While an ambitious attempt to paddle around Bali’s neighboring island to the east doesn’t quite end in success, it does pay off in a host of other ways.

Photographs by Ian Lloyd Neubauer

The author on Gili Gede, the starting point of his adventure.

Every day, thousands of tourists arrive at Gili Trawangan, one of three small resort isles (gili means “small island” in the indigenous Sasak language) parked off Lombok’s northwest coast. But only a fraction of that number venture to the Southern Gilis, a necklace of 13 mostly uninhabited specks of land peppering the quiet waters off the Sekatong Peninsula. Accessible from Bali by speedboat, they also offer an ideal starting point for my quest to circumnavigate Lombok’s 250-kilometer-long coastline in a kayak.

The journey is not without risk. I’ve already been warned that towering sea cliffs and razor-sharp coral reefs make Lombok’s south coast unnavigable for a craft like mine: a hard-edged, high-tech inflatable kayak inside of which I have stowed camping equipment, water bottles, and a fortnight’s supply of canned food. But the sea could not be calmer as I launch from a pier at Gili Gede, the largest of the Southern Gilis. It’s a bluebird day and the bay is gin-clear, revealing coral gardens and green sea turtles that poke their heads out of the water for a breath before darting back below.

I spend my first night in a bungalow property on Gili Sudak, the most easterly of the island group. There is only one other guest, a Russian draft dodger who’s been here for weeks. “I like it here because it’s an organic place: natural, simple, slow,” he says.

It takes me three days to reach the northern Gili Islands. I had planned to spend a night relaxing on Gili Air, the smallest of the three, but choppy seas prevent me from crossing the channel. Instead, I make landfall at Tanjung, a mainland village that’s home to friendly Sasak fishers and a small community of expats and yachties. Come sunset they congregate at Le Chaudron, the beachfront restaurant at Rinjani Beach Eco Resort. Among them is Ali, a Frenchman who, like so many people I meet on this trip, is fascinated by my kayak and the audacity of my voyage. After a round of Bintang beers, he invites me to stay a night at his home some 20 kilometers up the coast, which I reach at dusk the following day.

Grilled fish at the Rinjani Beach Eco Resort.

The author’s kayak beached in a mangrove-fringed cove at Gili Lawang.

After meeting at our rendezvous point, we load my kayak into Ali’s pickup truck and drive to the inland village where he lives in rural bliss with his Sasak wife and kids. “Why did I go to all the trouble to bring you here? It was no trouble at all,” he says. “And I didn’t want you to sleep on the beach.”

The following night I have no choice. Barring a few fishing hamlets and shrimp farms, the north coast of Lombok is thinly populated and overshadowed by the 3,726-meter summit of Mount Rinjani, Indonesia’s second-highest volcano. The solitude is at times unnerving, but it also offers a rare opportunity for retrospection sans distraction. It’s just me and the ocean, and the only thing I need to do is row.

After passing a wide dry river mouth I make landfall at a village on Kedatuan Beach. Starved for entertainment, the locals stare at me and gossip with the attention normally reserved for the arrival of aliens as I heat my dinner on a compact gas stove. By nightfall, I can take no more of it and move 100 meters up the beach, where I pitch my tent and fall asleep to the sound of crashing waves.

There are no such dramas the following night when I camp at Gili Lawang, one of two uninhabited islands that neighbor each other off the northeast corner of Lombok. If the Southern Gilis are something of a secret, these are a lost world, pancake-flat and edged in fine white sand that could have been scooped straight out of the Maldives. In the morning I go snorkeling in the channel between them, a busy underwater highway where a kaleidoscope of fishes pulse around equally colorful coral gardens. I see scores of small reef sharks, a turtle as big as a truck tire, and a mottled brown creature hovering in the shallows that I believe to be a carpet shark.

As I continue south signs of human life slowly return, first in the form of fishermen standing waist-deep in the ocean casting lines off reefs, followed by the telltale shape of onion-domed mosques and, according to my online map, three small resorts. I choose the most southerly, the East Lombok Dive Hotel, which has a little restaurant and only three simple rooms. I stay for two nights to give my aching back and shoulders time to recover while watching the lagoon that forms on the reef at high tide turn from blue to orange, pink and red before settling on a deep shade of purple. “It’s so peaceful here, no one hassles you, it’s absolute paradise,” says co-owner Rodger Stewart, a New Zealander.

Sasak fishermen paddling a dugout canoe off the north coast of Lombok.

Après-paddle comfort at another of Lombok’s low-key beach resorts.

There are few things more soulful than seeing the sun rise over the ocean while paddling almost silently through the water—something I experience after setting off at 6 a.m. in an effort to reach the nearest campsite 34 kilometers to the south. The first couple hours are magical as I skirt along the back of waves and along palm-fringed beaches. But as the tide pulls out, I’m forced to paddle farther and farther out to sea to avoid being swallowed by the surf and dashed against coral reefs. I also have to keep a constant watch for rogue waves that come at me from different directions.

After five hours of almost nonstop exertion, I reach a peninsula where an exposed reef extends nearly a kilometer into the sea. I consider paddling around it, but the surf is becoming mountainous and I’m almost taken out by a particularly tall wave. I realize that my journey around Lombok must end here, at the three-quarters mark. Waiting for the opportune moment to ride a wave to the coast, I scream like a banshee with joy until, only meters before making landfall, the ocean flips me over like a toy: a goodbye kiss.

Back on dry land, I deflate my kayak, squeeze it into a large backpack, and walk to a road where I stick my thumb out for a lift. I may have failed to complete my quest, but it doesn’t feel like failure. I’ve seen incomparable beauty, made new friends, left no carbon footprint. And to the best of my knowledge, I’m the first person to have attempted, and nearly succeeded, to kayak around Lombok solo.

The Lowdown on Lombok

GETTING THERE

Gili Getaway operates fast boats daily between Bali’s Serangan Harbor and Gili Gede, a two-hour trip. Alternately, it’s a 20-minute flight to Lombok from Bali.

PADDLE POWER

The adventure described in this article is strictly DIY, though kayak rentals are widely available through local outfitters like Gili Trawangan– based Blue Paddle.

This article originally appeared in the December 2023/February 2024 print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“A Lap Around Lombok”).

Circumnavigating Lombok in a Kayak

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