Penida Paradise

Originally published April 2018.

(Written April 4) It’s a bummer when you have to modify your travel plans according to how close you need to be to a toilet, but we made do on Nusa Penida, and despite not having any solid poops and eating nothing but rice for two days, I had a great time. We took a boat from Bali to Lombongan, another island, and then took a boat from Lombongan to Nusa Penida, the island we would spend the next two nights on, organized by a taxi driver friend we made named Yandee. We got dropped off at Full Moon Bungalows, kind of like a hostel set up, with a dorm style room for me, a double bed room for the K’s, and a restaurant and live music bar attached. We rested for a couple hours. I mainly just tried to get liquids in my body and stabilize my system, though I hadn’t eaten anything in a while, so I decided to walk to a cafe next door and try a smoothie bowl to get some micronutrients in. I took 4 bites and already had to go to the bathroom. Bali Belly was here to stay. Thankfully there was a toilet at the cafe or I would have been going in the bushes with no toilet paper because I forgot to bring some with me. It’s hard making yourself want to eat something knowing you’re just going to poop it all out within the next hour, but I paid for this giant smoothie bowl, and it would have been so much fresh fruit put to waste, so I ate it anyway. I eventually got myself stable, and felt okay, so we decided to rent scooters to go exploring for the rest of the afternoon.

Renting a scooter from our hostel went like this:

Us: “Hi can we rent a scooter?”

Scooter guy: “Yes, 75,000 IDR”

Us: “Great we’ll take two.”

(cash is exchanged, keys are given)

Us: “Umm, can you show us how to drive it?”

Scooter guy: (with big scared eyes) “You no drive scooter before??”

Us: (I don’t answer, because my answer is no, so I let Lucas reply) “It’s been a while, just need a refresher.” (Which was true)

Scooter Guy: “well if you wreck scooter you must buy!” (eyes still very big)

Us: “Yeah we know, that’s okay.”

Scooter guy: (with mild anxiety proceeds to explain how to start the scooter, how to put gas in, how to turn lights on, etc.)

Us: Cool thanks bye!

And we were off. No forms filled out. No names written down. No safety precautions. Just cash and keys and a crash course on scooter driving. #southeastasia 

Pulling out of the parking lot was the hardest thing, and then after that we were fine. The K’s needed to eat, so we stopped at what would be our go to hang out place for our time on Nusa Penida, a beach bar called Penida Colada, where you can drink your mango juice or eat your French toast right next to the water, though I was just partaking in the sitting.

We drove (slowly) to Crystal Bay through winding roads and tiny remote villages, having no idea what the roads were going to be like or what we would find when we arrived since we did no research, but it turned out fine and we conquered the curves and hills and sharp turns and tiny roads as other motorbikes zoomed past us without fail.

I saw people snorkeling when we got there, so I immediately threw my stuff down and walked toward the water with my newly acquired goggles (thanks Peter). My break from the squirts was still going strong, so I hoped that I would be fine to get in the water for a while.

The underwater paradise that awaited me immediately put me on a high so great that I forgot I was even sick. There was coral and fish everywhere, more colorful and abundant than I had ever seen. I have snorkeled in the Virgin Islands before, and even 10 feet off the shore it was already better than my experience there. I swam and free dove for 40 minutes or so, marveling at the detail and flawless community that was thriving in an environment I would never survive in, wondering what they thought of me, this big awkward creature flopping about above them trying to get the right bouyancy to stay in position to look. They were probably all just shaking their heads. Amateur…

Crystal Bay is apparently one of the best snorkel spots on Nusa Penida, so convenient that we chose to try there first. I sat and watched the sunset as I dried off, waiting for the K’s to come back from their walk to a private beach.

was shaking my head at a 6 year old boy who played a war video game (I could hear the gunshots 10 meters away) the entire time he was there with his family, not even looking up from the screen for the family photo or for the amazing sun setting behind him (see picture) after his parents walked back up to sit down. My kids are going to hate me, but I just can’t give their brains something they’re not ready to handle to the point where they can’t sit and talk about what shapes the clouds look like with me. So sad.

Riding scooters (basically like Mopeds) is so dang fun. Who knew? The whole way riding back I couldnt stop myself from thinking about how irresponsible buying one would be when I get back to the states. I guess it depends on where I live to see if it would be worth it. If I end up in Western North Carolina it is either raining or winter so there isnt much space for scootering about, but we’ll see.

Danielle with the candids always.

The next day we ate breakfast back at the Oceanside beach bar, relaxing. I tried to eat some nibbles of Lucas’s toast and drinnk some carrot ginger juice, but very quickly I realized my body was not ready for food yet. Sigh.

Then we went to another beach bar for a while, where I would alternate between sitting in a hammock and going to the bathroom.

eventually ordered a glorious lunch of white rice which I ate with my hands because I was too lazy to go get a fork, but that’s how the locals eat so it’s fine. I surprisingly kept it in my body pretty well!

We decided to be extra adventurous and go further south where the roads turned from badly paved to gravel with giant potholes and rocks constantly so that we could go to Kelingking beach, one of the top spots on Nusa Penida. The warnings we heard about the roads were correct. Actually the reality was a little worse and more sketch than I expected, but despite our amateur scooter driving, we tackled them like champs, only wobbling a little.

don’t literally lose my breath often, but that whole “takes your breath away” thing is real when you suddenly look over a giant cliff down to waves slowly rolling into a turquoise lagoon below you. I think I let out a curse word. Sorry mom.

We walked down a winding trail until we got to the lookout for the “T-Rex” part of Kelingking beach, which was even more spectacular. The cliff really is shaped like a dinosaur head.

There is a thin, steep, exposed trail that takes you all the way down to the bottom to the bright sand and the crystal clear water that was begging to be swam in, but my body state unfortunately prevented that from happening. I was extremely fatigued from not eating much the past few days. But it was the middle of the day and painfully hot anyway, so we were fine sitting in the shade and taking in the view, after the guy trying to get a perfect pushup picture finally left.

was sitting there paranoid that I was going to get lice from the helmet that came with the scooter, after Danielle planted it in my head that it was a possibility. We are all scarred from the anxiety of working around lice at our jobs at Crossnore, so the second any of our heads itch we automatically jump to lice. Danielle even packed her fancy lice comb just in case. We are prepared for the worst.

After Kelingking beach, we tried to ride the ambition train and go to a waterfall that was “only” 5k’s away, even though that was ages in the Nusa Penida road world. We tried anyway, pushing past our limits for about 3.5k’s and eventually going with our gut and turning around on a steep pothole hill because the steep uphill ahead of us was a little too far out of our comfort zone. I felt good about it though. I’m all about adventure and challenging yourself, but I’m also not trying to die.

We made our way back to the hostel before dark, and I decided to go have more introvert time at a bar that was more quiet than our hostel, for it was already picking up with its live music for the night. I ate my fancy dinner of plain rice, afterwards grumbly but still not terrible, and the toilet there is good so I knew I’d be fine. I journaled for a while, as a local guy with dreads sang acoustic covers with a couple people playing hand drums and with him and his friend on the guitar, in celebration of his friend’s birthday. I hung until I couldn’t stand the mosquitoes anymore, and I really wanted a cold shower, so I went back and did that and went to bed before 10pm.

I woke up, met Danielle and Lucas back at the beach bar for breakfast, and with me feeling a little better, tried a toast and egg sandwich. Probably too soon. Oh well.

We packed up, I said farewell hecticly and quickly to the K’s as they hopped on backs of scooters to go to their boat to the next island, and I eventually hopped on another scooter to a different boat port where I would catch a boat back to Bali in a couple hours. I paid my driver and waved goodbye after I confirmed that I was in the right place, and then sat on a beach chair for 3 hours planning my next couple steps in Bali and writing this.

And now I have taken the boat back to Bali, and I am sitting at a cafe at Sanur Beach waiting on Adrian, my next couchsurfing host, to pick me up in a little bit. He lives near Kuta, and I’ll stay there for a night. Then, tomorrow I’ll head to Made’s family compound to stay with him and his family for a night in a village near Ubud. And then I have 5 days left that have zero plans filling them, so we will see what they become.

Cheers to the second half of Bali, may there be many friends, many laughs, and hopefully a solid poop soon.