My Bali Trip: Nusa Lembongan

After the long and exhausting journey, we were finally in Bali. Hooray! We spent the first night at Sanur beach, on the eastern coast of Bali. I’ve never been so happy to take a shower in my life!

The next morning, we headed to an island not far off the coast of Bali called Nusa Lembongan. Nusa Lembongan blew my mind! It’s a small island, full of Hindu culture, and completely untarnished by tourism. It feels like this magical untouched place with beautiful people, beautiful traditions, and seriously beautiful beaches. The pace was slow, the mood was calm, and best of all, nobody was pulling on my skirt trying to sell me stuff. (This may be my biggest pet peeve of traveling…)

We stayed in a little bungalow on the beach, attached to World Diving, the scuba diving joint that we had signed up for some dives with. Everything there was super cheap, the food was super delicious (despite the ‘Bali Belly’ it gave me a few days in…more on this later…), and the island was ours to explore.

So explore we did! We had barely thrown down our bags and changed into our swimsuits before we had a motor bike rented and were flying through the little dirt roads of the island. We were speechless! It was like we had gone back in time—old Balinese rooftops, temples in every home, and Hindu tradition oozing from every corner. All of the woman wore brightly colored traditional skirts and carried gigantic baskets on their heads, the children ran around barefoot (and sometimes bare naked), and one day we even caught all of the people of the island in their traditional Hindu garb marching to the temple on the corner of the island for one of their annual Hindu rituals. I would describe the feeling of the island as mystical. I kept asking myself…”does this place really exist?”

Right next to this island were two other islands: Nusa Ceningan and Nusa Penida. Seaweed farming is a big source of income for a lot of people on the islands. Every evening, you could see the farmers bringing in big baskets of seaweed from the water.

So yes, we fell in love with Nusa Lembongan. We spent 3 nights there diving, exploring, beaching, and inhaling as much yummy Indonesian food as possible –I’ve never eaten so much tuna fish in my life (FRESH, mind you -- and it's true what the can says: It really does taste like the chicken of the sea!) or been served every single meal on a banana leaf.

More on the diving and beaches at Nusa Lembongan to come…

The view from my bungalow.

Seaweed farmer taking in his seaweed at the end of the day.

The parade of Hindus marching to the temple.

Almost as many stray dogs as people...

A Balinese woman making her daily offering outside of her home.