I’m lying face down in the hot sand, laughing so hard I can’t breathe. My board's twenty feet away, stuck nose-first in a bush, and a stunned goat is staring at me like I just cannonballed into its front yard. Not my smoothest dismount.
Welcome to Ekas Bay.
I came out here because, like you, I was over it. Bali had become... not what it used to be. One too many dropped-in waves at Medewi, surf guides screaming directions at grown adults, Insta-models doing yoga on longboards. It all started to feel like performance, not surfing.
So I booked a ferry to Lombok.
This isn't my first dance with Lombok, Indonesia. I’ve spent a few years bouncing around here, sneaking out for early sessions and late sambal nights between freelance gigs. But this time, I wanted something different. Something quieter. Something that reminded me why I fell in love with surfing in the first place.
And man, did I find it.
Let’s rewind.
It’s 5:30 a.m. I’m on the back of a borrowed scooter, barefoot, board wedged under one arm, winding my way through sleepy villages south of Awang. The air's thick with woodsmoke and the scent of fried bananas. Kids in school uniforms wave as I pass. I pull up to the beach at Ekas and there’s no one. Not. One. Person.
I paddle out alone under a cotton-candy sunrise.
The left is mellow this morning. Chest-high and clean, peeling forever across the reef. Ideal for someone like me — intermediate, not trying to be a hero, just chasing that feeling. Each ride stretches longer than the last until I’m hooting out loud, drunk on solitude and saltwater.
Later, I meet Pak Hadi at the warung near the beach. He serves me the best mie goreng I’ve had in months — spicy, just-greasy-enough, with a wedge of tangy lime and a cold Bintang that basically resets my soul. We chat in broken Bahasa and broken English and somehow, we really talk. About waves. About his son wanting to be a tour guide. About how the sea is changing.
He tells me where to find an uncrowded right a few clicks north — won’t name it here, but ask at the warung by the blue boats. You’ll know it when you see it.
The surprise?
I never expected to like the inland parts of Lombok so much. One off-day, I rented a beat-up motorbike and headed into Tetebatu. No waves, just green — terraced rice fields, waterfalls, monkeys stealing snacks from my bag. Smelled like cloves and wet leaves. An older woman selling jackfruit from a roadside stall let me sample some; the texture was like chewing on soft, sticky sunshine.
It was nothing like the coast, and exactly what I needed.
Of course, not everything went smoothly.
There was that time I tried to DIY a trip to a lesser-known spot near Sekotong. Maps.me showed one road, but it turned out to be a riverbed disguised as a trail. Three hours later, sunburnt, dehydrated, and muttering curses at Google Maps, I arrived to find blown-out surf and two suspicious-looking dogs that definitely didn’t want me hanging around.
Lesson learned: always ask a local before venturing off maps. They're better than any Lombok Indonesia travel guide you'll find online. And bring more water than you think you need.
So, are all the decent breaks zoos now?
Nah.
Yes, Kuta gets crowded, and Gerupuk looks like a beginner’s Disneyland some mornings. But drive a little farther, ask around a little more. Be polite. Smile. People will point you in the right direction—often literally.
Some of my favorite waves were ones I couldn’t have found with a guidebook. Like that random reef break east of Bangko-Bangko where I shared perfect head-high peelers with just three other people. One of them, a quiet guy from Mataram named Doni, fist-bumped me after I caught my best wave of the trip.
He said, "That one… like dream."
Exactly.
By the end of the trip, my limbs are jelly, the tip of my nose basically leather, and my heart full. Everything feels lighter here. Time moves slower, in the best way. There’s still magic left in these islands — you just have to step past the Instagram queues and actually go looking for it.
If you’re putting together a Lombok Indonesia itinerary for 2025, here’s my honest take: skip the box-ticking. Stay longer in fewer places. Rent a scooter. Talk to locals. Learn a few Bahasa words. Surf smaller spots. Eat from roadside stalls. And maybe don’t post geotags to TikTok.
And if you get the chance — seriously — book a scenic flight with FlyLombok.id.
I did it on a whim toward the end of my trip. A friend had an extra seat. We soared above the turquoise bays I had surfed, past clifftop temples and tangled green hills. Seeing Lombok from the air hit me harder than expected. All those little villages, winding roads, hidden coves. All those moments I had lived, now patched together like some messy, beautiful mosaic.
From up there, I could finally see the whole story.
And yeah — it’s still worth telling.