
We live in such a wonderful and beautiful world — and my first three backpacking trips showed me that.
Backpacking enabled me to truly immerse in the history and experience the culture of new countries that I would otherwise miss if I were only to visit their capital cities.
On my last backpacking trip, I was reminded of one of our world’s darkest histories in Phnom Penh and the lengths humans do to keep themselves in power.
Here are the links to my first three backpacking trips, in case you missed them:
- The Backpacker – the first trip that introduced me to solo backpacking travel
- The Backpacker 2 – my second backpacking trip centred in Thailand
- The Backpacker III – the backpacking trip that made me fall in love with Laos
The Backpacker Part 4: One Adventure, Two Parts
Having combed many Southeast Asian cities in my previous trips, I decided to bring my backpacking adventure to Europe in its fourth installment.

It also started rather differently: prior to flying to Europe, I had two consecutive weekends when I unexpectedly travelled to Lombok, an island in Indonesia. As such, the narration of my fourth backpacking trip will be separated into two parts.

The reason why is that in July 2018, the island of Lombok, an island located next to the popular tourist island of Bali, was jolted by a huge earthquake that destroyed many homes and killed many people. I watched many videos on Facebook of the destruction and felt bad for the victims of the quake.


I also found a local contact who reported what happened on the ground based on his own first-hand experience.

As I have been to Lombok island once when I climbed its highest mountain, Mount Rinjani, which has given me many fond memories of this beautiful island, I felt compelled to start a donation drive in Singapore — and I did. Inviting all my friends, I amassed in-kind donations and swore to bring them myself over to Lombok, having established a local contact there to channel them.
The Island of Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia
On my first weekend trip to Lombok, I left Singapore with the usual backpacking route: I crossed the Singapore-Malaysian land border in Johor Bahru, and took a bus to Kuala Lumpur International Airport, and then a 3 and 1/2 hours flight to Lombok Island.
As its name implies, I usually travel with just a backpack (hence the name, backpacking). However, it was different this time as I had a greater goal to achieve: to bring help to the earthquake victims. I brought a piece of luggage with me full of donations such as used clothing, flashlights, blankets, towels, etc.

Upon arrival, I was warmly received by my contact who welcomed me with a signboard at Lombok Airport and then took me to some villages that were impacted by the earthquake.




There, it was heartwarming to see the smiling faces of locals who received the in-kind donations. I quickly realized that the things I brought over were not enough so I immediately planned to return the following weekend.



After giving away the donations, I had some time to see the sights of the island — particularly, the town of Kuta, located on its southern coast.


I arrived one afternoon and was greeted with an unbelievable, breathtaking view of the beach in Kuta.




The impact of the earthquake was evident as I saw very few tourists there. To support the local economy, I ate in some empty restaurants on purpose and hired a local guy who drove me to Lombok’s southern coast for a day.

I was extremely pleased to see that despite the earthquake, Lombok Island remained very beautiful. Its southern coasts are littered with picturesque seascapes and beautiful beaches.




While passing a night in Kuta, I experienced a mild aftershock myself which reminded me that the earth there then probably was still unstable.
On my second weekend trip to Lombok, I brought a larger luggage still packed with similar in-kind donations. Like the last time, my help was warmly received by the locals. I felt happy to see so many smiling faces which showed the resilience of the people of Lombok.
And like the last time, I hired the same motorcycle driver and asked him to show me more of the southern coast of Lombok. I was equally mind-blown by the landscapes of the island and convincingly, fell in love with the place.







Since this trip, Lombok has become one of my favourite islands on the planet. I returned to Lombok more than 5 times and can’t wait to visit this island again especially now that I live in Europe.
This blog post is the first part of The Backpacker 4. Please come back to read the second part!