Next stop on our Bali trip was Nusa Penida. It’s actually another island beside Bali (but still part of Bali), so we hopped on a short 25 minute ferry. From the harbour we had a driver take us to our hotel in Kelingking. We chose Kelingking for the very famous viewpoint, which I’ll get to in a minute. The hotel itself is kind of… not great.
There are no rooms that can fit four people, so we had to split into two rooms. Mylène and Emma in one, Teddy and I in the other. That’s fine, but the rooms are just a bed and a bathroom. Nowhere to sit, nowhere to relax, nowhere to play cards. No pool. Basically nothing to do. The rooms were clean enough, if you ignore the ants. Yes, ants on the bed. We’ve realised on this long trip that having a comfortable place to retreat to is crucial, and this was not it.
So we dropped off our luggage and walked straight to the Kelingking Beach viewpoint. The peninsula and cliff look like the head of a T-Rex. It’s beautiful. Unfortunately a Chinese company decided to build an elevator down to the beach, partially ruining the view. They never even got the permits and are now being forced to tear it down. Let’s see if that actually happens.
Since the elevator is still incomplete, we went down to the beach on foot. It’s not a long trail but it’s very steep and about 180 metres of descent. As we started going down, at least three different tourists saw us with the kids and immediately told us it was a bad idea. Dangerous and steep. But I’m pretty confident in my kids at this point. I genuinely think they’re stronger hikers than many adults.
The beach was gorgeous, but the waves were enormous. Not “fun waves”. The kind that pick you up and send you to Australia. Swimming is a bad idea. We kept a very close eye on the kids, but another mom didn’t and her son nearly got swept away. People actually die here because of the current and waves.
After about an hour we started the climb back up. I wouldn’t call it hiking. More like rock climbing without ropes. As predicted, the kids had zero issues. It was me, three quarters of the way up, needing a ten minute break. The climb itself isn’t that bad, but the heat makes you feel like your skull is cooking. Pretty sure I almost had a heat stroke. Back at the top we grabbed popsicles and a Pocari Sweat. Think of it as Indonesian Gatorade. That made me feel better 🙂
We returned to the viewpoint for sunset and it was great, but I couldn’t find a good place to set up my tripod. It’s a small one, because I didn’t want to drag a full size one around on this trip.
The next day we realised we had absolutely nothing planned, so we just hung around town and lazily returned to the viewpoint. Not going down to the beach again. Once was plenty. This was probably for the better because Mylène wasn’t feeling that good. Maybe a case of the infamous Bali Belly.
For sunset that evening I was more prepared. I’d scouted a spot to put the tripod. I ended up tying it to the railing with our portable clothesline. Looked sketchy. I was convinced I might lose my camera down the cliff, but in the end I got some pretty solid shots.
On the third day we hired a driver to tour the island. The roads here are barely wider than a bike path back home. Most people get around on a scooter, and as fun as it looks to ride around Nusa Penida like a local, it doesn’t work for a family of four (although we did see some families of four on one scooter, I don’t think our travel insurance would be happy to see us do that).
The roads also have more potholes than there are craters on the surface of the moon. Honestly they’re more like sinkholes. The twists and turns are straight out of Rainbow Road in Mario Kart, which made the drive… memorable. Obviously, Teddy got sick.
We eventually made it to a place called Thousand Islands. They probably should have called it Four Islands. It’s pretty enough, and there’s a famous Instagram treehouse. I don’t know what it is with Bali and Instagrammers, but this island is absolutely full of places built specifically for them. You pay ten bucks and take a thousand dramatic photos in a thousand dramatic poses. Good business model.
Next we visited Diamond Beach and Atuh Beach. They sit side by side, separated by a cliff. We admired Diamond from above, but didn’t go down because the waves are too strong for swimming. We did go down to Atuh Beach, which is safe. Spent about an hour there before hiking back up. Not as brutal as Kelingking, but still a billion steps and the heat of a thousand suns. We rewarded ourselves with ice cream at the top.
We were supposed to head to another beach on the opposite side of the island, but unanimously voted to bail and go back to the hotel. None of us wanted another hour and a half of Mario Kart roads.
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