Footprint Bali: With Lombok and the Eastern Isles Liz Capaldi , Joshua Eliot

Bali is the original magic isle. Westerners have long been entranced by the heady combination of a fabulous landscape and a mesmerizing culture. Streams cascade down impossibly green mountainsides from sacred crater lakes, while dance dramas are performed to please the Gods. Artists and the artistically inclined settled, worked and died amidst the rice fields and temples, reluctant to leave their Garden of Eden. But Bali is the honeypot that attracts more tourists than any other island in Indonesia's massive, sprawling archipelago. For those with the time and inclination to venture further east, along the ribbon of islands that dot the tropical seas from Bali to Timor, there are great the three-colour lakes of Keli Mutu on Flores, the giant dragons of Komodo, the horseback fighting festivals of Sumba.