In Reply to: Bali newbie...one day only - ?Ubud posted by meldives on Friday, 1. September 2006 at 19:35 Bali Time:
if you are there for a few days you may want to explore a bit ... the best coral and fish are at an area called Mangroves off Nusa Lembongan. Also another area off Nusa Pededa at Gamat Bay.
The coral they take them to see with Bali Hai does not compare in my view. Email me if you have any questions.
JBR 4 - Nusa Lembongan 17 - 22 March 2006
Friday 17 March - Lembongan - Hot
After the heavy rain and thunderstorms of the night everything seemed fresh and bright in the morning. We enjoyed the included breakfast at the Puri Kelepa and then walked up to the early morning market, said goodbye to Agung, who had sold me some some traditional Balinese cloth, and bought some apples and coconut which we ate on the way back to the hotel.
Alex had arranged for Perama (tourist transport) www.peramatour.com) to pick us up to take us to the boat to travel to Nusa Lembongan as I wasn't quite sure of it's departure point. Pick up cost for two was 10,000 rupiah and the boat fares for the two of us was 140,000 rupiah one way.
Well, Sam and I waited at the appointed time in reception and waited and waited. We thought heck, we know about jam time in Bali but it's getting close on 10.30 am, the advertised departure time for the boat. Eventually I twigged, the Balinese chap sitting quietly with us in reception was our pick up person! Ah, well that is good, he says (I don't know who he thought he was picking up but I would have thought it was fairly obvious as we were the only ‘tourists' at the reception area). So we loaded into a van and headed off only about 1 ½ kilometres away to the Perama Depot which is in a street running off the Sanur beach. After a few telephone calls the guide ascertains that the tourists expected from Ubud were already on the boat so we hurried down to the beach and jumped on the boat, not before getting very wet boarding because I misjudged a wave as I was getting in! There were about 12 people on the boat and it was a comfortable ride of just over an hour duration. The boat guide Mugglie asked us if we had booked somewhere to stay, and even though I'd read about accommodation touting and was keen to avoid ‘extra costs ... read commission', I was able to ascertain from him that the small guesthouse I was keen to find that had a small swimming pool was called Playgrounds (named after a surf break on the island). So we arranged a local boat transfer with him from where Perama pulls in at the main beach at Jungutbatu to Playgrounds which has a small boat mooring site.
First of all Mugglie showed us the property next door to Playgrounds called The Villas Nusa Lembongan (owned by Di and Bill from Noosa) www.lembongantravel.com, which was absolutely beautiful, and as it is on the side of a hill it had fantastic views of Jungubatu and mainland Bali with Gunung Agung rising majestically in the background. The Villas didn't have a swimming pool (although I found out later that they had an arrangement if you stayed there you could swim in the pool if you bought a few drinks from the Playgrounds Bar). Later on in our stay we met Di and Bill who are lovely people, very friendly and can tell you all about Lembongan and the close by islands.
When we discovered that Ketut at the Playgrounds Bar also ran the golf driving range out the front (yes, you hit off into the bay and the seaweed farmers would collect the balls at low tide and sell them back to him for a small fee), well, that was it, Sam definitely didn't want to stay anywhere else and I liked the small seawater swimming pool for my water exercises. Playgrounds guesthouse www.playgroundslembongan.com has about 6 bedrooms, and the three rooms on top share a large wooden balcony (blinds can be lowered to separate the balcony areas), with day beds and hammocks, table and chairs. The rooms are tastefully decorated and very clean, with large bathrooms (if you want hot water you can ask for a solar bag to be set up) and fan cooled but you can open the front sliding door and let the seabreeze come into the rooms, which is what I prefer. Sam made the day bed his night bed every night and awoke to a wonderful view every morning. A mosquito coil burning under his bed kept any mozzies away at night, although I must say we didn't have much of a problem with them and the sunrises and sunsets were beautiful.
It was so interesting to have a daily kaleidoscope of activity to observe from the balcony, the daily perama and fishing boats, boats bringing everything to the island, one day I sat and watched a huge wooden carved bed being precariously carried ashore (by ladies of course) from a boat, then large containers of water and assorted boxes, almost everything here has to come by boat. When the tide had receded in the afternoon farmers harvested their seaweed and families played in the shallow pools of water left by the outgoing tide. Large shallow oval shaped wicker basket brimming to the top with all sorts of coloured seaweed would be pulled along in the shallows by the farmers to be brought ashore and laid out on tarpaulins to dry for up to a week. A seaweed farmer told me that his monthly income would be about 300,000 rupiah (A$47.61), depending on what type of seaweed it was. The seaweed is used to produce medicines and cosmetics.
The people of Lembongan are very accepting of tourists, tending to just go about their own business and the only thing that was offered unsolicited was hiring of motorbikes, which of course Sam was very interested in. We negotiated a manual motorbike from a chap for 5 days, no license, no helmet, no worries .... you learn as the mum of a teenager that you have to let loose and not worry too much! After all the island only had about two cars that I knew of, and one was the ambulance! I decided that I would'nt go pillion with Sam until he was confident in riding a bike as I would have a nervous breakdown otherwise!
So after settling in and Sam declaring (already) that this was the best place he's ever been in Bali, we headed off down the pathway to the beach (Jungutbatu has lots of guesthouses - mainly surfie hangouts) with little restaurants out front. It was pretty hot so we stopped at Bunga Bungalo Sunset Café, one of the first along the beach and had an excellent lunch of Chicken Lembo (chicken in palm leaf) 26,000 rupiah, and Grilled Tuna with a spicy Salsa and Rice 30,000 rupiah, kopi 5,000, diet coke 5,000 and 2 small aquas 8,000.
It was just so relaxing, that we decided that 5 nights here was simply not going to be enough so we told Janu we would be staying an extra night.
Back at Playgrounds Sam hit some golf balls, determined that before the end of his stay he would score a free tee-shirt by getting a hole in one, a post some 250 metres out in the water. That night we met up with the manager Janu, who is a wonderful wacky young man, who lives on the island at the neighbouring village of Lembongan with his family. Janu and Sam hit it off so well, they would stir each other up so much, and as the internet café in Jungutbatu only opened after 3 pm, Janu was happy to let Sam use his laptop so he could keep in touch with his mates back home. Playgrounds had an honour tick system for guests' drinks from the reception desk refrigerator, and they stocked it up with diet cokes for us, which was terrific.
We decided to meander along the beach to see what there was in the way of restaurants and finally decided on one called the Sukanusa as there didn't seem to be much happening in the other restaurants. The tables were set in the beach sand and it would have been very romantic (with teen son... not!) but for a huge screen set up which continuously showed fashion parades from Parisian fashion shows, it seemed so unreal, here in a small village with most villagers living a very basic lifestyle there was satellite TV with the latest extremes in fashion being paraded by very unrealistic looking models. I just hoped that the Balinese didn't think this was in anyway a true depiction of the way we look and walk at home!
Saturday 18 March - Lembongan - Very Hot, then Light Rain and lightening at night
In the morning Sam and I have a basic but nice breakfast of poached eggs, toast, juice and bali kopi at Playgrounds. Nyoman makes the breakfasts in a small kitchen as well as servicing the rooms, she is married with children and very friendly - she works 7 am to 3 pm each day. Sam manages to keep her busy making juices; he has become quite addicted to banana and avocado juices by this stage.
I head off looking for an early morning market and discover that in Jungutbatu there is none, just two small shops selling a small range of vegetables and numerous odds and ends commonly found in Bali, cute things like little containers of shampoo etc., not like the jumbo sizes sold in our very capitalistic wasteful society. You don't come to Lembongan to shop, there is one shop selling traditional souvenirs for the tourists that are ‘walked' up the main street from the Bali Hai daily tours of Lembongan.
Out the front of one of the shops is a bale and I am invited to have a kopi, and so begins a friendship with a lovely family - Nyoman and Wayan and their two children Putu (girl - 5 years) and Made ( boy 1 ½). Wayan works as the hospital dentist, the small hospital in the main street where the shop is located. Nyoman's mum is also sitting in the shop, busily making offerings shaped out of palm leaf, she is there every morning and night.
I indicate to Nyoman that I am interested in hiring a bicycle, does she know anyone? Wait, she says, I will get for you and she comes back with a beautiful looking mountain bike. We lower the seat as far as it will go (it's a man's bike) and I just manage with one tippy toe to touch the ground. OK, super, I don't bother negotiating the price with her 25,000 rupiah a day is fine by me (A$3.96) but do ask if that will also include two bali kopi's per day at her warung? ... not a problem she says, as a matter of fact I later discover she is going to feed me a second breakfast every day when I stop for my morning kopi! I figure out that with all the bike riding I'm doing that I can still manage to eat half of it not to be rude, and not put on too much weight!
So not having ridden a bicycle since my childhood days I wobble off down the main road, deciding to ride clockwise around the island, having read this piece of advice in my Rough Guide to Bali and Lombok, to avoid having to ride up a steep hill to the south of Jungutbatu. In a short time I am feeling quite confident with riding, and get very proficient in dodging the many potholes in the narrow bitumen roadway, as there are no cars, only other pushbikes, pedestrians and motorbikes it all seems quite manageable. Past the back of the little guesthouses, most of them signposted I get my bearings easily and ride past the volleyball court where a lively game is being played.
The narrow roadway turns as it joins up with the sea and I have lovely seaviews across to mainland Bali, riding past thatched shacks where the seaweed farmers live with their families, the seaweed spread out on tarpaulins drying. I stop to sit and admire the view and some farmers and children gather to say hello. I pass out my Indonesian cigarettes (a bit like the indian peacepipe tradition) and some of them can speak a little English. From my backpack I bring out some little bottles of soap bubbles and we have a bit of fun blowing bubbles with the children so I leave them for them and peddle on my way.
I cycle past a deserted temple, the Pura Sakeman, quite often the temples are quiet places not visited unless there is a temple ceremony happening. The bitumen ends and the roadway is more challenging to negotiate through steep ruts filled with rainwater and sandy edges. I am careful not to ride over seaweed drying out and I see children's faces look with surprise at me as I don't think they see a lot of tourists in this part of the island, and I get the occasional cheery hello.
At the end of this roadway is the mangrove area and there is a couple of warungs and of all things a shop selling clothes and souvenirs, evidently established because this is the place of departure for tourists to be taken on a boat ride through the mangrove area. I buy an aqua drink and buy a bright green cotton top to put on over my sundress as the sun is now beating down quite fiercely.
Refreshed I peddle back to an intersection and turning left cycle across the centre of the island. I come across a large temple with a very orate doorway (Pura Empuaji) and I find a local lady who is happy to take a few photos of me sitting on the steps of the temple and with my bicycle. Riding further I find myself riding past the rubbish dump and low lying mangrove area, it seems like I have ridden for ages without seeing a single sole.
Heading towards the south the area has more green foliage and stopping near a house an ice-cream man comes cycling along where for 1,000 rupiah I buy a refreshing gelati type ice-cream in a cone. What luck! I ask directions, where is the bridge across to Nusa Cenegan, thinking that I must have missed it, up further he says with a wave so off I set again, and it's another 8 minutes or so I find the yellow painted suspension bridge that links Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Cenegan. It can only be traversed by motorbike, bicycle or foot. I meet a German lady who has chartered a boat across from Padang Bai and she is looking for the underground cave house, so I point her in the right direction and suggest that she look to find someone with a motorbike who can take her as it is quite a way further along according to my map. Further along to my surprise I come across a fit looking chap leading a group of unfit looking tourists on what must be a bicycle tour of the island ... they are followed by a ‘support vehicle' and to my amusement they drive past me later on in my journey - all sitting in the back of the support vehicle - evidently Bali Hai or Bounty don't make their tourists ride up hills!
The scenery is lovely, small flat rowboats are bobbing in the water and waves break in the sea at the entrance to the narrow inlet between the two islands. I stop at a warung to admire the view and have a cool drink. I reckon the locals are thinking only a mad tourist rides a pushbike around in this heat! I manage to get lost in the village of Lembongan, it's a very sleepy place, or maybe it was just the heat of the day keeping everyone off the street. I ask for directions to Coconut Bay and get the usual wave, so meandering my way around I eventually find the roadway past the cemetery and back towards Jungutbatu. As I rode past the workmen building a big new white temple they call out to me ‘hati hati' which I remember is be careful in indonesian. I soon discover why they have warned me .... The roadway leading down into Jungutbatu is extremely steep and windy and not trusting my newly found bicycle skills I decide to hop off and safely walk down the steep incline. Ah, no wonder the book had said ride clockwise, I'd have given up if I had come this way first up.
I finally get back to Playgrounds, my island circumference ride has taken me (with stops along the way for drinks, ice-cream and a spot of shopping) has taken me 4 hours and I think I have only ridden about 14 kilometres.
In the meantime Sam, 17 years, has negotiated to hire a manual motorbike from a chap for 5 days, no license, no helmet, no worries .... you learn as the mum of a teenager that you have to let loose and not worry too much! After all the island only had about two cars that I knew of, and one was the ambulance! I decided that I would'nt go pillion with Sam until he was confident in riding a motorbike as I would have a nervous breakdown otherwise!
I quite happily relaxed by the pool for the rest of the day and for dinner we were walking up the beach and met up with Di and Bill who own Villa Lembongan next door and have been here for 2 years. Dinner is Pizza Ceningan (29,000 rupiah) and Nasi Goreng (15,000 rupiah) at Bunga Bungalo. We have a lively night, as it seems it is a chance Saturday night meeting of a lot of the ex-pats on the island at Bunga Bungalo. Our bill comes to 77,000 rupiah (A$12.22) not bad for a good feed and a few drinks.
I can tell you I slept well that night.
Sunday 19 March - Exploring Nusa Cenegan -Hot then lots of rain
Sam and I decide we'd like to do some exploring on Nusa Ceningan which is 4 km long and 1 km wide. He convinces me that he is a safe rider so I hop on the back of his bike and we start to head up the huge hill climbing out of Jungutbatu, I'm busy telling him slow down (later he said he had to rev the bike to get it up the hill!) anyway, the bike stops halfway up this huge hill and I get quite frightened and hop off saying I'm walking, I'll meet you up the top. By now my confidence has eroded completely so I tell him, let's go back to Jungutbatu, and I'll find a motorbike with driver for me.
I decide to go back to Nyoman's and I ask her if there is someone she could find who could take me pillion and Sam can ride behind us. To my surprise she comes out on a motorbike and tells me to hop on; she'll be my driver. The pace on Ceningan is even slower than Lembongan and we enjoy riding past groups of houses and lush greenery. We stop to have a look at a nice surf beach and as it is starting to rain we then ride back to Lembongan to the mangrove area, which Sam hasn't seen before and we take a boat trip through the tranquil mangroves. I buy about 10 small bags of potato chips for the kiddies who have gathered around and hold a 2-month-old baby who is being looked after by his young father while his wife is working attaching seaweed onto long pieces of cord in their tiny house made of thatching.
The weather had fined up so Sam and I used the kayak at Playgrounds to paddle over to the next bay, Coconut Bay intending to have lunch at one of the small beachside warungs. We managed to get completely swamped as we were landing the kayak (luckily I had left my camera behind at the guesthouse but then discovered that my sugar substitute tablets had all got wet and dissolved in the container - and they don't sell that type of thing on the island!) We found the warungs closed, so back in the canoe and we paddled further on south over to the next bay along known as Cheligimbai. We pulled up outside the beach at the Villa Wayan where they had a restaurant that had a sand floor overlooking the beach, unfortunately the view is somewhat spoilt by the view of the large pontoons operated by the Bali Hai and Bounty groups for day trippers. Sam was surprised to find that the grilled tuna he had ordered was only ½ a tuna (32,000 rupiah) - the other ½ must have been used in my tuna salad! (17,000 rupiah) 21% tax had been added to the bill, and I must say that it wasn't really the best dining experience we have had - perhaps they were having an off day.
Although there were some large waves we managed to get back in the kayak OK and paddled back to Playgrounds where we just relaxed and swam in the pool. Then I rode my bike down to Nyoman's for my afternoon bali kopi and sent off an email back to Australia from the internet café at the back of Manski Inn. The internet opens at 3 pm and it feels weird sending an email from such a laid back place where it is then opened by someone sitting in an office in a busy city.
I happened to compliment Nyoman on a pair of trousers she was wearing and to my surprise she said ‘they are not new, they are from the shop for used clothes' So I explained to her what an Opportunity Shop is in Australia (second-hand clothes) and she says yep, we have one of those on the island. Where I say, and she says do you want me to show you, yes please I say, so she gets out her motorbike and off we go. I tell you, I'd would have never found it myself, it was down a little pathway in what appeared to be thick tropical forest, there was a house with a tin roofed shed attached and all the clothes were hanging up for sale. Well, we had heaps of fun trying on things, so I bought a few extra tops and an outfit for Nyoman, I think the whole lot cost me A$3 (and most likely I paid tourist price). The Op Shop on Lembongan ... what a find!
I popped up the hill to have a drink with Di and she kindly organised for us to speak to Ketut over at Linda's Bungalows in the morning to arrange a boat trip over to the third island, Nusa Peneda.
Dinner at the Ware-Ware Surf Café & Bungalows, right near Playgrounds was prawn curry for me and spaghetti bolognaise for Sam plus he had a banana split - all very good and as the restaurant is high up on the hill (yes, a mountain of steps to climb) it got the cool breeze which was nice and pleasant.
By the time we got back to Playgrounds it was raining heavily and there was a huge thunderstorm. The lightening flashes silhouetted mainland Bali across the water.
Monday 20 March - Nusa Peneda - Rainy, Overcast
Sam decided to go for a bike ride over to Nusa Cenigan to take some sunrise shots and it starts bucketing down with rain so I try not to worry about him and what's a girl got to do when she can't get a suntan ... do beauty stuff of course! So I pampered myself a bit with a mud pak and then Sam arrives back chilled to the bone as it was cold out on the bike in the rain.
He has a cold shower that still warms him up a bit and we head out for breakfast at Linda's Bungalows to find Ketut to arrange a trip to Nusa Penida. On the way we stop in at Nyoman's and she asks us if we'd like some fish for tea, she'll get some for us for later on.
It's a very comfortable dining room at Linda's, almost the very last guesthouse along the beach at Jungutbatu Village. For breakfast we enjoy an Aussie breakfast even though it's all fried - 2 eggs, diced fried potatoes, 2 slices of toast and fruit platter and kopi, all for 20,000 rupiah (A$3.17). We meet Ketut who helps with the breakfasts at Linda's and we arrange a trip with him for the day, he will organise a boat and commission a bemo when we get to Nusa Penida to take us to Goa Karangsari, a limestone cave we wanted to visit as well as taking us to a couple of snorkelling spots.
As Sam has already headed off back to Playgrounds, Ketut gives me a ride back on his motorbike and indicates he will be back to pick us up at 10 am from the beach with the boat. We are quite surprised when he comes back with a large boat, I suppose we were setting out on what was quite a stormy day and the water we would be travelling over was fairly exposed to the elements. We weren't too sure why Ketut still wore his motorcycle helmet while skippering the boat - did he know something that we didn't? We decide to ask him as it looks very unusual wearing the helmet - he explains that it keeps his head warm - very sensible we decide, as the water has quite a swell during the 40 minute trip to Nusa Penida. We pull in at the town of Toyapakeh and a bemo is waiting for us. I hop in the front with the driver who doesn't speak any English so conversation is pretty much out of the picture and Ketut and Sam ride in the back.
The country is lush with tropical greenery and heavy undergrowth and we pass by very basic traditional housing as the road winds along next to the sea. We nearly have a collision with another vehicle coming around a corner so the driver decides he better beep his horn before negotiating blind corners along the way. After about 12 kilometres we stop and leaving a packet of biscuits for the driver to enjoy Ketut, Sam and I climb about 100 metres up some steep steps to a temple. Ketut is puffing as Sam and I bound up the stairs, so we have a little chat about fitness as he is only 42 years of age. At the top I wonder where the cave is, and there seems to be quite a discussion happening between the attendant priest and Ketut. Ah, there is a problem, I didn't realise that the cave is within a temple and I hadn't packed in our bag our sarongs and temple sashes. After much discussion the priest comes out with some of the white holy cloth that decorates the alters and gold embossed material for sashes and they carefully wrap us up from the waist down and we are ready to go. The priest indicates the entrance to the cave, a crack in a rock face in the temple I hadn't noticed, and it's only about a metre wide, and the first part you go down is quite a few metres deep and then an extremely narrow opening where you are crawling under a crack beneath a huge boulder. All very adventurous! It opens up into a huge cavern at least 100 metres high and bats are huddled in corners, disturbed by the flashlight the priest shines on them. There are shrines with offerings and the floor is hard and compacted but pitted so you had to be careful where you walked.
We walk through to the end of the cavern, which opens out at a ledge in the side of the mountain to a lovely serene view of a valley of palm trees. The priest who is 65 years of age tells us that when the Japanese invasion occurred during the Second World War, the whole population of Nusa Penida were able to hide safe and undetected in the cave for quite a number of weeks.
Back at Toyapakeh we stop at a small warung which has a bench seat running along the front counter and we order take away nasi goreng for the three of us, and I take some photos of it being cooked in woks and neatly served in brown waxed paper that has been shaped like cones. We eat our lunch on the way to our first snorkelling spot, Gamat Bay, a black sand beach on the western side of Nusa Penida. There's plenty of interesting fish but not a lot of coral and as the swells were quite large it made snorkelling a bit uncomfortable so we only snorkelled around for about 10 minutes before heading off for our second snorkelling spot, which was near the mangroves area off Nusa Lembongan. Sam at this stage had had enough snorkelling for the day so I was the only one who went in. The coral here was absolutely beautiful and I thought gee I think the people who go on the expensive Bali Hai trips are really missing out on seeing what I consider the 3rd best snorkelling area I have visited in Bali. I would rate (1) Menjangan (2) Amed and (3) Mangroves area, Nusa Lembongan.
Back at Playgrounds Sam falls asleep so I set the alarm for him and a note and head off on my bike to go and visit Nyoman and have my bali kopi as part of our deal included with the bike hire. I sit in the bale out the front of the shop and play with little Made, her 18 month old son. I ask Nyoman whether she knows anywhere I can buy a conical rice farmers hat so I can keep the rain off my glasses. Let's go look she says so we take off on her motorbike and we visit another shop down a small laneway. No rice farmers hats, but what is this I say ... it's a woven basket for steaming rice ... well it would make a good hat, just needs a piece of string to put under the chin ... we fix it up and there we have a wonderful hat for sun or rain .... Needless to say I then felt like the clown of Lembongan. I'd be cycling along and would be firstly greeted by wide smiles and then as polite as the Balinese people are they just couldn't help themselves but have a good laugh at this silly tourist riding around on her bike wearing a rice steamer hat! And I'd laugh with them! I now use it at home when I'm out gardening.
Sam arrives and Wayan, Nyoman's husband cooks a couple of nice mackerel on the little open bbq they have, using coconut husks to start the coals. Nyoman puts together some lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber along with rice and a spicy sambal with the fish and it is absolutely beautiful. We can hardly fit in the fruit she serves for desert but cannot refuse, as it would be impolite. Nyoman asks us if we are still on Lembongan in 2 nights time (Wednesday). Yes, we say, well she asks if we would like to come to the naming ceremony she and Wayan are having for little Made. They are having a suckling pig too. Oh yes, we'd love to come we say.
I go for another peddle around on my bike to ride off some of the dinner, we have been eating exceptionally well and then back to Playgrounds where we sit on the balcony watching the last of the seaweed farmers coming in, the fishermen going out, and all the pretty lights in the bay. We see a large ship go past, it's lights blazing and the twinkling lights of Sanur, Gianyar and Klungkung across the water. A flash of lightening in the distance and it's starting to rain.
It's been a great day.
Tuesday 21 March - Raining in morning, clearing, clear night.
When I wake up it is still raining heavily and I have to move Sam's bed back from the edge of the balcony as it was getting wet. We decide to venture out for breakfast, I want to have a quick look at Coconuts Resort as it's only a few minutes further along the path. There is only one other guest in the restaurant and in my opinion the view of Jungutbatu is better at Playgrounds, but maybe the hotel rooms being up high might offer better views than their restaurant.
The breakfast although nice was expensive (juices 16,000 rupiah, kopi 7,500 rupiah, toast 1 slice 5,000 rp, 2 eggs 16,000 rp - our bill was 117,700 A$18.68) and the staff didn't seem that friendly, maybe because it's a larger place they are not encouraged to chat with guests. Maybe we didn't look like we fitted in, I'm not sure.
I felt that the place didn't have atmosphere, the two pools (one for guests on the day trips either Bounty or Bali Hai, and the other reserved for accommodation guests) although nice were very spartan looking, and there didn't appear to be a tropical atmosphere created that you would expect perhaps in a place marketing itself as a Resort.
When the rain had stopped I cycle out to the mangrove area, and like a kid, enjoy riding through the big puddles of water on the way, and meet up with Nicky whose works at Bunga Bungalo restaurant. Nicky sells me a nice broad brimmed croquet hat and then I pop back to Wayan and Nyoman's for my morning kopi. Instead of carting my bike up the steps to the pathway leading to Playgrounds I ask some people who have a little store on the beach if they would mind my bike (not that it needs minding in a place like Lembongan, the people all seem very honest there) and give them 3,000 rupiah.
Sam and I decide we'll go and explore Mushroom Bay where the big hotel places are including the Bali Hai Huts are located. I walk up the big hill and meet Sam on the motorbike at the top. Mushroom Bay is quite small and mainly tourist boats are in the water so there's not many locals around except for a little girl who is amusing herself with a pet crab on a long piece of string. Sam has lunch at one of the restaurants on the beach whilst not having the dish I wanted I walked about 50 metres inland and had lunch at a small warung, a club sandwich 10,000 rupiah and kopi 3,000 rupiah. Sam finds me and we go on the motorbike through Lembongan Village to the suspension bridge over to Ceningan Island where he shows me some nice seaviews with high cliffs over the water. There are large aloa vera plants growing and some cows come around as we sit down for a few minutes and admire the peacefulness of the area. We explore a deserted hotel with several empty bungalows, it doesn't look like it has been finished being built yet, and it's all overgrown with a look of abandonment about it. Lively local kids are splashing around having a great time in a small pool out the front of one of the bungalows.
Sam has trouble starting the motorbike again, and yes, we were aware of this trick, having been warned by Di and Bill in advance. The kids had turned the switch to the petrol so it wasn't flowing through to the engine, and then suddenly appear after you have been attempting to re start the bike and magically ‘help' you, and hopefully earn a few rupiah for their efforts! We decided to play along, although they were strenuously denying having tampered with the bike. Ah, it magically did start and of course we gave them a few rupiah for their ingenuity! So now we knew where the switch was we won't get caught out again on that trick!
Back on Lembongan we stop at some shops where we run into Janu and we ask him what we can get as a gift for Nyoman's little boy for the naming ceremony we are attending tomorrow. He suggests new clothes so he helps us select an outfit of shorts and top, and kindly offers to gift wrap it for us at his home. On the way back to Playgrounds I get off the pillon at the top of the hill and walk back down to Jungutbatu and have a look at the souvenier shop in the main street. Most of the stock is very dusty and overpriced, the shop keeper is adamant he won't come down in price on a pair of earings and salt and pepper shakers carved from a coconut shell so he goes without a sale; maybe he'll have more luck with the day tourists to the island.
We head up the beach to Bunga Bungalo Restaurant for tea (it's now become a favourite) and have Ceningan Pizza for tea with a nice sorbet for desert. I remember from the website that they have a very special room for hire, so I ask to see Room No. 2. Well, it's something to be seen to be believed, the bathtub has been decorated with inlaid shells, what a sight to see! And only 150,000 rupiah a night (A$23.80) - which I'm sure would be negotiable depending on how many nights you were staying.
By the time we finish tea it is dark and as I am walking back along the beach I hear this very loud continuous urgent meowing. Using sound to guide me, as it was pitch black I find a tiny little kitten in amongst some dried seaweed washed up on the beach. When I pick it up it starts purring very loudly and my heart melts. I have to rescue it as it's mother is nowhere around, it is all by itself and the tide would surely be coming in overnight. I find a warung and ask them for some food for the kushing (cat). They give me a small parcel with some rice and spicy fish mixture as well as some condensed milk mixed with water with a bag. So I take the kushing back to Playgrounds and give him a good mandi (wash), and he is even meowing while he's ravaging the food I have got for him. I settled him cosy in a towel placed inside my rice steamer hat and there he slept for the night (or most of it until he woke up meowing again and woke Sam who was on the daybed outside on the balcony). Sam couldn't settle him so he brought his bedding inside and slept with him for the rest of the night.
Wednesday 22 March - Fine
In the morning Nusa (that's what we decided to call him) had much fun playing with a long piece of cotton thread with a piece of plastic tied to it which we fluttered around like a butterfly for his amusement. I was wondering what to do with him .... could I find his family or would Nyoman be willing to have him, it would be almost impossible to bring a Balinese kushing back to Australia!
At breakfast Janu, who has decided that Matthew is a better name for him, said just leave him on the beach, so I set off on my bicycle, with Nusa sitting in my backpack meowing madly away, it must have been a sight for the locals ... anyway I thought I'd drop in to Nyoman and Wayan's house to show their children the kitten. They had closed their warung for the day so they could get things ready for the naming ceremony and the feast of babi guling afterwards. I found Wayan making a large fire and the pig - probably about 30 kilos was already skewered on the pole and seasoning had been inserted in the body cavity and was being sewn up, the basting marinade had already been made. Wayan's relative was washing out the intestines to make urutan (black sausage) and they were going to make lawar from the pig meat, blood, young coconut, green papaya, jackfruit and herbs - lemongrass, garlic, onion, chillis and ginger.
Putu, Nyoman's daughter enjoys playing with Nusa and then I put him back in my backpack and peddle off to the beach. I decide to go inland from the part of the beach where I found him, and wander around the sheds the seaweed farmers use for storage, and to my amazement as Nusa is meowing his head off, there is an answering meow, and after searching through a few rooms in a shed I finally find his brothers and sisters, all looking identical, and I am so happy to reunite Nusa with his family so there is a happy ending. I'm sure he's got a tale to tell them, a night in a mahal hotel! as well as a mandi!
Exploring the little laneways in Jungutbatu I come across a lady tailor and she has some exquisite material with the lacework worked into it, for making kebayas (traditional ladies blouses worn with sarongs for ceremonies). As I'd left all my kebayas and sarongs in Kuta with Alex, I decided to buy another set for today's ceremonies and luckily she has a set already sewn that fits me.
At 3 pm Sam and I get dressed up in traditional wear and, as a married woman I tie my hair up and decorate it with flowers, and as we are walking through the village it is so nice when the villagers (women and men) acknowledge us with the word ‘shanti' which I think means beautiful or nice. I always feel like a princess when I am wearing Balinese and Sam's a good sort and doesn't mind joining in too.
Just as we arrive at Nyoman and Wayan's they were taking the pig off the fire and tying pieces of woven palm leaves around it's neck, the skin glistening orange from the continuous basting while cooking. It was placed next to a table loaded with elaborate offerings, which Nyoman's mother had been making over the past 5 days while sitting at the warung. Sam and I felt like royalty when invited to sit on high backed seats in the bale that had been set up for the ceremony. The priest had a woman helper with him and I took some wonderful photos and it was so interesting to observe the elaborate ceremony that involved water from special holy spring temples around Bali, rice being stuck to the forehead, prayers and at one stage soft string was tied around Made's little wrists. He seemed a bit bewildered by it all, but looked nice and cool after holy water was dispensed on his forehead. Nyoman and Wayan had dressed him in a special little outfit, a gold coloured sarong with white shirt.
After the ceremony Nyoman's mother cut up the pig and a little table was brought for us to eat our dinner from - babi guling never tasted so good as traditional style from a Balinese home, as well as rice and spicy chiken - bagus! (excellent).
We gave Nyoman and Wayan the present for Putu and said our sad goodbyes - hopefully one day we will meet this wonderful family again.
Back at Playgrounds Sam collected his free tee-shirt from Ketut for getting a hole in one! And we packed our bags for our departure the next day.
We'd had a thoroughly good time exploring the Lembongan Islands over the past 6 days - it had been very relaxing and a nice sojourn from the southern tourist spots of Bali.