Mada. This Javanese presence left a cultural mark on the island, although the Sasak largely kept their own identity and ancestral beliefs. The island was split into small Sasak principalities and kingdoms with no strong political unity, which left it exposed to its powerful neighbours.
Islam arrived around the 15th and 16th centuries, spreading to Lombok from Java and along the archipelago's trade routes. But the Sasak did not adopt an orthodox version. They blended Islam with their old Hindu-Buddhist and animist beliefs, creating a unique syncretic religion called 'Wetu Telu', which means 'three times'. Its followers pray three times a day (instead of the five required by orthodox Islam, or 'Waktu Lima') and combine Islamic practices with the worship of ancestors and nature spirits, Rinjani included.
Wetu Telu was the main faith of the Sasak for centuries. It has been declining in the face of orthodox Islam, but it still survives in remote villages, especially in Bayan, at the foot of Rinjani and seen as its stronghold, and in villages such as Sembalun, Rambitan and Sade. It is one of the most distinctive features of Lombok's culture, and it shows how the great religions changed when they reached these islands and mixed with local traditions.
From the 17th century, the balance of power on Lombok shifted with the arrival of a neighbouring power: the Balinese kingdom of Karangasem, in eastern Bali. Taking advantage of the political divisions among the Sasak principalities, the Balinese gradually conquered and settled western Lombok, extending their rule through the 17th and 18th centuries. They set up Balinese courts and built Hindu temples and palaces. The result was a system in which a Balinese Hindu minority ruled over a Muslim Sasak majority.
This created a deep tension that ran through the island's history. The Balinese rajas controlled power, land and water, while the Sasak peasants, especially those in the east, carried the burden of taxes and duties and resented being ruled by an elite of another religion. The Balinese legacy is still visible in western Lombok today, in temples such as Pura Batu Bolong and the large Pura Lingsar complex. Pura Lingsar is unique in the world because it brings Balinese Hindu worship and Sasak Wetu Telu together in a single compound, a symbol of centuries of forced coexistence between the two communities.
Balinese rule reached its peak under the kingdom of Mataram-Karangasem, which came to control all of Lombok and even part of eastern Bali. But Sasak discontent, simmering for generations, would finally boil over at the end of the 19th century and, without meaning to, open the door to a new master: the Dutch.
At the end of the 19th century, the Sasak of eastern Lombok, fed up with the rule of the Balinese rajas, rose up in revolt. Looking for allies against their rulers, they turned to the colonial power that already controlled much of Indonesia: the Netherlands. The Dutch were always keen to expand their empire in the East Indies, and they saw their chance. In 1894 they sent a military expedition to Lombok, claiming they were there to support the Sasak and restore order.
The campaign was brutal. At first, Balinese forces dealt the Dutch a humiliating defeat in a night attack that left hundreds of European casualties, an episode that shocked the Netherlands. The response was ruthless. The Dutch came back with reinforcements and artillery, shelled the palaces of the Balinese rajas and crushed their resistance. The Mataram-Karangasem court fell, the old raja was captured and sent into exile, and centuries of Balinese rule over the island ended with him.
The outcome, however, was not the freedom the Sasak had hoped for: they simply swapped one master for another. Lombok became part of the Dutch East Indies as a Dutch colony, subject to taxes, forced labour and a foreign administration. The 1894 conquest closed the era of the kingdoms and opened half a century of colonial rule, which would only end with Indonesian independence in the 20th century.
After the Japanese occupation during the Second World War and Indonesia's declaration of independence in 1945, Lombok became part of the new republic, in the province of West Nusa Tenggara, with Mataram as its capital. For decades it was a farming island and a fairly poor one, in the shadow of its famous neighbour Bali. Life there was shaped by droughts, recurring famines and a subsistence economy based on rice, tobacco and Sasak handicrafts.
Tourism brought change. From the late 20th century, travellers looking for a quieter, more authentic alternative to Bali began to arrive, first in Senggigi on the west coast and then in the Gili Islands and the south (Kuta Lombok). The Rinjani trek, the surf beaches of the south and Pink Beach gradually became famous around the world. The government pushed development with projects such as the new international airport (2011) and, more recently, the Mandalika motorcycle racing circuit in the south, which has hosted world championship races.
But the road has not been easy. In August 2018, a series of powerful earthquakes struck Lombok, killing more than five hundred people, destroying tens of thousands of homes and dealing a heavy blow to tourism, with damage even on the Rinjani trails. The island, hardened by its history, rebuilt and recovered, only to be held back again by the 2020-21 pandemic before getting back on its feet once more. Today Lombok walks a delicate line: growing as a destination for nature and culture without losing what makes it special, the Sasak authenticity and unspoilt landscapes that Bali left behind on its way to success.
