25/04/2023 From Sanur to Nusa Penida
What to expect
- 1 Nusa Penida
- 1.1 Have breakfast at Vegan Soul Kitchen
- 1.2 Relax at Atuh Beach during high tide
- 1.3 Visit Diamond Beach
- 1.4 Get a massage
- 1.5 See Broken Beach and Angel’s Billabong
- 1.6 Bath in the Tembeling Natural Pools
- 1.7 Watch sunset at Kelingking Beach
- 1.8 Go diving with manta rays
- 1.9 Watch sunset at Amok Sunset
- 1.10 Go snorkeling
- 1.11 Resumée Nusa Penida
Nusa Penida
After three weeks on Bali it was time for a new island: Nusa Penida. Nusa Penida is only a 45-minute-fast-boat-ride away from Sanur, Bali. A lot of people do day trips here too if they are short on time. But if you have more time, we’d highly recommend staying longer as this island has so much to offer! We ended up staying for four nights even though we had only planned of staying for two nights originally.
Big hotel for little money
Our hotel “The Kleep Jungle Resort” was absolutely amazing! It looked so scenic with its infinity pool surrounded by (palm) trees and a volcano in the background. And the spacious and clean room with AC and breakfast in the morning only cost 13€ p.p. per night!
Have breakfast at Vegan Soul Kitchen
After renting a scooter we went to “Vegan Soul Kitchen” for breakfast. Overlooking all the different shades of green with the blue ocean fbehind it looked pretty amazing! And the smoothie bowl and porridge with fresh fruit were so delicious too!
Relax at Atuh Beach during high tide
Being fueled for the day, we were ready to explore! First we drove all the way to Atuh Beach on the East Coast of Nusa Penida. In order to get to most of the beaches on the island you need to hike down steep steps – same with Atuh Beach! But you get rewarded with amazing views from above!
Especially if you come here for high tide, you get to see the turquoise water and golden sandy beach. We relaxed on the sunbeds for way longer than we had planned before climbing up the steep rocks again back to our scooter.
Visit Diamond Beach
Funnily, Diamond Beach is right next to Atuh Beach. Nevertheless, it will take you around 20 minutes to get there by scooter as you have to drive the one long street out and another long road in again. I guess there are no short cuts on an island unless you were willing to climb up the steep steps on the other side of Atuh Beach in order to get to Diamond Beach faster (for us that would have meant climbing all the way down and then up AGAIN, since our scooter was parked on the other side – so we chose driving instead).
Pick your battles
We got to Diamond Beach just in time for sunset. On the one hand this was perfect as there were way less people. On the other hand this also meant way more mosquitos.
26/04/2023 Nusa Penida
Today we were going to explore all the beaches and natural pools that we didn’t get to yesterday.
Get a massage
But first things first: Let’s enjoy a one-hour-massage.
See Broken Beach and Angel’s Billabong
Feeling very relaxed, we drove to Broken Beach and Angel’s Billabong by scooter.
It’s quite the understatement to say we weren’t the only ones here. In fact, we almost had to wait in line for the “nice photo spots”.
But the cliffs, the rough water smashing against the rocks and the coves in which we even spotted a turtle all made up for it.
Bath in the Tembeling Natural Pools
How do we get there?
Next we wanted to get to Tembeling Beach as we had heard about some natural pools here. However, in order to get there turned out to be quite tricky…
Since the road went narrower and bumpier by the minute, we weren’t really sure if we were going to make it on our scooter. When at one point the road almost disappeared, some locals approached us and offered us a ride.
Can we trust these locals?
Writing this, I can see how dodgy that sounds: hop on the back of a stranger’s scooter and they will drive you to this natural pool in the middle of nowhere. Suuure… But we were two desperate, quite hot and exhausted backpackers that only wanted to cool down in those natural pools that we were promised. So what can you do?
While Blake hopped onto the back of our own scooter, I went on the back of another scooter and together with our little scooter gang we drove over the bumpiest and rockiest roads all the way to the natural pool. No need to be worried at all 😉. Driving here and then walking down the steep steps for the last kilometre was definitely worth it as we ended in a big cave with swings and big rocks on the one side and a natural pool overlooking the ocean with monkeys jumping around on the other side.
Watch sunset at Kelingking Beach
For sunset we went to the famous Kelingking Beach, which looks like a T-Rex head from above.
There were about 20 monkeys running around, which I loved! (However, we did hang on to our sunglasses and phones just a little tighter as we know from other backpackers that they can be quite aggressive and turn into little thieves – the monkeys, not the other backpackers.)
27/04/2023 Nusa Penida
Go diving with manta rays
I was very excited for today as I was going to go scuba diving with hopefully manta rays. Manta Point is known for having a cleaning station for manta rays. Therefore, I was really hopeful to see these giant rays.
We went out on a small boat and since I was the only “advanced diver” (since my certificate in Santa Marta, Colombia), I had my personal scuba dive instructor for both dives.
My best dive yet
turtle 
fish and coral
This might have been my best dive on the entire world trip so far as we saw it all: we saw around 20 sting rays nestling on the bottom, turtles cruising by, little nemos picking coral, two sharks aaaand: 13 massive manta rays! Until today I thought I had seen manta rays before in the wild. But as soon as these ginormous beautiful creatures floated towards me, I was certain I had never seen them before!
Here are some facts about manta rays that I learnt on my dive:
- Mantas are amongst the largest fish in the ocean with a wing span of up to 7 metres and weighing up to two tonnes.
- Despite their size, manta rays are completely harmless to humans.
- Manta rays have the largest brain to body weight ratio of any living fish.
- The word manta is Spanish for ‘blanket’ and it’s easy to see why it got this name!
Great visibilty and warm water
Luckily, the visibility and water temperature (28°C) were great too, so I didn’t need to freeze while wearing three wetsuits like I did in the Galapagos Islands.
After the dive I had lunch together with the other divers (typical Indonesian gado gado) before catching a taxi back to our hotel and telling Blake all about it like an excited child.
Watch sunset at Amok Sunset
For the rest of the day we relaxed by the infinity pool before going out to a beautiful sunset bar called “Amok Sunset”.
28/04/2023 Nusa Penida
Go snorkeling
On our last full day in Nusa Penida we went on a snorkeling tour together. I really wanted to share this incredible experience of seeing the manta rays together with Blake! Unfortunately, we didn’t see any manta rays on our three snorkel stops. But we did see a lot of other cool sea life instead!
Dolphin-alarm!
The first snorkel stop already started off strong: with a bunch of dolphins jumping around us and underneath us! We absolutely loved this! The dolphins couldn’t care less about all the tourists snorkeling around them (and trust me, there were many!).
We found nemo
On the second stop we saw a bed of corals and lots of colourful fish (even more than in the Ningaloo Reef on the West Coast of Australia). And on the last stop, we saw four turtles at the bottom of the ground!
By the time the snorkel trip ended, it was only 10.45 am. So it was time for a second breakfast (we justified it as an early lunch 😉).
One last sunset on the island
In the late afternoon we drove to another sunset bar called “Amarta”. Here we enjoyed cocktails and one last sunset over the cliffs of Nusa Penida before catching the boat back to Bali tomorrow.
Resumée Nusa Penida
We absolutely loved Nusa Penida, its remote island vibe, beautiful beaches, great food and kind locals! Therefore, we highly recommend to come here, especially if you want to get out of the business (from some areas) of Bali.
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