I didn’t really do a profound research about Bali before going, but I knew about this famous beach named Kelingking Beach. Later on I discovered that Bali is not only the big island I had in mind but also 3 other islands not that far from the biggest one. I visited all of them so let’s say that I have been to all the islands that make part of Bali.
From the big Bali island, I went to Nusa Penida. I went to Nusa Penida from Sanur port and the trip isn’t long. Nusa Penida is way smaller than Bali and it’s where the best Bali beaches are, in my opinion.
I stayed in a hostel I will mention because the owners were so extremely nice and the place was good with great rooftop views. I really liked it. Its name is Hostel Bukit Sangcure and they pick you up from the pier and drop you off if you ask. How sweet! I didn’t know about it so when I arrived in Nusa Penida I paid a local to drop me off at the hostel. The hostel is not that far from the pier, but it is up a steep hill, and with a backpack on I don’t really recommend walking to it.
At the hostel, I met several people and one of them joined me for a day trip to some of the most popular places on the island. We both rented a motorbike at the hostel and set off all day to see as much as we could. Nusa Penida doesn’t have the best streets and I would describe them as kind of dangerous, even worse if you don’t have any experience. The streets are in such bad shape that half the pavement is already gone, leaving a very small area many times for cars and motorbikes to ride along at the same time. If no cars, it would be fine, but there are many cars around which makes these streets dangerous for motorbike riders. If you have never ridden a motorbike, I don’t think Nusa Penida is the best place for you to start. My friend fell once, but luckily I didn’t see it happening. I’ve seen a friend crashing in front of my eyes before and it was traumatizing. At least this time it was nothing. She basically fell because there was not enough space for her and the car at once. One has to ride very carefully on this Island. She didn’t have any injury whatsoever it was mostly a loss of balance. We simply put the motorbike back up again and are ready to go.
Anyway, on this day we visited a few spots. We thought we would have time for more but we prefer to travel a little slower.
Kelingking beach
Our first stop of the day was Kelingking Beach, probably the most famous beach of all Bali. We wanted to visit early before the place got way too crowded and not so enjoyable. It took quite a while to get there and we didn’t arrive as early as we wanted. Still, there weren’t too many people there when we arrived at about 8.30 am.
As we were wary of Bali scams, we didn’t stop when a guy shouted at us to stop a few meters before Kelingking Beach. He was selling a ticket for I don’t know what because we didn’t pay. If it was a real ticket we surely would have found a checking spot, which didn’t happen. Not sure if he was trying to charge for the parking haha. If someone has to shout to make you buy a ticket, it is probably not very legitimate.
We arrived at Kelingking Beach too early for the sun to reveal the true colors of the water down there. Not the best time to see the full potential of this place. The water looks better when the sun is up high and reveals a stunning shade of blue. We managed to see both scenarios cause visiting this place took much longer than we expected.
So, at the very top, there are several restaurants and food places and a view of the cliff that resembles a T-Rex shape. The views are gorgeous. It’s a very beautiful place. Sadly there was a fire not very long ago because of some tourist that dropped a cigarette butt in the bush. Seriously, how stupid can people be? So the landscape wasn’t as green as it could be, but it still didn’t take away any of the beauty of the place. The views of the other side of the cliff are also beautiful. Vertical cliffs extend along the coastline and it is no different here. And what does that mean? It means there is a vertical climb to get to this beach.
I also didn’t know that to access Kelingking Beach itself we would have to literally climb rocks. I mean it! You will climb rocks drag yourself along the ground and get dirty all over the place. As I didn’t do my research, I had no clue about this and visited this beach wearing white shorts. What a stupid mistake. I also went down the cliff to Kelingking Beach in Crocs, and I saw several people wearing flip-flops. I truly don’t recommend it. I don’t think you realize how bad the access to the beach is unless you attempt to do it. I don’t recommend it to everybody. It was difficult, there weren’t specific spots to place my feet, and I had to find some cracks among the vertical rocks to hold on to. I mean it when I say it is climbing! At some point, there were so many people doing the same thing at the same time that we had to wait hanging on the rocks in any way possible. There were waiting lines and the thing was kinda chaotic. In this scenario count on a long time to get out of there. Too many people at once in a place where safety is zero. I confess that I thought it wasn’t a very good idea to go down to the beach once at the bottom. Just to think about what we would have to endure to go back up was deceiving. It is tough haaa and down there the beach is so wavy that I didn’t even enjoy the water haha.
The waves crash with so much strength that knock down the people attempting to get in the water. But, there were several people having a lot of fun in those waves. Not my type of beach though. I prefer hot and calm waters and this was not the case.
Plus, I was exhausted of the way down to Kelingking Beach so all I wanted was to rest. We still had a lot of things to visit that day so we didn’t stay for that long at the beach. Just enough to catch our breath. The water-colors are beautiful and the scenery around too. Down there you realize how steep the cliff to get there is.
Thinking of going up was making me regret the climb down haha. The way up was way worse because as it was later, more and more people were at the site, which meant heavy traffic on the rocks to get out of there. Get ready to spend a lot of time between the climb up and down. We spent hours at Kelingking Beach so once at the top it was already time for lunch. Luckily there are several places with food and I didn’t find it extremely overpriced as I was expecting.
The views from the top are much better later when the sun lights up the beach and all the marvelous blue shades Kelingking Beach has to offer are revealed.
Needless to say, there were too many more people at the site when it was our time to leave. There were waiting lines to take a picture with the best view… a massive crowd basically. I was glad we went early.
Tembeling Beach and Forest
Our next destination that day was still not that near. Tembeling Beach and Forest is also kind of popular, but not nearly as crowded as Kelingking Beach, so we thought we could enjoy some beach time once there.
The trail to get to this beach and the natural swimming pool overlooking the ocean is very steep. We decided to park our motorbikes way before the beach itself. We still had to walk for about 20-30 minutes to get to the final destination. We parked where there were a lot of locals hanging around trying to convince us to pay so they would ride us down there. We decided to walk and not take the motorbike as the path was steep and too narrow at parts. I’m glad we decided to leave the motorbikes behind honestly. The walk was through a nice calming path of forest, very quiet and pleasant to walk along. Kinda tiring tho as there are some very steep stretches.
Way closer to the beach, we found the local guys that have been paid by other foreigners to get to Tembeling beach. They ask us for money, a donation before we can proceed with our walk to the beach. We said we would donate later. We didn’t.
The beach is not the most beautiful thing ever but has this nice swimming hole with an ocean view and that’s the biggest attraction. The sea is rough and the water is not as hot as I like, so the swimming pool came in handy. The place is surrounded by cliffs and the views are quite nice. We decided to rest for a while. It has been a tiring day so far. We also were so dirty oh my. It looked like we had been crawling in the dirt haha and locals were guessing right, they knew we had been to Kelingking Beach. Either that or something wrong had happened haha
The spot is nice and all and my favorite part was seeing this crystal clear blue hole in the middle of the jungle next to a small sort of temple.
Broken beach
To end the day we went to Broken Beach which was already on the way to our accommodation.
Again another scam, I think.
So we were riding our motorbikes, and closer to the beach the path turned into gravel. Really bad to ride!! Terrible the least, probably in the future it won’t be like this any longer. On our way to the beach, we are stopped by a guy selling a parking ticket to go ahead. We said ok never mind we will leave our motorbike here then as the beach was very near so we didn’t have to pay. He said we couldn’t even though there was a clear area where it was very easy to park and good to leave our motorbikes. Ha no we can’t. We can’t he repeats. How come we can’t if the land is just here?? It’s not safe he says and kept arguing with us saying we couldn’t leave our motorbike there. So we proceeded on his way to pay for our parking ticket, but the street here is kind of bad and my friend wasn’t comfortable with the idea of going further. So after paying we asked again if we could leave the motorbikes where we wanted to previously. And this time he agreed hahaha Hilarious!!! So before paying, the spot was dangerous and we couldn’t park the motorbike, after paying it was ok hahaha scammers! -Just like everywhere in Bali. Seriously didn’t like this scam scene in Bali. Was the thing I liked the least.
Broken Beach was not really a beach where we could stop and enjoy the water. This place is good for enjoying views basically. There is this popular arch that isolates this inaccessible beach that is tucked into a cliff. This spot has a wonderful shade of blue. Truly majestic! That is the broken beach, I guess.
Apart from that, there is an ocean view from the cliffs and it is possible to see dolphins swimming in the sea. From the cliff, we were lucky enough to see some dolphins jumping in the water. There were people at sea chasing them and we were able to see this from the cliff. It was pretty cool to watch the dolphins even though they were far away. The crowd watching the nature show would all cheer at once as the dolphins jumped haha so cool. Everybody was enjoying it and admiring such a unique sight. We walked along the area and that was it.
We didn’t want to ride those streets after dusk, so we headed to our hostel while the sun was going down. Wow, gorgeous to ride those streets with a pink sky above our heads. What a lovely day!!
The following day we decided to join the hostel tour to watch manta rays and swim with them. I also visited more places in Nusa Penida, including Diamond Beach. You can read more about it HERE!
Buy bus tickets within Indonesia HERE!
Apply for an Indonesian Visa HERE!
