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Published: January 16th 2017
Boats - prisons with a chance of drowning. Our version of a boat fitted hand in glove with that metaphor. Roughly the shape of a coffin but twice the size and fitted with a pair of ambitious outriggers ostensibly to lend some confidence that all would be fine.
Despite misgivings, our sturdy vessel covered the 2 hour crossing without a hitch, unless you consider hitches such things as spinning around uncontrollably in a whirlpool and the teenage "skipper" constantly bailing out water from the bottom of the hull. This narrow strait is one of the world's less forgiving bodies of water.
But you negotiate that journey and then pull into a lagoon of pinch me I'm dreaming opaque waters of contrasting hues that paint chart guys might label "my chartreuse heaven". Round that image out with a white sand beach fronted by a deshabille (come on Francophiles) village. It all screamed Utopia without even trying. This was to be our home for a few lazy days.
Our digs were a concrete shell and the bed a timber frame with some lumpy thing on top that may have doubled as a mattress at some stage of its existence. The
From our aperitif stop.
Boats, boats and more boats.bed was also the favourite roosting locale for a certain chicken. Every morning, like clockwork - cluck cluck .....at least we knew our boiled eggs for brekky were fresh. Better at least than the evening meal of some type of grey fish and steamed rice, every night. Hello? Taste? Pass the soya sauce please. Our toilet was a standard squat and we washed ourselves from a well.
The year was 1981 and for a few early 20s surfers in travelling pubescence this was our heaven prototype. A fringing reef out front provided us with great waves on a daily basis and the frugal living conditions made for exotic pub anecdotes back on home turf. We may have been broke but we were the virtual rich.
This was the first of five short jaunts to Nusa Lembongan in the years 1981 to 1983 and in those 2 years little if anything morphed. But with Bali looming so close that you feel as though you could reach and touch it, how long would this tiny slice of idyll remain unmolested? I figured its demise wasn't too far down the track.
But that was then, this is now. Penny had
Tough start to the day for these chickens
But you get the feeling it's only going to get worse. never been there so the time was ripe for a re-acquaintance 35 years on. Battling visions of a paradise lost but hoping for a flicker of "the good old days" , I pencilled in a week from this year's month long Indo hiatus.
Bookings.com divied out the first reality check. Dozens of accommodations folded down the computer screen so I wasn't exactly sucker punched as the fast ferry (now a 40 minute no drama traverse) pulled into Nusa Lembongan circa 2017. The waterfront still exudes fingerprints of gritty Indonesia but this has been infused with more upmarket hotels/villas/bungalows etc. The southern headland where we had reserved our room was in its previous life devoid of any signs of civilisation. Now that hill is up to its armpits in accomodation, restaurants and bars that cantilever right down to the lagoon's edge. Like lounge chairs in a living room pointing towards the TV, these structures gaze longingly over to Bali's Kintamani Volcano.
Bulldozers, however, weren't given carte blanche to level the lot and the constructions are generally tasteful and low level. The island has also been quarantined from conglomerate hotel chains. Bingo. Nusa Lembongan wasn't going down with a whimper.
There's also a positive payoff with the development as our contemporary template for Nirvana won't argue with aircon, hot water, infinity pool and a culinary landscape that doesn't resolutely defy eating. Nothing wrong with a touch of sinful decadence in your Eden blueprint.
There are, however, a few first world annoyances, mostly revolving around the perennial onslaught of Bali day trippers. The tourist population swells as the boats start pulling in.
By 10am the whole scene fires up. Parasailing, divers, jet skis, snorkelers, surf schools, mobile water slides and screaming Asians being dragged behind motor craft on tyre tubes and inflatable banana beds. Then there are the alcohol-fuelled party boats with doof doof music saturating the air.
A witty sideshow to this maelstrom, stereotype alert, is to wander down to The Equator Bar. Is there a more clumsy, awkward race of people around the ocean than the Chinese? They are hauled in from Bali by the boatload before making their best attempt at drowning. I won't attempt to micro describe the chaos but life jackets are no mere fashion accessory.. Overweight, non-swimming Chinese in kayaks, what could possibly go wrong? With the local water sports instructors working
double time at preventing a few deaths, it was all they could do to prevent clients disappearing into the wild blue yonder. Next stop Papua Guinea. It was hilarious in a "this could be disastrous" kind of way. At least they kept everybody else on the beach entertained. Hours of fun for all the family.
Come mid-afternoon and the whole circus packs up, high tails back to Bali and the status quo of sanity resumes.
By 6pm the midday circus is a memory and we wander to our cafe of choice overlooking the lagoon for our ritual aperitif and watch the light fade. There may not be a whole lotta shakin goin on in Nusa Lembongan after sundown but the ambience is ethereal enough for us to ponder how forgiving life can be at times.
The final verdict? It would be simple to mount the soapbox and scream to the heavens about paradise lost. Rather I'll put the soapbox on ice for the present and reconcile myself that Nusa Lembongan is a paradise tweaked. Look beyond those pesky annoyances that cling to tourism like poop to a blanket and the champagne still has bubbles.
Forget sounding
like the pub bore and rabbiting on about how life used to be. I surfed, swam, ate darn well, siphoned a few frosty Bintangs, read a book, swooned over wedding photo backdrops and accumulated 7 days that shamelessly leave no legacy other than the memories. Life flowed like treacle and "feet-up" was ceremony. By week's end if I were any more chilled Penny would have had to fire up the defibrillator to revive a pulse.
1981 in Nusa Lembongan may be worth shoehorning into my eulogy (not for a few more years yet please) but in 2017 it still isn't too shabby either.
More images @
www.colvinyeates.zenfolio.com
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Greg Burke
non-member comment
Refreshing..
Nice to hear it hasn't turned to Bali .. A visit to Lombok last sept, revealed , what I thought was Bali of 25 years ago. Refreshing backwardness with a touch of luxury..