Ready for the island! After all the volcanoes climbed and long bus trips, a week on the beach on the small island of Gili Air (literally “island of water”) between Bali and Lombok. The water is a bit shallow for swimming and the coral reefs are largely destroyed, since decades ago they were fished with dynamite and later an El Nino did the rest. Nevertheless, snorkelling with some turtles was worthwhile.
The Wallace Line runs between Lombok and Bali. It separates the Asian from the Australian fauna – although today a broader transition zone is assumed. Wallace had come up with the theory of evolution shortly before Darwin, but he was in Indonesia and not in London, so the credit did not go to him…