Travel Day 666 – Jungut Batu, Nusa Lembongan, INDONESIA
After spending almost two full weeks on Bali, it was about time to leave and explore another island…
Relaxed Getaway on Nusa Lembongan
Especially when considering that Indonesia consisted of some thousands of islands, moving on to tiny and often overlooked Nusa Lembongan seemed to be the best thing to do. Only 12 kilometers away from Bali and located in the shadow of bigger brother Pulau Penida, most tourists seemed not to bother visiting these relaxed islands and were heading straight for Lombok or even the Gilli Islands. So, since I was trying to get away from all the expensive tourist madness, Nusa Lembongan promised to be the perfectly relaxed getaway…
Unfortunately after my first boat ride in a very long time, the realization arrived that Jungut Batu, the main settlement on the island, was packed with touts, waiting to hustle the few visitors who dared to make the short trip. But luckily even the most persistent tout gave up at some point and we could freely shop around and compare prices of all the many places to stay. In the end we even managed to settle for something cheaper, away from the beach, but it was still set in a very nice straw hut on stilts with open-air bathroom…
Straw Hut Village on Nusa Lembongan
In search for some local lunch and a quiet beach, we decided to leave Jungut Batu and venture north along the coast. But to our big surprise, all we found was a local straw hut fishing village and a dense mangrove forest. It even seemed to be low tide and the skinny shore that looked like a beach had no water and instead just swampy grounds. The second problem was that the only restaurants in the area were quite expensive tourist places, set up for day trippers to the mangrove forest, or clients from the local dive school…
But on the bright side there were absolutely no other people around and so we simply decided to take-in the tranquility of this little getaway, eat some fresh fish and relax in the reclining lounge chairs at the shore. Even if we never managed to find a good beach or go for a swim, visiting the local straw hut village and just spending quality time at the waterfront while watching the sun set over the distant ocean, was still the perfect thing to do on Nusa Lembongan…
Leave a Reply