On the tropics and on the southern hemisphere that vastly sweeps through the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean of the humongous Asia and tiny Australia, this is among countries – if not the only country where weather instruments go ding-a-ling even within seconds.
Livable, shipshape and fertile Indonesia it is!
Charming. Even with the rush and fever towards the grander scale of socio-economic power and superiority.
That’s adventure; covering three hops.
It commenced with the nine-hour late evening flight from the Zayed International Airport of the UAE’s capital of Abu Dhabi to the Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport within the enclave of the Denpasar City of the world-famous Bali Province.
Nicknamed the “Island of a Thousand Mosques” as every nook and kampong (village) may have mini to massive masjids, Lombok, part of the Nusa Tenggara Province is a sea of sandy browns, lush, and jagged whites.
So bubble was the Wallace Line that demonstrates how geography, topography and everything that God had allowed to occur eons of long ago, affect biodiversity, even within a country and could eventually become the unworldly treasures and pleasures of the simple and the gliteterati. Welcome to the searing hot and humid yet placid Selong Belanak Beach in Praya Barat. I wondered how 93 travel agents across Indonesia, VietNam and Malaysia flashed their smiles against the Instagrammable stunning horizon.
Healthy breathing in cosmopolitan megapolis Jakarta.
At the Pertamina Mandalika International Circuit with three varying knolls jutting through the 4.3-kilometre race track of 15 pitstops, located in Kuta, unavoidable it was, to be a solitary far-off spectator at a Reds versus Blues soccer game near the beach of the quiet Indian Ocean and which lasted until the slowly-but-surely dip of the only light source of the moon and stars – gave way to another enchantment.
Brave it was for Sasak Princess Mandalika of the folkloric past to dive – and be gobbled up – by the waves after she declared how unbearable it would be for her “to hurt anyone’s feelings” if she would choose among her countless high-and-mighty princes from near-and-far kingdoms.
Pitiable if one fails to conquer the sea to the other islands such as the triplets namely Gili Air, Gili Meno and Gili Trawangan in the North Lombok Regency.
The yacht that becomes a mirror for the aquarium beauty of schools of fish and corals particularly at Gili Meno.
Funny it had been to watch a sea of multi-national snorkelers trail after at least one yellow tortoise that popped its head on the Lombok Strait surrounding the largest of the triplets – Gili Trawangan that happens to be the most-developed and most-populated – and – where a towering ancient tree remains to be the witness to all its past, present and God-willing, its future.
Whoa! What’s that? Where’s that?
Chimed one after the other in the stillness of the waters and the whirring of the vessel that eventually dwarfed as a big ferry, loaded with passengers, bound for Bali, blasted with danceable-s.
Bali. Oh. Bali hai!
Go north! Head north!
Be mesmerised and more.
Cosmopolitan megapolis Jakarta sans monstrous traffic jams and breathing healthily because of adroit policies and schemes.
The camera please!
