Gravel and Hiking Route Guide: Tibu Ijo, West Lombok
Choose between gravel riding and hiking, or do both for maximum experience.
Route Profile
If you’ve been to Lombok (not Gilis, the island itself), you most likely have heard of or even visited Pusuk monkey forest.
Pusuk is charming in its own mysterious way. It connects a lot of places like Senggigi and all the beaches on the north coast, and a ridiculous amount of waterfalls around West Lombok. It’s a gateway for a lot of undiscovered adventures, calmly sitting in the middle to witness West and North Lombok’s rise and fall as tourist destinations for decades.
In this guide, I’m gonna go specific and show you one of the local destinations that’s perfect for a hot day; Tibu Ijo.
Tibu Ijo is essentially a waterfall, but it transforms into a small river during the dry season. The perfect time to visit Tibu Ijo would be after the rainy season. So I’m guessing May or June, or basically the beginning of summer.
Unfortunately, since this guide was created in September, all I could find was basically a puddle of water instead of what Tibu Ijo is all about. Still, it’ll fit 3 to 4 people in one session, and it wasn’t only one “puddle”.
So to manage your expectation, let’s say that this is a guide was made during Tibu Ijo’s worst condition. Hopefully, you’ll visit at the right time to enjoy its actual beauty and fresh waterfall.
Biking or Hiking?
Technically, if you’re riding a bike, you’re gonna have to do a little bit of walk. If you don’t want to do that, hiking is always on the table. The walk to the destination from the bridge (more about the bridge below), is approximately 30–45 minutes.
Getting There
There’s not much to explain regarding the route to Tibu Ijo, as it’s really easy to reach. You can start from Rembiga (where that famous satay is from) and keep going straight until you find the entrance.
Or, there’s another way that I consider more attractive because of the view and lack of motorized vehicles passing by.
Either you’re coming from Rembiga or this route, it’ll lead to the same street of Pusuk monkey forest.
Now, to my knowledge, there’s only one little bridge on the right side which is the entrance to Tibu Ijo. The colour used to be yellow, but I guess it’s faded and no one bothers to repaint it.
But if you’re in doubt regarding the actual position of the entrance, you can always check the map or ask the locals.
After passing the bridge, you will find a concrete path. As you keep going, the track will sometime change to a dirt path but it’ll be mostly concrete. Not long, you will start finding the river on the right side. In this case, it was mostly rock considering how dry it was. Either way, it’s a satisfying ride.
When you find the last piece of that concrete track, it’s basically the end of your riding journey. Worry not, though, because the walk to the aforementioned “puddle” is short.
That last photo above is one of the “puddles”. I’m kind of disappointed that I didn’t that more photos of the “puddles”. But like I’ve mentioned, I hope you get to visit at the right time to enjoy Tibu Ijo’s actual charm.
Enjoy the hiking and the ride! Don’t forget to say hello to locals and bring your trash back with you in case you’ve got any.
