Nusa translates to 'Island' in Indonesian which is what Indonesia is all about. After spending the last couple of days in Bali and leaving Gili Trawangan, we were finally ready to enter the dreamy islands of Nusa Penida and Lembongan. We boarded the Eka Jaya fast boat from Gili Trawangan to Nusa Lembongan at 12:30 PM and got to the common dock where people get off for both Nusa Penida and Lembongan.
Once we arrived at the common dock, we waited for our bags to be unloaded and headed to the ferry which would take us to Nusa Lembongan where we had our stay booked for the night. The ferry took about 15 minutes to get to the island where Eka Jaya's transport was waiting for us. They kindly dropped us to our villa which was about 15 mins away from the dock which was basically beside yellow bridge. Despite the fact that the villa is situated quite far from the main road, getting there was not a problem and the views were just mesmerizing. We were given a warm welcome by the owners of the property and shown to our villa which was beautifully set up for our arrival. Now the only thing left for us to figure out was transport as the island is devoid of any public transport. This problem was looked after by the villa owners as they hooked us up with scooters for IDR 50,000 a day.
We dropped off our bags and set out towards Devil's Tear which is a picturesque sites on the island. The ride lasted for 10 minutes and was a fairly easy road to navigate. Parking the scooters was not a problem as we had arrived at the time when the sun began setting which I think deterred the crowds from staying any longer which allowed us to enjoy the place more freely. After we got off the scooters and saw the cliff, we were awestruck at the sound of the waves lashing against the rocks, not to mention the picturesque sight of the sun slowly drowning into the background. Since all the traveling in the day had got us tired, we decided to stay for a while and just breathe it all in.
After the sun had set, we decided to go to the harbor which is by the yellow bridge so as to get a boat sorted for the next day in order to visit Manta Bay and Nusa Penida before the end of the next day. A few enquiries later we realized that Manta Bay is a distant dream considering the fact that the ocean conditions were not ideal that meant we would not be able to get into the water. This brought in a lot of disappointment to us nevertheless we decided to not get bogged down by that and used it to bargain the prices further until we found a boat to ferry us to Nusa Penida for IDR 500,000.
We woke up early the next morning as the excitement was high considering the fact that we were heading to one of the most picturesque places on the planet. Everyone got done with breakfast, packed their bags and hopped onto the scooters to get to the harbor. On reaching the boat place, we realized that we had to pay the whole amount in cash and had to pool in money as no one singularly held that much to which the lack of ATMs just added difficulty but we managed.
Since we could not make it to Manta Bay, here are some stills from the place by people who made it:
We finally boarded the boat and set out towards Nusa Penida which was about 10 minutes away. The boat ride was extremely pleasant and gave us time to appreciate the transparent water that lay beneath us. The first thing we did on touching the shore was find a scooter rental which didn't take long as there are a lot of rental shops right at the harbor. We moved from one shop to another bargaining the price to get the best offer and finally settled at IDR 60,000 for the day.
Despite reading about the bad roads on the island we went ahead with the scooters to skim the expenditure, little did we know that it would backfire on us. As we set out towards our first stop, Angel's Billabong, disaster struck as one of our scooters lost control on a sloping road due to the presence of gravel and slid sideways injuring the riders leg pretty bad. The fact that the island is not very populated made it hard to find help but some distance away we found a house where a lady gave us water to clean the wounds. Unfortunately she didn't have any first aid which meant we had to be on a constant lookout for stores where we could get some first aid which was a challenge considering the fact that there weren't many stores along the road. After riding for a while, hopes had disappeared and we decided to ask for first aid at a restaurant cum store for the last time and to our luck, they possessed antiseptics and cotton rolls which would do the job for the time being. The first aid process took us about half an hour and we were good to go.
As we were nearing Angel's Billabong, we realized the roads weren't getting any better but were the same or worse at places, the major problem being the presence of gravel on the road which was causing scooters to slip while braking. We witnessed three accidents along the way and would recommend a car over scooters just to ensure safety. Once we finally arrived at the destination, we parked our scooters and walked to the Angel's Billabong and Broken Beach which are beside each other. Angel's Billabong is a natural infinity pool where people are allowed to get into the water depending on the tidal conditions. To our dismay, the tidal conditions on that day didn't allow us to get into the water and relax which meant we had to stare at it from a distance.
Since we could not get into the water, we moved to the Broken Beach which felt like something out of an artist's imagination. The shades of water were surreal and something we felt were straight out of a Lightroom edit. We strolled around the place for a while and had a hard time believing that it was not a dream. After having our fill of the place, we gathered around in order to decide our next move as some variables in the equation had changed. Being extremely enthusiastic and energetic people, we decided to go ahead and hit Kelingking beach instead of retiring due to the injury.
We got back on our scooters and headed to our next destination, Kelingking beach. The fact that this destination was extremely touristy meant that the roads were much better which brought a sigh of relief. The downside of being such a popular place was the crowd which made it hard to find parking. Once we did find parking, we set out on the hour long descent trek like a torpedo heading towards its target while stopping every now and then to make way for the people coming from the other direction.
As we were climbing down the hill to get to the beach, we made it to mid point of the trek and realized that we were more like a spaceship and some of us were going to separate at that point as the enthusiasm was being taken over by the feeling of tiredness. This was not enough to deter two of us and we decided to do the most sensible thing at that point which was to leave some men behind and continue.
As we continued down, the trail got worse due to the fact that it was no longer a flat path but just undulating ground formed by people treading on it which made it difficult for one of us to tread considering the leg injury. Despite these hardships, we made it to the end which was fun as it consisted of a ladder to make it to the beach which just skipped and jumped into the sand. The moment which we had dreamt of was finally here, the pictures of which we had stalked for months, the beach from paradise was where our feet stood. The first thing we did after coming back to our sense was head straight towards the unreal water. The moment we hit the water, we forgot all the pain we had endured on the way down and just lazily floated around until we realized it was time to head back.
Despite spending over an hour in the water, we felt that we hadn't had enough but couldn't stay for longer as we had to make it back to the harbor before sun set as the boats stopped after that and we didn't want to be stranded on the island. With heavy hearts we started the hour long ascent to reunite with the others who were waiting up top. Once we made it to the top, we had a last glance of one of the prettiest places we had ever seen and left as now we had to get one of us proper medical attention. This time we took a different route to the harbor which was much smoother than the one we had used before. We got to the harbor, dropped the scooters off and boarded our boat back to Nusa Ceningan. On getting back to the island, we headed to our villa, changed our clothes and set out to find a doctor which turned out to be a task. We followed Google Maps to a place that was definitely not a clinic but we found a shop close by and asked them for directions to the doctor. The people we asked for help went out of their way and took us to the doctor who was done for the day but requested him to help us out to which he agreed. He cleaned the wound and bandaged it which costed us IDR 200,000 which negated the savings we made on the scooters. Now that we were fit and fine, we visited Nick's place for food which turned out to be a good decision as the food was fantastic and so was the ambience. After having our stomach's fill, we headed back to the villa and retired for the day.
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