Last night, while sipping on hot milk in front of our log fire, my 12 year old son asked me, if you could choose to live in our house or at Alam Shanti where would you live, I said our house, he chose Alam Shanti
We were very sad to checked out of Alam Shanti for our trip to Nusa Lembongan.
There are many ways to get to Nusa Lembongan we decided that Scoot Boat was our best option, as we were leaving from Ubud, the 8.30am boat was to early, that left us with the 4pm option. Now let me tell you, unless you are a seafaring crazy sailor like my hubby (he is a marine captain) do not choose the scoot boat at 4pm always opt for the 8.30am trip.
We had booked 3 nights at the Villa Rumah Kami, and the villa's manager Kormang arranged for a driver to pick us up from Ubud and take us to the scoot boat office, at a cost of RP150,000, nice guy in a hurry!! I was very happy when hubby told him, it's OK we don't need to hurry, plenty of time.
At the office the scoot boat guy told us to leave our bags there and meet him down at the beach, he also told us we would have to pay porters RP50,000 to put our bags on the boat. Hubby thinks this is to much and they agree on RP30,000. We walk to Sanur beach with an hour to kill, so we have a late lunch, I kept looking at the water, hoping our food will stay down, while sailor hubby says it's not rough just windy ( note to self, don't trust crazy sailor hubby again).
Time to go, LOL, we are so over protected in Australia, one of the things I love about travelling with the kids is to expose them to basic things, like getting on the back of a boat while the waves are crashing and you have to watch out for the big sharp propellers!!!
Joking aside it was a well organised rush, porters grabbing bags and children alike, and putting them safely on board, I jumped on before anyone could grab me! Only problem was, apparently the scoot boat guy didn't tell the porters we had paid him, and this led to a few nasty looks and one guy saying over and over, what about me? made us feel bad. But as they never forget a face, and they didn't drop our bags in the water on our return trip, I assume they got their money.
So this little boat with about 10 passengers heads towards the reef, I just shut my eyes, and think it will be alright after we pass through the reef ,I hope.
The 40 mins it took us to get over to the island were terrifying, the little boat kept skidding on the waves and the two big motors at the back were out of the water as often as they were under it. Crazy hubby, and extreme sport 9 year old, kept on looking over their shoulders and laughing at poor 12 year old and myself, who have the brains to realise that, no this is not fun, this is very scary and we are all going to die!!!
Ok so we didn't die, but it was really bad and my advice to any one going over is, go in the morning when the sea is nice and calm.
When we got to the island Komang was waiting on the beach to pick us up, now I was in shock, but I'm pretty sure he had a little sign with our name on it, which I thought was really cute. The poor guys had to drag our bags off the beach and into the back of the truck, which we also climbed into, straight away we were glad we had made the trip over, the village has a lovely calm feeling about it that goes all around the island. It was a very, very, bumpy ride to the villa but also a lot of fun, a sort of comic relief after the boat ride, lots of laughing and faces pulled.
We pulled up at the bottom of a steep driveway, and Komang, who had gone ahead by bike, and staff were waiting to greet us and take our luggage up the driveway to the Villa.
[Now the Villa, I don't know how to go about this, as I know any one staying there will want all the nitty gritty info. but I am currently in contact with the owners over the state of the villa during our stay, and I don't think it would be fair on them at this time to go into to much detail. So I will just say that it wasn't as clean as it should have been and if any one wants more info they can talk to the owners, or email me. But for any one staying there, you are very lucky as the owners are obviously not happy, they are making sure it won't happen again, plus the fact that the villa was been painted etc. since our stay, means that you will be staying in a great place.]
Komang was a great host and also a good cook, the first night we were quite tired so had an early dinner and off to bed.
Next day Ry was still not 100%, so Komang kindly said Ry could stay with him at the villa while we went off to explore, Ry spent all day in bed sleeping and reading.
Hubby, Tannalee and I walked the few minutes down to Chelegimbai with our masks and snorkels, Komang had warned us to be very careful of the swell and currents, I would pass this warning on to everyone else, for here and most of the island. We could see the swell and the reef so decided for Tannas safety hubby would go in first and check it out, as we waited on the beach five little kids came over and started chatting, but they could not speak any English, and we only had a few words of Indo. it was a very funny time, much pointing and laughing on their part, while they pushed each other closer to us, touching my daughters hair and telling her she was beautiful, which of course she loved.
Hubby got out of the water and while he is telling us it's ok, a boat comes around the corner and straight over where he was just diving, it pulled up onto the beach and a group of women dressed in their temple clothes, with offerings on their heads hopped off, walked past us and up the hill, sometimes in Bali you feel like you are in a story book.
It is decided that no, it is not safe to snorkel where a boat might run over us! We say goodbye to our little friends and head back to the villa to check on Ry. He is fine and everyone is ok for him to stay, so Komang gives us directions on how to get to the little beach next Mushroom beach. As usual the walk is half the fun, I feel like a kid going exploring, the walk along the beach at Chelegimbai it is very pretty with all the colourful boats pulled up, we meet a friendly dog who escorts us until he finds someone going the other way who actually pats him, at the southern end of the bay is a sad looking resort that with a big a hole in the ground, that looks like it should of been a pool?. We wander along a hot dry trail, among long brown grass and nasty spiky plants with seeds that get all over our towels, a blue wooden arrow appears pointing to the coast, looks like its meant to be followed, so trusting it, we slip and slide down the dirt path and emerge at the most beautiful little beach, the water around Nusa Lembongan is the most wonderful shades of blue and jade, and this beach was the prettiest one of all, no one here but us, it was magical, sadly once again though it is just to dangerous for us to take our little girl into the water, the swell was huge and the currents looked very strong. Up the slippery path again this time with 9 year old complaining, and rightly so, it was hot and we now just wanted to swim, it was not long before we came to Mushroom Beach, not our scene at all, very busy lots and lots of boats and people, it felt crazy after all the peace and quite we had just had. But it was a beach we could swim at, there were lots of people snorkeling in an area that was designated for swimming, so we got our masks and hopped in, the water was lovely but the current was incredibly strong and I was so glad we hadn't tried to swim at the other beach, Komang told us last year 4 tourist went missing while diving around the island, it's easy to see how. We stayed here for a while, there was nothing to see under the water, so we just swam.
Decided to eat out that night, we followed the dirt track over the head land to the north of Chemlegimbai, past a few resorts and villas and little shacks, then another small beach, more resorts and we were at the beach were the scoot boat comes in, not sure of the name? but there are a lot of hotels here and many places to eat, we ate at the Ware Ware surf bungalow it was really nice.
Before we left for dinner Komang had told us to be careful of dogs after dark, he said he was never scared of other people on the island, but there were problems with wild dog packs!. Guess what we saw on the way back to the villa?, a pack of about 8 dogs, it was almost night and we had been making the kids hurry as the track would of been dangerous in the dark, we were laughing with relief at how we would just make to the beach before dark, when Tanna said, look dogs. The dogs were a bit up the beach near the water so we hurried down the last of the path and all picked up something to protect ourselves with, I had a stick, Tanna got 8 rocks, one for each dog she said, Ry also had a stick, and hubby had a palm tree frond, LOL, he was going to fan them away!!! The dogs never came near us and we laughed at ourselves and the frond, all the way back to the villa.
Next day we arranged with Kormang to take us on a tour of the island, this wasn't until 2.30pm, as it was very hot and we couldn't swim in the ocean, we decided to go for a walk around to the beach we had eaten at the night before, a few of the places had signs up that you could pay to use their pool. For RP50,000 per adult, including a beer or coffee and towels, kids free, we swam at the Nusa Lembongan Villas, beautiful infinity pool over looking the beach, we stayed here for a yummy lunch, one of the waiters that worked here had been on the boat with us and agreed that it had been a very rough ride over, we hurried back along the track at 2pm, just in time for our tour.
The island tour is a must and I was surprised at how varied the vegetation is for such a small island, some parts are so lush and others quite barren. We saw the swing bridge, under ground house, seaweed farming and mangroves, wish we had time to do a boat trip around the mangroves.
Back to the villa and Tannalee remembered I had read how you could go out to the Bali Hai pontoon after everyone left, poor Komang jumped on his bike and rode down to check it out but it was to late, I think it would be fun to do as it would seem surreal with everyone gone.
Had a great time on the island, loved the gentle way of the locals, maybe the strong currents are better at different times of the year?
Scoot boat back to Sanur at 8.30am, smooth as could be.
Next, Sanur, Besakih Beach Resort, the best art shop, Denpasar, BIMC