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Nusa Penida, Indonesia: A couple of days in paradise

Esther
Oct 30, 2018
2 min read

When I was imagining my trip to South East Asia back home in England, I pictured us finding loads of incredible tropical beaches where we could relax and enjoy the sunshine.

We hadn't seen that many beaches in Bali up to this point, so when Ben and I were planning where we wanted to go after Ubud, staying on one of Indonesia’s famously beautiful islands - Nusa Penida - seemed like a really good move.

The island we decided to visit was Nusa Penida, because we'd heard it was way less touristy than the others but one of the most exotic and beautiful.

We stayed near Crystal Bay beach in the Bintang Bungalows; a cheap, cute and really well-located bunch of beach huts just a few minutes walk from the beach. Ours even had a pool outside!

The Bintang Bungalows on Nusa Penida Island

On our first day, we walked down to Crystal Bay and had a fun afternoon on the beach there enjoying the amazing scenery and sunshine.

Sunset behind the palm trees at Crystal Bay

Crystal Bay was beautiful, but my highlight of the whole island break was definitely our trip to Kelingking beach the next day.

I'd basically describe Kelingking as a tropical paradise. It's a quiet but beautiful white sand beach which, from the top, looks a lot like a T-rex!

Kelingking beach had a little twist to it, though, because you had to climb down a pretty treacherous rocky cliff to get there. Just like with our sunrise trek up Mount Batur, I guess sometimes you have to earn the best views and experiences!

In hindsight, a bikini and flip flops probably wasn't the best outfit choice for the hike, but we managed it down and I think the journey there and back actually added a lot to the experience!

We were glad we stocked up on bottled water, though, because they don’t sell any water down at the bottom and we definitely needed lots in the heat!

We had the best day relaxing, swimming and drinking fresh coconuts on the beach before climbing back up to the top to watch the sunset over the dinosaur-shaped bay.

It was a pretty amazing way to finish our short but sweet stay on this beautiful island.

If we hadn't already booked our transport back to Ubud for my birthday, I'd definitely have stayed here a few more days!

Ubud, Bali: Climbing Mount Batur for sunrise

Esther
Oct 27, 2018
2 min read

I’d say that our sunrise hike up Mount Batur was the first big challenge of my travels since leaving England – and probably my favourite thing I've done in Bali so far!

The lovely couple who owned our homestay (Indy’s Place) were able to get us a good deal on this whole trip to the volcano because it turned out that Indy knew one of the men who ran the sunrise trekking company. So, that evening (before we had a chance to change our minds!), we set our alarms to wake up in the middle of the night, took a coach for a couple of hours to the volcano and were all ready to begin the hike at about 3am.

Our small group ended up climbing Mount Batur in the dark for somewhere between 2 and 3 hours. It was actually a lot tougher than it sounds because not only was it pitch black outside but it was also an extremely rocky, crumbly uphill path, which meant that everyone in our group was constantly losing their footing and occasionally falling like dominoes! I definitely tripped up a few times and one girl in our group even had to stop halfway up and have a cry.

But despite all of that, the experience was completely worth it because the views from the top were unbelievable.

Sunrise view from the top of Mount Batur

We felt pretty lucky to see what we did at the top of the volcano as one of the guides told us that the group who did the trek the day before us had their view blocked by a giant cloud.

On this much clearer day, the sun came out and lit up all of the mountains and valleys around us, turning everything pink and gold.

There were also quite a few monkeys up at the top of the volcano, who we fed our leftover breakfast bananas to!

The journey back down wasn’t much easier than the uphill trek, because the route was just as steep and unstable, but at least we had sunlight on our side this time!

Enjoying the views before making the journey back down

We arrived back at our homestay at about 10am - just in time to have some of Indy's amazing banana pancakes for breakfast.

The sunrise trek has been my last adventure in Ubud for now, but we’re planning to come back in a couple of days for my birthday after our trip to one of the islands nearby!

Overall, Ubud has felt really different from Canggu. It’s been just as beautiful (although a bit more crowded and westernised) and I can’t say I have a favourite out of the two. I’m glad I experienced both!

Ubud, Bali: Mischievous monkeys and Ubud's most beautiful spots

Esther
Oct 26, 2018
4 min read

After just a couple of days in Ubud, I’m already really liking this place. The vibe here is extremely laid-back and beachy (despite it being nowhere near the beach!) and it’s the perfect place to wander around and find cute boutique, cosy bars, restaurants and trendy cafés.

Compared to the area we were staying in Canggu, Ubud has definitely become pretty westernised in parts, but I've actually been really pleasantly surprised by how peaceful and beautiful the whole area still feels. Knowing how popular Ubud has become with both backpackers on a budget and glamorous Instagram influencers, I'd expected the town to feel a little over-touristy and 'ruined', but even with all of its visitors I still think Ubud's kept a lot of its traditional Balinese culture, colour and character.

My favourite out of all the trendy cafés we’ve been to here has been the Lazy Cats Café, which does the best coffee, ‘chia seed coconut ice milkshakes’ and Ubud Raw chocolate squares.

Food and drink here is also ridiculously affordable in general. Last night, we went to a Japanese sushi restaurant with a lovely, cosy atmosphere and great service and my meal only cost the equivalent of about £1.50!

Plus, it’s even cheaper if you’re eating the local food. We tried nasi campur for lunch at a Balinese restaurant the other day and it was amazing.

We’ve also struck gold with our accommodation again! Indy’s House is a homestay hidden behind the long colourful markets right in the centre of town. It’s run by a lovely older couple who have been so kind and attentive to us; always going above and beyond to help us out and make us feel welcome here. The banana pancakes Indy's made us every morning have also been incredible!

The Ubud Monkey Forest

Our first big stop in Bali’s busy capital was its famous Monkey Forest, which was such a cool experience we actually went back again the next day.

We spent a good couple of hours walking around watching the families of monkeys eating, running around and playing with each other. There were literally hundreds of them roaming around freely there!

Not long after we'd gone in, a baby monkey also jumped on me and started drinking from our water bottle before scampering off with it, which was really funny.

Just before we left the Monkey Forest, two monkeys also jumped on Ben, broke into our backpack and ran off into the trees with the new dress I'd bought in the market that morning! At one point he even ripped it out of its plastic bag and wrapped it around his head like a headdress!

It’s safe to say the Monkey Forest was definitely a more interactive experience than all of the times I’ve seen monkeys in zoos back home!

Touring Ubud

As well as exploring the area a bit by ourselves, we also had a proper tour of the area to get to know it better.

Our friendly tour guide Agung began by taking us to try something I’d been pretty curious about since we got here; Bali’s much-loved Luwak coffee. Luwak coffee is made by Asian civets eating and pooing out coffee beans – which can then somehow be turned into the most expensive coffee in the country! As a coffee lover, I was interested to see if Luwak coffee was actually as good as its reputation among the locals.

After learning about how the coffee is made (and meeting the civets themselves!), we got to do some tea and coffee tasting at the plantation. We actually tried fourteen different flavours of tea and coffee along with the Luwak coffee itself. It did taste pretty good but to be honest a lot of the regular coffee samples that we tried tasted better to me!

Next, we moved onto Ubud's famous Tegallalang rice terraces. They definitely beat the Jatiluwih rice terraces we’d seen earlier by a mile - and even on a pretty cloudy afternoon, Tegallalang's rice paddies still looked really impressive.

The Tegenungan waterfall was another really pretty part of the tour. It's a super touristy place (which we definitely didn’t get to ourselves like we had done with the waterfall in Canggu) and I wish we’d had our swim stuff with us so that we could have had a swim, but the waterfall was beautiful enough that we could just admire it and be happy with that.

After that, we moved on to Bali Swing; a park filled with enormous rope swings that let you swing out over an amazing jungle view. This place sounded like a great idea but honestly it just ended up being quite a touristy place full of Insta influencers trying to get the perfect shot! The lines could also get pretty long for some of the bigger swings.

The views were incredible once you were up there, though, so I’m definitely still glad we went.

Like the last tour we had in Canggu, we finished up by visiting some holy places in Bali; the Goa Gajah (Elephant Cave) and the Pura Gunung Kawi Sebatu Water Temple.

The Water Temple was a beautiful temple complex where we saw people bathing in the water fountains and leaving colourful offerings around the grounds; a super peaceful end to a full and busy day.