Exploring Indonesia's Eastern Islands

Countless Australians travel the well-worn trail to Bali each year, and then decry its crowds and commercialism, not knowing that just a quick flight east there’s a clutch of unspoilt islands where hair braiding (and sometimes power) is nowhere to be seen.

Indonesia’s Komodo National Park

A glistening manta ray leaps high above the roiling waters of east Indonesia’s Komodo National Park; time stands still for a split second as it seems to hover, then it plunges back into the deep blue.

We’ve just chalked up another highlight to a day of many as we explore the park’s archipelago of 29 islands (three larger islands and 26 smaller ones), just an hour’s flight from holiday favourite Bali.

While Bali still holds magic worth pursuing, these days many visitors are left a little flat after a trip to the more congested destinations on the island.

Explore the eastern Indonesia

Instead, by jumping on one more flight, they could be sipping cocktails on one of many picture-perfect white sandy beaches that arch across Indonesia’s much less frequented east.

Or frolicking with turtles, exploring the remnants of an ancient and unique megalithic culture. Or dining on delicious local cuisine featuring, say, luscious local honeys or fresh fish plucked from the ocean and grilled over fiery coconut husks.

Cruising Komodo archipelago

Today, we’re cruising right through the Komodo archipelago on a day tour, stopping at Batu Bolong, Manta Alley and Komodo Island itself, to see the eponymous dragons prowling through the national park set up to protect them in 1980.

We snorkel with more than a dozen ghostly manta rays dappled by crepuscular rays piercing the waters, and splash into stunning Pink Beach to see sand flecked with, well, pink.

Kanawa Island

Our tour was organised through the friendly folk at Kanawa Beach Bungalows – our accommodation on Kanawa Island, a real castaway, back-to-nature oasis.

On the island power sputters via a generator from sunset for a few hours each day and fresh water is limited. For your troubles, however, you’ll be well rewarded with not a single car or motorbike marring the soundscape.

We spend our days here lazing in the shallow waters of the island’s main beach, where we glimpse baby blacktip reef sharks swimming just a metre or two from the white sandy beach – even closer to shore than us.

If you snorkel a little further out on the house reef you’ll find sea turtles, larger reef sharks and a huge array of other marine life.

One afternoon, we follow a narrow winding path from the resort up a steep hill and across a ridge, to reach a viewpoint shared with a tribe of nanny goats; the view out to sea and the scattering of nearby islands leaves us picking our jaws up off the floor.

The island of Flores

After a few sybaritic days, we take the one-hour boat to Labuan Bajo on the island of Flores and hire a driver to head west.

Aside from the abundant jungle scenery glimpsed around every bend, Flores is home to intricate rice terraces that mimic the patterns of spider webs, and the ‘hobbit cave’ or Liang Bua, where the remains of a 106-centimetre tall female skeleton, thought to belong to be a member of the Homo floresiensis species, were unearthed in 2003.

Gunung Kelimutu, north-east of the Flores town of Ende, with its three distinctly different coloured volcanic crater lakes, is easily climbed – it’s really more a lengthy amble along a well-paved path, then up some stairs.

It provides stunning, other-worldly dawn views of the mountainous surrounds.

Sumba Island

Nihiwatu Resort

Among the most exclusive of the resorts found in eastern Indonesia is the breathtaking Nihiwatu, located on Sumba, a sparsely populated island fringed with empty beaches and wild rugged coastline that was once home to sandalwood forests.

Surfing Sumba

The resort, overlooking a world-class surf break, was started by American surfer Claude Graves who camped on the beach here for a decade to win the trust of the tribes who eventually gave him custody of their land. While once low-key bungalows were thronged by surfers, these days the resort offers luxury villas with sumptuous interiors and private pools.

But Nihiwatu’s not just for surfers-made-good; there’s plenty to keep their partners and other travellers entertained.

What to do if you don’t surf

Sunset bareback horse races along the beach showcase the amazing horsemanship of the locals; a secluded seaside barbecue offers a chance for romance; coconut tastings show how island geography impacts on the delicate flavour of the sweet water. And if you go scuba diving, deep-sea fishing or mountain-back riding to explore the surrounds, you won’t come across another tourist all day.

The resort works with the Sumba Foundation, also set up by Graves, to help make a difference in the lives of the Sumbanese – life on the island can be less than idyllic for the locals – through various projects, including aiming to eliminate malaria, secure clean water and boost nutrition.

A visit to one of the projects allows for genuine interaction with locals and a feel for life here. You’ll witness first-hand one of the world’s last megalithic societies and see tombstones built next to traditional homes, while horses – brought to the island by Arabian and Chinese sandalwood traders centuries ago – graze on the picturesque rolling hills.

People here mostly practise an animist local religion fused with Christianity.

Sumbawa Island

We discovered another under-explored eastern island in Sumbawa, stretched between Lombok and Flores, where surfers have been flocking for years.

This place is best suited to the more adventurous traveller as there’s little in the way of infrastructure aimed at tourists, but it rewards you with a feeling of exploring a genuinely far-flung destination where it’s all about the journey.

Fly into the town of Bima – like most of eastern Indonesia it’s just over an hour from Bali’s airport – and find a driver to take you the two hours to Pantai Lakey, a long arc of sand boasting a selection of pounding breaks that lure surfers who are fed up with Bali’s crowded beaches. We stopped here for a plate of sashimi plucked straight from the waters nearby.

And for the truly intrepid (and comprehensively travel insured), skim the coast from Pantai Lakey on a motorbike taking in deserted views of rugged mountains and foaming surf.

The west of Sumbawa is home to Gunung Tambora, where the largest volcanic explosion in recorded history occurred in 1815.

You can climb it during the dry season; it’s challenging but those who reach the summit are afforded incredible views over this blissfully undiscovered corner of eastern Indonesia.

Details

How to get there and where to stay

Flores
Garuda flies twice daily from Bali’s Ngurah Rai Airport to Labuan Bajo for around $240 return.

You can hire a car and driver for around $75 per day (you’ll need to negotiate) to explore the island.

Golo Hilltop Hotel is a small boutique hotel 10 minutes from Labuan Bajo airport with bright and clean bungalows from $30 per night.

Bajo Eco Lodge is located on the beach and offers 16 air conditioned guest rooms from $63 per night.

Kanawa
From Labuan Bajo in Flores, it’s about one hour on the daily boat to Kanawa Island.

Double bungalows at Kanawa Beach Bungalows are around $45 per night including your boat transfer.

Day trips out to Komodo National Park can also be arranged through the resort.

Sumba
Garuda flies from Bali’s Ngurah Rai Airport to Tambolaka three times a day for around $150 return.

Prices at Nihiwatu Resort start at $530 per person, per night with full board.

The 90-minute transfer to Nihiwatu Resort is included in the rate.

Sumbawa
Garuda flies from Bali’s Ngurah Rai Airport to Bima three times per day for around $180 return.

At the airport hire a car and driver for the two-hour drive to Pantai Lakey for around $70.

Hotels in Pantai Lakey are basic, but the Aman Gati has decent rooms with a pool from $56 per night.

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You should know

August and September are the driest months, while the months from November to February are the wettest.

Take home

Local ikat weavings from Flores and Sumba, and local honey from Sumbawa.

After youth-led protests in 2025, this year Nepal elected a 35-year-old former rapper as Prime Minister. In a country where tourism is its biggest industry, what’s next for travellers?

In 1986, Nepal changed its clock. It had used India Standard Time since 1920 so, to differentiate, it wound its clock 15 minutes ahead of, not behind, its big-brother neighbour. Boss move. “Nepal is strongly opposed to the idea that our identity is connected to India,” says Community Homestay Network (CHN) guide Bikal Khanal.

Tharu dance is traditionally set to hand drums. (Credit: Kate Lewis)

Today, Nepal is the only independent country with a 45-minute deviation to universal time; an oddity that’s become a symbol of national pride. The quirk is nearly as endearing as Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport where carved varnished wood and shiny red bricks rule. One sign points to a ‘Travelator’ and another to a ‘Grievance Handling Desk’ while visas are noisily stamped at customs for US dollars, cash only. When am I?

Spot the endemic Nepal gray langur. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

The 15 or 45 minute anomaly sees me tap out completely on timezone calculations. Why bend my brain calculating if it’s quarter to or quarter past elsewhere when I’m in the honking here and now of Kathmandu where the air is high-altitude crisp, the prayer flags flutter and the street dogs howl?

How tourism is changing in Nepal

Bardiya National Park is rich with wildlife. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

India is not the only association many Nepalis would like to shake. With eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, Nepal has long attracted mountaineers and trekkers, and expedition numbers are continuing to rise.

Tourism is one of the country’s biggest sources of foreign currency, so this growth is not negative, per se. But according to Ang Tshering Lama, who co-founded Phaplu Mountain Bike Club, being reduced to a mere trekking destination is limiting.

“Trekking is just one layer of our identity,” says Ang. “When it becomes the dominant narrative, it limits how we’re seen and how we see ourselves.” Nepal’s recent success, however, in diverting trekkers to less-trafficked areas such as Manaslu mofuntain, where visitor numbers rose by 117 per cent last year, offers hope that tourism can diversify even more radically.

Local men in Bhada village. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

The founder of CHN, Shiva Dhakal, wants that change. “The whole idea of the Community Homestay Network is to promote experiences outside of trekking,” he says. “Community tourism changes lives and helps kids stay home instead of coming to the city or migrating to the Middle East.”

Ang grew up seeing people leave, “not because they wanted to but because there weren’t enough opportunities to stay”, he states. Yet from remote villages to living traditions; food, art, music and emerging subcultures, “there’s so much that’s not being seen.”

CHN is opening some of those doors. It doesn’t own, or fund, any homes. Rather, it promotes homestays to travellers on a single, slick platform, while fostering entrepreneurship in places where women, marginalised castes, Indigenous people and the youth stand to benefit the most.

A new generation demanding more

Dalla Town Hall, where volunteers discuss anti-poaching tactics. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

The future prospects of next-gen Nepalis can no longer be ignored. On a Kathmandu tour with 33-year-old guide Monica K.C, we pass buildings torched in the September 2025 ‘Gen Z protests’, including the Supreme Court and Parliament House. Seventy-two people died. “They were anti-corruption protests,” says Monica. “Politicians’ children are living a lavish life but the airports are crowded with youngsters leaving to find work.”

We stop in ‘little Tibet’ at the wondrous sixth-century Boudha Stupa. “The wheel of life is Buddhism in a nutshell,” says Monica. “Things such as hate, ignorance and anger keep you rotating around the wheel, so you must follow the principles of Buddhism to detach. If you can’t, there’s no nirvana for you.”

Boudha Stupa's prayer wheels — Boudha Stupa’s prayer wheels are used to recite Buddhist prayers. (Credit: Kate Lewis)

In a sun-drenched twist to the usual temple visit, we ascend the stupa’s sloping plinth and roam its whitewashed dome. Tendrils of diaphanous prayer flags stream from a steeple-like structure where the Buddha’s unblinking eyes stare out. No nirvana for you…

bouda stupa prayer flags — Tibetan-style prayer flags embellish the whitewashed dome of Bouda Stupa, a Buddhist temple. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

The dome is delightfully free of guard rails or chiding from security. There is, however, a stern ‘No TikTok’ sign, perhaps in response to the youth’s newly flexed power. The booted-out Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, was replaced in a resounding election victory in March by 35-year-old Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a former rapper and mayor of Kathmandu. The RSP’s manifesto indicates tourism is a priority, and that Nepal’s cultural identity in areas such as gastronomy will be strengthened.

Boudha Stupa vendors — Vibrant souvenir shops and cafes around Boudha Stupa. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

A more confronting stop awaits at Pashupatinath Temple. Today is Bala Chaturdashi, a Hindu festival where thousands of devotees gather to honour their dead ancestors. Vendors hauling foam mattresses do a lucrative trade as people set up for a night of vigil. This includes burning the bodies of recently deceased relatives on bamboo pyres in the Bagmati River, which flows into the sacred Ganges.

A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi, in Kathmandu. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Wrapped in a shroud, the bodies are positioned with their heads facing north to the Himalayas where Lord Shiva resides. They’re covered with flowers and straw and set alight by male family members.

Hours later, the ashes are swept into the river where devotees will take a holy dip the next day. As much as Monica assures us it’s not voyeuristic to watch, I struggle to do so. “Here you see the reality of life because everyone ends up there,” she says, gesturing to the river.

Life unfiltered in the Terai region

tharu woman — Tharu woman and master weaver Parbati Chaudhary in Bhada Village. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

The reality of life needs processing time, which the western Terai region delivers in spades. The Terai is largely separated from India by the Karnali River and Bardiya National Park, where elephants, rhinos and the elusive Bengal tiger roam.

Once a nomadic tribe, the Indigenous Tharu people are now the largest ethnic group here. “They didn’t know their daily life was interesting for international travellers but they’re starting to understand now,” says CHN founder Shiva.

Take a Jeep safari through Bardiya National Park. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

We fly Buddha Air to Dhangadhi airport and drive five hours to stay in Tharu homes. The journey to Bhada village is a blur of roadside fruit stalls, traffic-stopping sacred cows and fields sown with wheat, rice, mustard, spinach, cauliflower and potatoes. Nepal’s agriculture feeds only Nepal.

Marigolds are an important part of Hindu rituals. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

“The only thing we export is young people,” says our guide Bikal. As the light dims and we plunge evermore rural, mysterious mounds of compacted hay – some house-sized – loom like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are. Even our trusty driver gets flummoxed by a dirt road that abruptly ends and we find ourselves hurtling across a paddock.

On arrival, some are ferried to mud-walled cottages greened by gourd creepers, with thatched roofs and rustic-chic mosquito nets. Myself and two others are ushered to the home of corner store owner, mechanic and mushroom farmer Man Kumar Chilaruwa and his wife Rajkumari.

community homestay entrance — A warm welcome at a community homestay. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

They escort us to a bunker-esque back building with steel doors and a folding security gate, behind which is gleaming linoleum, dolphin-printed tiles and a shower cavity that must be gingerly stepped through to reach the toilet.

The ceiling lights emit a rainbow of colours (the bathroom light gets stuck in, frankly, a quite frightening red). We’re nevertheless touched that our hosts invested in all this bling when the average salary is around $275 a month.

In the coming days, we participate in Tharu traditions such as making moonshine, dancing, weaving straw handicrafts and gold-panning. We’re fed well with staples of rice, mustard greens, lentil pancakes, daal, curried chicken and tomato chutney served on antibacterial saal leaves.

food at community homestay — Dig in. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Sonara community homestay president Indradevi Tharu tells us river snails are often served, and the boiled and pickled flesh of rats hunted in the rice fields. “Perhaps next time?” we say and all have a laugh.

The power of community homestays

community homestay owners in Nepal — Barda community homestay owners Parbati Chaudhary and Ram Krishni Devi Chaudhary. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

Immersing Western visitors in foreign cultural practices is not new. But with the Tharu, I never get that uneasy sensation that I’m being performed for. Despite being the only tourists, there’s no ‘othering’; just warm, composed and ultra-dignified welcomes. Like we’ve always been here.

“I love to have travellers in my village so I can see the world,” says local woman Parbati Chaudhary. “Why would I travel the world when the world comes to me?”

The graceful acceptance the Tharu offer, as well as the slow pace, works miracles on my frazzled nervous system. One day I even take a nap on a vacant homestay bed.

Sonara community room — An authentic stay in the Sonara community. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Roosters strut and goats bray as we sit on the ground in al fresco kitchens, rolling rice flour into cylinders steamed to make dhikri (dumplings). When water is needed, we fetch it using a hand-operated pump as a family of ducks strolls by, side-eying us like curious neighbours.

Animal lovers will delight in Tharu villages. Kind and resourceful inventions are everywhere, such as snacking stations where two posts lean together, with leafy boughs dangling on rope for baby goats to forage from.

CHN’s CEO, Aayusha Prasain, nods knowingly when one in our group says she cried when she left her host, Shayam Chaudhary, in Bhada. Shayam’s 17-year-old son, Prashant, had translated, which deepened the connection.

“Community tourism turns travel into a relationship, not a transaction,” says Aayusha. “It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, especially women and youth.” Since 2018, CHN has hosted more than 4000 travellers from 52 countries in 408 households, and estimates women’s participation has increased by 381 per cent.

In the Bardiya community, where vexing human-animal conflict has been a balancing act for decades due to elephants raiding crops, long-time homestay operator Salik Ram Chaudhary says young people keep the older ones on their toes.

“We can’t keep homestays stagnant,” he says. “We have to upgrade our service and redefine our product or young people won’t see it as an attractive business. If we can keep evolving with this travelling trend we’re confident the youths will stay and continue it.”

Back in Kathmandu, Monica explains that after the deaths of young protestors in September, a determination had spread to not let their sacrifice be in vain. “We want to keep holding the government accountable,” she says. “We don’t know what situation we’re facing, but we’re ready to face it.”

Interested in Nepal but prefer to experience it in total comfort? Read our guide to luxury travel in Nepal.

Why you should explore Indonesia’s eastern islands