January is the worst month for Merese Hill — sunset is cloud-blocked, the path is greasy, and there's no payoff. Try sunrise or wait for the dry season.
Merese Hill in January is at its lowest point of the year. Heavy monsoon cloud cover blocks the famous sunset on most evenings, the clay path turns to slick mud after every rain, and the open hilltop offers no shelter when storms roll through. Skip January for sunset visits and aim for May through October instead.
# Merese Hill in January: Why the Famous Sunset Disappears
Merese Hill — the grass-covered ridge above Tanjung Aan — is one of south Lombok's most photographed spots. In January, the photo you came for is almost impossible to take. Heavy monsoon cloud, frequent afternoon storms, and a slippery access path combine to make this the weakest month of the year for a Merese visit.
Drive the rough access track up from the Tanjung Aan road and the first thing you notice is the colour. The grass is genuinely beautiful — bright tropical green at its peak after weeks of rain, in stark contrast to the bleached yellow of dry season. Buffalo are still grazing across the slopes (they don't migrate), and the curving ridgeline that draws photographers all year is visually intact.
The problem is the sky. By mid-afternoon — exactly when you'd want to be climbing for sunset — a thick build-up of cumulus has usually swallowed the western horizon. The sun disappears into grey somewhere around 5 PM rather than dropping into a colour show on the sea. Eight or nine evenings in ten end this way through January.
January delivers around 320mm of rain across roughly 22 days on the south Lombok coast. The pattern that affects Merese specifically is the diurnal build-up: clear-ish mornings, growing cloud through midday, heavy convective storms between 2 and 6 PM. Sunset prime time is exactly when storms are most likely.
Wind on the hilltop is gustier than the sheltered bay below — squalls can hit 40 km/h during a passing cell. Temperatures are warm (30°C high, 24°C low) but humidity at 88% means everything stays damp. There is zero shelter on the hill itself; no trees, no shade, no kiosks reliably operating.
The walk from the parking area to the main viewpoint is short — fifteen minutes at a normal pace — but the surface is unpacked clay and grass. After overnight rain it turns slick, and the steeper sections genuinely require care. Twice in January 2025 we watched visitors slip badly enough to abandon the climb.
Wear shoes with proper grip. Flip-flops are a bad idea even when the path looks dry from the car park because hidden mud patches remain wet under the surface for days. The descent is harder than the climb when conditions are bad — many people inch down on their backsides.
Merese in January is essentially empty. You might share the hilltop with two or three other people on a weekday afternoon, sometimes with no one at all. Wedding photographers — who normally crowd the iconic ridge during peak season — don't book January because their clients can't rely on the light. Drone pilots are largely absent because the gusty squalls aren't worth the risk to gear.
The flip side: if you do hit one of the rare clear afternoons, you have the best viewpoint in south Lombok almost entirely to yourself. The buffalo are still there for the iconic grazing-on-grass shot, the sea below is dramatic with wet-season swell, and the green carpet is unmatched the rest of the year.
If you're in Kuta during January and want to risk it, here's the play:
Merese in January produces a different image set than the dry-season golden hour shots that dominate Instagram. The colours are saturated tropical greens rather than warm goldens. Skies are dramatic and moody rather than clean. If you're a photographer who likes weather and storm light, January can produce striking images — they just won't look like the standard Merese sunset frame.
Drone work is genuinely risky. Beyond the gusts, the rapid weather changes can leave your aircraft fighting headwinds back to the launch point. Save the drone for the dry season.
If the iconic golden-hour Merese photograph is the goal, the right months are May through October, with June through September being absolute peak. July gives you reliable cloudless evenings, golden grass, calm wind early in the afternoon, and the buffalo silhouetted against the sea — the postcard image. January gives you green grass and wet feet.
Treat January Merese as a place you visit only if Lombok happened to drop you in Kuta during the wettest part of the year and you're already curious. Don't plan a trip around it.
Forget sunset in January and come at sunrise instead. Storm clouds usually clear briefly between 5:30 and 7:00 AM, the grass is at its greenest of the year, and you can shoot the bay below with morning light hitting Tanjung Aan from a flattering angle. By 9 AM the build-up restarts and the hill turns grey again. Drive the access track before 6 AM — it gets greasy fast once the morning warmth bakes overnight rain into the clay.