People Love Kuta Lombok. It Makes Me Feel Uneasy.

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]I've just arrived in Couta Lombok and it's a bit of a mad house down here and I wanted to sort of take a look around, see what the story is today, but also decide if it would be a place that I'd be willing to live because that's one of the things I've been thinking about over here in Lombok. Is is it a place I could live? Um, it's like I've just arrived and it's amazing how much construction there is. Honestly, it is phenomenal.

[00:00:23]I've barely ever seen this anywhere else in the world except Tulum in Mexico and Chungu in Bali. And maybe this is the new one of those places. I don't know.

[00:00:32]But there's a huge amount of money coming in, a lot of construction going on. So, let's check out this town and see what it's all about. I'm walking south along the main road, Jalan Ray Kuta. And the reason I'm doing that is I want to sort of get a feel for what it sort of uh is like sort of just out of the main tourist zone. And then as we walk into the main tourist zone, what it sort of feels like there, my hotel is actually back even further away from the beach. It's not even really walking distance to the beach, my little hotel.

[00:00:59]Um, I'll show you it after uh towards the end of the video because it'll be sort of instructive on sort of what you can get for your money here. This is sort of uh southern Lombok and because it's southern Lombok, it's all obviously a surfing destination. People typically in the past came here to surf all along the southern coast. there's great beaches for surfing and sort of was opened up by the surface originally and Cuda Lombok I mean it was pretty popular even sort of 15 20 years ago had some popularity but not wasn't viral or anything like that but it was you know it was a place that people went on holidays for sure but what I've been sort of hearing over the past I don't know couple of years 3 4 years I've been hearing Couta Lombok being mentioned more and more and more which I found a little bit surprising because it was a little bit of I don't know, a bit of a daggy place, you know, 10 years ago wasn't a place that people generally went. But what I'm seeing here right now, when we talk about barley, barley being a little bit quiet is a different scenario here. This feels very, very busy with foreign tourists, very busy. When you're looking for a place to live, uh, when I and when I was looking for a place to live in Bali, it's not just about what feels right, but it's also some practical issues that you need to take into account like is it close to hospitals?

[00:02:15]Is it close to the airport? Are the roads easy to ride along at night? Like I was speaking to a guy earlier today, an Aussie guy who owns a hotel in uh Salong Banana and he was saying that for him uh it's difficult to live out there.

[00:02:29]I mean, it's nice, but you start to miss some of the infrastructure, some of the things that make, you know, day-to-day life a little bit easier, like good roads. It's a problem when you're on rubbish roads all the time and or if you want to go and see a movie, becomes problematic. you got to go to drive through the rain at night through massive potholes and that sort of stuff and it sort of grinds you down a bit and I sort of can appreciate that because I've dealt with some of that in bundle uh mainly due to traffic and when you you know you can deal with traffic for a short period of time but when it's your daily life like it grinds you down and you just don't want to do it anymore. So I'll be interesting to know what the infrastructure sort of like here in Couta as we walk around. I'm just sort of listening to some of the accents around the place and um the majority of the accents are European. Like they're really mostly European. You've got British, you've got German, you got French here, probably some Spanish, I reckon. It's bad to guess. And um I'm not really hearing too many Aussies yet, which is interesting. Maybe that's as a result of flights. Maybe it being a little bit easier. If you're coming from Europe, you can sort of go on Singapore Airlines or I don't know, one of those airlines that flies through Quoala Lumpur and get direct to Lombok for an Aussie to come to Lombok's a little bit more of a a journey. I guess there's a lot of those bakery type cafe things I'm seeing around the place. There's like a for example a gelatia across the road.

[00:03:48]There's pizza shops. Uh I saw a pizza card of some sort. Um, and the age or the demographic of the people here seems to be people in their 20s primarily. So maybe it's like uh the Changangu crowd who don't want to go to Changangu anymore. Maybe could be that that crowd or I don't know what crowd it is really.

[00:04:08]It's an odd one. I don't know who they are, where they would normally fit into the scene cuz you can usually sort of classify people uh like when you look at it from a barley perspective, but these people I wouldn't go and label them as being like I wouldn't label them as a jungle crowd, that's for sure. That'd be a bit offensive, I reckon. What I've heard about Cuda Lombog is generally that it's not a place that you really go to the beach in. You sort of like might use this place as a base and then go to the other beaches that are around the place that are a bit better. So, you you'd normally jump on a motorbike or whatever to go and do that. Now, if you're not comfortable on motorbikes, you'd probably want to go and hire a car because getting around with a car and driver is probably a bit of a pain. you know, you probably go and literally rent a car and um drive that around on your own, you know, uh or get on motorbikes and do that on your own. I mean, it's up to each person to sort of decide how they're going to get around. But I think being mobile in a place like this, I think the go to be honest, I think you do need to be mobile. Like it appears that you can sort of walk around fairly easily. The footpaths are okay. It's not really like all the cars and stuff are parked on the foot path and mo motorbikes are parked on the foot path.

[00:05:17]So, it's not that handy. Like if you had a pram or a wheelchair, I reckon this could be a little bit of a problem. Uh but for other people, it's probably going to be okay.

[00:05:28]It's not like Sonora where it's all clean and um you know, easy to get around. Bit different to that. This is old school Indonesia. As we get closer to the center of town, I am still seeing things like um Jajinan Pasada there.

[00:05:43]Like that person's just selling Jajin Pard in a very traditional sense and across the road you have this ultramodern Starbucks that seems to have quite a few people in it. As you know, I'm not a big fan of Starbucks. So take from that what you will. Yeah. All this stuff. So that's your foot path and then Oh yeah. All the cars parked on. I mean in most parts of Indonesia they would actually sort that out. Not just in the tourist areas. Like I know in a place like Bundong, they would generally try and not allow that. I mean, it does happen of course, but they seem to be on it a little bit better here. It's just a free-for-all.

[00:06:16]When I see places like that, Tai Thai, Kitchen and Bar, and then Oh, canal pot tropical bistro. Canal pod means um uh exhaust pot. You know, when I see that sort of stuff around here, they look really like fantastic places to go and eat. No idea about prices. cuz I'd say they'd be pretty pricey. But yeah, it looks really sharp and really modern when it uh comes to all of that sort of cafe and restaurant type thing around here, which is interesting.

[00:06:43]In fact, all of those places look far far more modern than anywhere in Bali except for Chungul. You know, Chung is probably the only place that I'm feeling might sort of match it in terms of modernity. These are really modern, sharp places, sort of world standard modern sharp places. From what I understand, this is like the crossroads of town here. And uh yeah, that's Yeah, I wouldn't say the center of town, but it's crossroads of town. Two main roads sort of meet. This bush radio place looks really busy, really, really slick. You know, it wouldn't be out of place in somewhere like, I don't know, Baron Bay or what have you. You know, that sort of place.

[00:07:24]In fact, when I sort of say that, it does have a real feel about it that I'm not even really sure what it is. It's got a newness to it, a modernity to it, a bit of a bit of an atmosphere happening here. If you're into that sort of really new feel about a place and you want to go and try out lots of new eeries and new uh cafes and all that sort of stuff, this looks like the place to be. I'm actually astonished by how many people I'm seeing here. How many visitors there are here is so vibrant and so busy. I haven't seen Barley like that for ages.

[00:08:00]Ages actually. That's interesting for Baralley because this looks like the new frontier.

[00:08:07]This is coffee. So I'm going to try this place out. They've got one of these outlets on uh Gilly A and I sort of like that place. So I'm going to try this one out. And Susan's already down here. She got here before me. She's going to hang out here while I go and make a video.

[00:08:21]>> Hello, Susan.

[00:08:24]So, I was just speaking to Susan. She's been looking at a few places around here and she said the prices are out of this world expensive. Um, this place that we're in right now in Copis still doesn't seem expensive to me. It seems about middle of the road for somewhere like Sanora for maybe a little bit more expensive. It's 35,000 plus 16% tax.

[00:08:43]That's about right actually for for Sanora. Although this is a small coffee and I'd probably get a large coffee for that price in Sun or where I normally go, but it's not it's not outrageous.

[00:08:54]She was just talking about some other places that she looked at that she might want to go and have lunch at. And um that is not surprising looking at how modern some of these places are and how sharp they are. But just seeing how busy they are is incredible. Incredible. I'm just so surprised that there are so many people here. It feels like something's been going on here that I didn't really know about and it's so big now. The vibe is young European type couples. Maybe that's why it's busy. The European sort of high seasons probably in full swing now. I'm I'm feeling that might be the go. Um I think but I could be wrong there. But it just feels like it. The people that I'm seeing in all these eeries and cafes and and so forth around the place seem to be in their mid20s primarily and they're just hanging out having coffee or like we are like we're just the old people around here. Um it's interesting. I've got a funny feeling this could be very attractive for a lot of people. Very attractive.

[00:09:53]whether it's attractive for me or not.

[00:09:55]I'm not I'm not confident cuz I don't inside I feel some anxiety about the place that I don't I can't really place but certainly like for a lot of people are going to love it. Here's my coffee that there is an aam a classic sort of uh style from Jamandulu in Indonesia or the old days. That is what uh usually you get a thing called a mangok ayam which is a bowl with that on there. You don't normally get like a cup and saucer, but I really love how they've got that cup and saucer going with those old stylings on it. I think it's I think it's amazing. Let's try that coffee up.

[00:10:30]I know it's going to be good. Like, it can't be bad. If it's bad, well, then the day is over.

[00:10:41]It's very good. Oh, the reason I was looking down as I was saying it cuz something caught my eye. It says, "Your smile is contagious to those around you."

[00:10:51]And there it is. Little thing there. I think it's nice. I mean, it's a bit naff, but I like it anyway cuz I I do actually believe it if you can put a bit of a smile on even if you're feeling rubbish.

[00:11:03]You can sort of brighten your own day up, but brighten the day off someone else.

[00:11:07]Got a tropical downpour now. I don't know what's going on here. I don't even know if it's raining back home in Bali, but since we've been in Lombok, gee, the rain has been just bucketing down for days. Every day has been a tropical downpour of some sort. And that sort of contrast with Baralley, which for the past almost 2 months now, at least 6 weeks, has been relatively dry. Very few downpours. So, that's interesting. It's going to make an interesting afternoon, that's for sure. Got one of these ugly filled donuts. I don't know who's filled it like that, but that is an ugly one for you. Let's give it a go. It's pretty oily.

[00:11:45]Like Nutella.

[00:11:47]>> Oh, that's good. Okay, the rain stopped and now we're going to have a bit of a walk down to that beach path to see what's going on down there. See what the beach is like. Uh see if it's really swimmable. See if there are many people down there. Um see what sort of the the vibe is down at that beachfront area.

[00:12:01]Then I'll probably I think sort of the plan would be to loop back up that main road again to see if I can find something else going on. Interestingly, the closer we get to the beach, the more it's like typical Indo beach vibes.

[00:12:14]Like it's like you're in the village again. Whereas back there, oh there is a village up there. I might just have a quick look up there. Whereas up there you got all the expensive cafes that I just came from.

[00:12:25]Oh, I can hear wlette. That's the uh things where they get the swallows making those birds nests where they harvest a bird's nest and um I think it's the spit from the swallows or something like that. That's in up there and they're worth heaps those places.

[00:12:47]>> Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? How the their sort of contrast in um from where I just was. It's really quite odd.

[00:12:55]This is the old fishing village vibe down here.

[00:13:01]>> I was just about to say I got to be careful there because there's cuz it's been raining. There's kids um without any clothes on having a swim in the puddle. So, I didn't want to film that.

[00:13:10]All right, we're down at the beach now.

[00:13:13]And uh yeah, typical fishing village type vibe down here. I can't believe how quickly it's changed. And the other thing is I'm the only foreigner here, which is crazy. That main street is absolutely packed with people. I guess this is just not the pleasant place to be. It is a quite a beautiful outlook.

[00:13:33]I mean, you can't swim in that water.

[00:13:34]It's full of um or sticks and that sort of stuff. It's not There's a bit of rubbish in there, but it's Yeah, not great.

[00:13:42]Got a little jetty along here, which I find interesting. Almost every wooden jetty I've been on in Indonesia is a death trap, so you got to be careful usually. But this looks all right.

[00:13:52]All right. Actually, when I look over in that direction in the distance, which is I think down where the Novatel Hotel is in that area, the beach down there is like a a white sand beach or a very yellow sand beach. It's not not one of those gray dirty ones. It looks beautiful over there. And the water's a bit turquoise. And uh maybe that's where the the center of beach activity for foreigners is. Okay, we got some sort of beachfront path down here.

[00:14:18]Let's have a look. Now I can see a bunch of bamboo stopping people from going further. Is that for motorbikes or for pedestrians?

[00:14:26]I don't know.

[00:14:28]>> But I think I'm going to go across anyway.

[00:14:34]This whole Kle vibe down by the beach is totally totally unexpected. When I first started sort of walking down that main road and it started to become a little bit more westernized and modern and sharp and all the young kids are out there in the cafes and restaurants and having a good time and it was absolutely packed. I hadn't expected the beachfront to be like this at all. I'm just so surprised by it. It's just a total opposite to what you'd expect. Like this could be anywhere in Indonesia on the beach front except for this path which is relatively good. But it's it's pretty standard Indonesian life. I'm not sure if it's an age thing or just my style or whatever, but I have this odd feeling here so far. I think it's something to do with age. I think maybe because I'm a little bit older than most of the people here, I feel a little bit out of place to be honest. I think that might be it.

[00:15:25]Um, it's not really my vibe. I love all the good cafes and the good food and stuff like that, but when it's filled with people who are not really my tribe, my people, and I can't I can't really get along with them or it's not that I can't get along with them, but I can't really connect with them in the way that I would. I mean, yeah, I feel a little bit uncomfortable to be honest so far here. Um, living here I think that would grind on you after a while especially because it is a tourist area and I think living in a tourist area requires a fine balancing act. You need to be able to dip your toes in and out at will and you don't want to be disturbed by it in normal life. So where I live in Sor, the thing about that is that of course Sonor is a tourist area and I dip my toes in when I want, go down for a run or have a bite to eat and then the rest of the time I sit at home and I'm not really sort of being impacted negatively by tourism. It's absolutely fine and that's why I love living there. Whereas I think here that tourism aspect is a lot more fullon. It feels to be I mean there'd be more tourists here in Couta Lombok than there would be in Sanur for sure. Like from what I can see they're just everywhere here. It's totally bizarre.

[00:16:39]As we continue throughout the Kong here down near the beach. Um the other thing is about the people here is that people seem to be a lot more mobile here because this is sort of a base to explore southern Lombok. People here will get on motorbikes and go further a field, but they'll also use motorbikes to get in and out of town because a lot of accommodation appears to be quite far from the center.

[00:17:00]So, there's a lot more mobility here with the people that come here, uh, which is sort of different to what you get in even a place like Couta. And most people sort of stay in that area and just walk around. They might get a cab, but they're not sort of cruising around on motorbikes everywhere as much as they are here. Now, I don't know if that's a sign of the times or the age of the people or what it is, but it just feels that people are all over the place here.

[00:17:22]Um, why is that problematic? Well, it's not really problematic, but if you're living here, you're going to have a lot more interaction with new people all the time, and if you don't really want that, that's a problem. I mean, yeah, it depends on what sort of person you are.

[00:17:36]I'm sure some people love that. Now, the thing about Coutter is that it's the village. It's the one that's been here all that time. But what the government's done over the past decade or so is they've built a thing called a special economic zone where they want to lift the whole area to be an international destination and they're calling it Mandelika. And it's where they've built that uh that Moto GP track as well. And so this whole area is called Mandelika.

[00:18:01]And up here I think I got a big sign that says Mandela actually. Let's have a look at that. But I mean it's still cuda. I mean most people aren't going to call it Mandelika. I mean it doesn't really Yeah. Yeah, couta mandelika. I mean it's couta basically. I guess maybe the reason they're doing that is so that people don't get confused between couta lombok and cuda barley which makes sense as well doesn't it? Um but the thing is the government sort of has these programs from time to time. It's a tourism ministry that has programs where they try and prioritize uh different areas of Indonesia and give money to them, inject money, do a bit more promotion on different areas and most of them haven't really been successful. Some of the ones they've tried to promote in the past have been just stalled really. Nothing's really happened. This place has been a success.

[00:18:48]It seems like for example, Lake Totober is one that's often touted as one of the the new barley. They even have a program called five new barleys in Indonesia or five next barleys I think they called it. I mean it didn't really work.

[00:19:01]Banguangi was one of them one time. They had some place up in Halahara which is really just so remote. They had quite a few different places over time and yeah, whether they succeed or not, I mean, this place is a success, it's got to be said. I mean, the amount of money flowing into this place now must be incredible. Absolutely incredible. I'll get down onto this beach cuz this looks good. Especially now the sun's out. Look at this. Beautiful down here. This is the white sand section. Hello.

[00:19:34]All right. Look at that. That's what we're here for. Like where it's over there, the dirty area, and then we're on to that. That's what we want. Look at that. Beautiful. Beautiful white sand beach. Now I'm impressed. It's getting so bright now. I've got my sunnies on.

[00:19:49]I've just noticed. I got to be careful where I'm flashing my camera. I mean, I don't know whether I have to be careful, but I don't want to get into a fight with anyone. But I'm seeing a few G-strings around the place. And I don't even know if I'll get banned on YouTube from putting that sort of stuff up. But um the boyfriends of of the people probably start bashing me up and start filming people like that. So I'm going to avoid some of those those things.

[00:20:10]People getting sort of uh their photos taken in g-strings next to the water.

[00:20:15]Not my go actually. That's beautiful there. That little island over there with a little tree on it. Oh, it is a beautiful beach, isn't it? Here is just beautiful. Funny thing is this isn't actually developed. There are hardly any places to eat or drink along here, which is just so odd. So odd. I think I've just spotted a sign over there that I want to have a look at. Before I get to the sign, there's a whole debate about uh what's appropriate in terms of a tire when you're in Indonesia. Is it okay to wear a g-string ever on the beach in public? Well, I don't know the answer to that because I think it's open for debate. But there are certain cultural sensitivities about wearing bikinis around the place. Like it's still not culturally appropriate anywhere in Indonesia, including Bali, to wear a bikini down the main street.

[00:21:09]It's not necessarily about religion.

[00:21:11]It's about cultural norms. And I know that happens all throughout uh Bali. Not so much around Sonor. I don't see it so much, but I think in those other areas like in Couta, you sometimes see it. Um not really appropriate.

[00:21:24]people do it and probably get away with it, but you know, locals don't really like it. Here, you certainly wouldn't be able to go up to the main street in a g-string down to the beach. I guess it's okay. There you go. So, this is called the Manderika, even though it's really just called Mandela. That's one of those things that's been happening in Indonesia a lot where they just put the in the front of something and it makes it sound better, but it but it like my view it sounds ridiculous. But anyway, that's just the go, isn't it? Ver Manderika reminds me of Vusador. It's actually the same mob that manages it. This injourney mob, they're like the government >> uh tourism tourism company bahasa.

[00:22:09]>> Yeah.

[00:22:10]>> English.

[00:22:11]>> Bahasa Indonesia. Ada >> Ada. Hell here. This this cuda, isn't it? Cuda. It's like cuda bali really, isn't it?

[00:22:20]>> No, thank you.

[00:22:22]>> Yeah.

[00:22:24]Thank you. I'm actually going to loop back around uh to that main street that I haven't been up. Um so when I got to that main street intersection, I could turn left or go straight. I went straight. I'm going to try and come in from the other side now. See what's up there. Um interesting about this uh whole government sort of attempt to try and promote tourism in places like this.

[00:22:44]I know their heart is in the right place, but what it does, it gives you this sort of stuff. Totally inorganic development which is sterile and devoid of tourists. It happens all around the world. You see it all like I saw it in Kazakhstan for example where they've got these beautiful centuries old mosques and morale and all this sort of stuff.

[00:23:04]And what happens is they say, "Oh, these are great tourist attractions. Let's pile money into them, do them up, and we'll get even more tourists." And what it turns these places into is Disneyland. And people don't want to be in Disneyland when they're coming to Lombok or going to Kazakhstan. And that's what we sort of have here. It's terrible. Terrible. That's actually what New Sadua is a little bit. Um over the years it's mellowed a bit because it's got some age on it, but still parts of those grounds just feel so manufactured.

[00:23:35]It just they don't feel very nice. The problem with Indonesian tourism is not so much that there isn't development.

[00:23:43]The problem with Indonesian tourism is primarily due due to access local regulations which prevent uh businesses being set up and that sort of thing. It's not really a lack of money from the government. It's not even a lack of promotion to be honest because what you can do, you can get these things growing organically pretty easy.

[00:24:03]I remember I was at a place uh in South Somatra and I was invited there by the tourism ministry of that particular province uh to go and have a chat or actually not even have a chat but also but attend a tourism forum of all the local tourism authorities in that province because every single Kabul Paten has their own little uh you know regency has their own tourism department as well. So, they all got together in this big event and I was invited there just to observe and see what's going on and perhaps give some feedback on what I thought could um could help in that area. And you're probably wondering, well, why was I invited? Who am I? I was just that back in the day I had some involvement in that sort of field.

[00:24:47]Anyway, um it was an interesting experience. That area was a beautiful, stunning area with a beautiful volcano that you could climb. and they were sort of wondering how they're going to get more foreign tourists into the area. And for me, the the issue was clear. It was a really difficult place to access even though there were facilities in that town and there were some beautiful things to see. Hello.

[00:25:12]Um the the main issue was hang on a sec.

[00:25:15]I think this is the road I'm supposed to be turning down, but this doesn't look like the main road that I was on before.

[00:25:20]But anyway, we'll keep going and I'll figure out where it goes later. But um what was interesting about that is that there were just it was a really naturally beautiful place and I think a lot of people would enjoy themselves going there. The problem is getting there is so hard. You could get there basically by car. There was an airport that at that time was getting one flight a week from Jakarta. So it was sort of a little bit in inaccessible from that point of view. And it was never going to develop. And what I said was, you know what, the best thing that could happen to this place was a big freeway sort of coming by the town. And if there was a big freeway, um, yeah, that had really opened this place up. And literally the crowd of people in that room laughed and they laughed because they thought, here we have this big foreigner coming in saying that we need to have a big freeway through here and that's never going to happen. In fact, most of the people there coming from the villages around the area would never have been on a freeway before or a motorway or a jalant. They thought it was so laughable. So laughable. The funny thing is over the sort of 10 years since then, there has been a motorway built in that province and I'm not sure how close it goes to that town that I was in, but I would say that it's really opened that place up a lot more than it used to be.

[00:26:37]And uh whether they've got any more tourists or not, well, probably probably not. But um the point is that you can sometimes get stuck in this mindset that things in there are going to change around here. And uh they can and they will change if they're a priority set.

[00:26:51]Now that that particular motorway or those freeways are sort of one of Joy, the previous president's sort of programs. He wanted to build expressways around Indonesia to really link up some of Indonesia's cities and provide accessibility to the residents, but also that opens up tourism opportunities as well. That thing about access, I guess, goes to the point where, you know, if the government wanted to put a bit of money into something, they could actually try and subsidize or use their state carrier, Guda, to do direct flights between Sydney and Lombok. They have to subsidize it because the demand wouldn't be there straight away. But you could get like three flights a week coming into Lombok from Sydney, which is Australia's biggest city, and that would really expand tourism into the entire island of Lombok. You wouldn't have to do too much else to be honest. It' be a fairly expensive exercise, but nothing compared to the the budget that's being spent on tourism totally in Indonesia at the moment, which is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. It wouldn't cost that much. So it would be expensive but not not too bad. And they could do it with smaller aircraft and just zip people across three times a week and that would really open things up. You could even have it so there's like a round trip type thing where you could say you buy a ticket coming into Lombok and you can fly back out of Bali. So it splits people up, introduce people to another island. That would be a great little option. Or you could do something where if you buy a ticket on Garuda, Garuda will fly you to another place in Indonesia at no cost. um a return ticket to say Jo Jakarta or a return ticket to Sula or wherever the person might want to go. That would be extremely popular and a great little program, but you have to pay for it and subsidize the airline, which I guess is not really something that governments want to do. But the thing is, the money is being spent anyway on promotion and building things like this, which I don't think really gives you a good bang for buck. Oh, they've got a mushroom espresso here as well. Do like that one in Sor and in Nusmbongan. Beautiful place that one. To be honest, this isn't vastly different to Cudabali. Honestly, I mean, this is the Cudabali I remember when I first went there. And it's just, I guess, newer and in the development phase where you have a lot more newer places available and you can go and have a bit of freedom outside of town where it's not so developed. I think that's the main thing. This is Coupali 30 years ago. That's what this is. And I suppose that's where this sits for me in the scheme of things. If you really miss the cooter of old and the cooter now in Bali is a bit dead. The beach is all rubbish and not worth going to anymore and you know you're looking for somewhere new. Couta Lombok could be the place for you. I think it feels like it for sure. Like it just feels like a carbon copy in a lot of ways of the old Couta barley. I guess as a a word of warning that I would give for this place is that you need to be careful where you book your accommodation so that it's not next to a place that's been constructed.

[00:29:46]There's so much construction going on around here. There's a good chance that you book a hotel that's right next to a construction site. I've done that this time. Didn't realize it. So, I don't know if that's going to be a problem tonight or not. Uh whether it's going to hurt my relaxation or not, I don't know.

[00:30:00]We'll find out. But that's um something to sort of keep in mind. What I really love is there's still a lot of these smaller waddles around. Like you can get a small bint tang there for 25,000 which is about as cheap as you'll get it in Sanhur at the moment. Um you won't get it that cheap in Cuda pretty much. But because these are still warungs and locally owned little eeries doing simple Indonesian food um the prices are still low. There's not many people in them which is a little bit sad. They seem to be all going to the modern places. I understand that cuz I've just been to one of those myself. But, you know, if you want those cheap eats, it's definitely still the go here. So, I guess what I would say is that this place is at a very good part of it development of its evolution.

[00:30:47]Got a car behind me now going to run me over. So, I'm going to have to go up the inside here.

[00:30:51]And uh because it's in a very good part of its evolution of its sort of development in time, I think it's only going to be like this at a place that you enjoy for a short period of time until it becomes the next crew to barley and then dies off. I don't know how long it's going to be, but it's still in the development b still in the development phase. There are still plenty of new businesses here that are, you know, really good and really exciting. I think it's good to come here now, actually.

[00:31:20]Yeah. Yeah, as I said, it has got a bit of a feel to it, which I'm a bit uneasy about, but other than that, it's quite nice. I don't know if I could live here.

[00:31:27]It's not really my place to live. Um, I'm happy where I am in Sonor. I'm still on the lookout for alternatives just in case Sonor becomes a place I don't want to live anymore, but that's not the case now. Anyway, I've actually circled right back now to where I was. Copy Suzu. What I'll do, I'll take you back to the place that I'm staying at. I haven't even checked in there. I just dumped my bags off there and and started to have a look around it cuz it's um not checking time yet. It's only 1:00, but hopefully we can get in there now and I'll show you around. Okay, so this is a place I'm staying in. It's called the Rest Village, I think it's called. Something along those lines. It's a little bit out of the center of town. Uh, it's cost me about 700,000 a night. And it has a big communal area like this and a kitchen, which is nice.

[00:32:14]And this is my room. It's quite beautiful. Like, it's icy cold in here.

[00:32:20]Nice big bed. I mean, it's fairly simple, but it's clean as anything. And it's new. And uh here we have the little bathroom.

[00:32:31]Yeah, nice and modern. It's quite nice.

[00:32:36]I mean, I don't really need anything more than this. I don't need a big resort. I don't really like resorts anyway. I'm quite happy to have a really nice room like this. I mean, it is fairly expensive, I think, for the standard, but I think that's just what the standard is here in Couta Lombok.

[00:32:53]It's, as I said, it's booming at the moment. A lot of the properties are are fully booked. Um, there seems to be a construction boom, a land grab going on as well. People trying to catch up with demand, which has just gone out of control. This is far busier here than Couta Bali. Couta Lombok is busier than Cuda Bali. Guarantee it. Busier than Sonora. It's just an amazing thing to see. I've actually been quite surprised with what's going on around here. But having said that, this is going to suit a lot of people. It's going to suit a lot of people. I can't see myself really coming here on holidays too much, but I know a lot of people are going to love it. And yeah, you've sort of probably got to come here just to see whether you like it or not. If you don't like it, you don't come again. If you love it, you'll be coming here all the time rather than going to Bali. I just think it's that sort of place. So definitely check it out if you're even slightly interested because it could be the new place for you to visit. Thanks for coming along for the ride today and thanks for watching. Make sure you hit that subscribe button to keep up to date with all things Sonora and the rest of Indonesia. I'll catch you next time in Sai Jumba.