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Nusa Lembongan We caught the Scoot fast boat to Nusa Lembongan, an Island just off Bali and spend the next 2 ½ hours being jolted across the ocean with 2 meter swells. Just little ripples to us after a dinghy ride in 3 meter swells followed by a catamaran ride in 5 meter swells in Fiji last year. But to the lady who slouched against Carl the entire trip komotosed whilst vomitting and groaning - it was hell.
We transferred from the Scoot boat into a smaller wooden boat to ride onto the beach, and as we approach Jungutbatu Bay I notice how the sea would rise in front of us and create tiered ledges as it moved towards the beach and then turned into ginormous waves. There were great big floating platforms in the bay with groups of surfers floating in the water. The bay with its little beaches looked like a water playground - I thought wow this is going to be fun. But it wasn't as good as it looked.
Big launches come out for the day from Bali and their guests are deposited to play for the day on/off these platforms for the cheap
Reef in distance
The white line in the distance is where they would surf the big waves price of US$120. I believe you can kayak, dive, snorkel, swim off these playground platform’s, and splash into the sea from the water slide and do a bit of surf boarding.
The beach is shallow with a reef about 200 meters off shore where the big waves hit, and they are huge, some so large that you could see through the fine water as it curled over the top of the wave, and surfers would be surfing inside the wave - just like you see on the tele. I found it thrilling, I loved sitting with the binoculars watching them ride the big waves and then after sunset they would all paddle back into shore. Nooo, not aging pervert but interested party in fascinating sport.
The main source of income on Nusa Lembongan is from seaweed farming, and you could see the patches of seaweed patches through the water in the Bay in front of the reef. You could watch them every evening bring the seaweed in, tie it and return it to the sea – no idea what the process is but fun to watch them work. This seaweed is exported and used to thicken ice cream
and cheese.
Jungutbatu Bay is lined with accommodation - beach side and also on the hill, mixed with village compounds and temples. We walked around the sea wall to Mushroom bay, a popular tourist spot with some great accommodation on the water’s edge. We had been spoilt with the Gili’s and the weather was overcast so we did not see the dream beaches Lonely Plant wrote about or replicas of the pictures on the web. We saw murky seaweedy water, and a beach littered with local boats and seaweed farming.
But we enjoyed our few days, they say the island life is like Bali was 25 years ago. Behind the beach front is the village with narrow roads lined with Balinese housing compounds, few shops, some accommodation and a few small restaurants. Woman sit on the compound steps on the side of the road, chatting during the day, the men were dressed in white Balinese attire, kids as young as 8 were riding motorbikes with younger pillion passengers. Little girls would plead for us to
please buy something from their little stall selling shell string bracelets. We stayed in the village and walked to the beach every evening
past the families who lived in rooms made out of woven flax, the bottom of which were thin and worn from weather.
We had the most amazing Chicken Saltim Boca at Ware Ware restaurant! Booze was expensive for us, Bali prices, but there were some really cheap food at road side restaurants.
It was great to visit to appreciate the Balinese culture and watch the surfing in real life. Lots of people come over from Sanur for a night or two, and that would be OK if you paid the extra and got a sea front or hillside room. Of course at a different time of year probably different beaches with still clear water.
We caught the Scoot and after 30 minutes later we were on the beach in Sanur and were driving to Kuta. There were groups of barefoot men on the side of the road who come in from Lombok looking for work. They have a shovel and wait to be picked up by the trucks loaded with building mixes and taken to the delivery point to unload the truck and then dropped back to the side of the road. Sometimes this can take up
to half a day - all for 10,000 (NZ$1.30) for 2 men.
Accommodation: Pondok Jenggala – great swimming pool, musty smelly room, moldy bathroom wall, tiles needed good scrub. Pancake at breakfast inedible. Good value though for price of NZ$35 per night as other accommodation quite expensive.
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