The island isn’t very big and a day is plenty to get around so hop on a scooter and check these spots out. We started with the Devil’s Tear.
Devil’s Tear
It’s pretty busy with people taking photos, but it’s pretty cool to see the big waves crashing here, and as it’s pretty close to Dream Beach, so definitely worth a stop. It is a stop for the day trippers, so there might be a few other people in your photos.
Dream Beach
Perhaps not as dreamy as we imagined, but it was a pretty rad beach for the waves, if nothing else. We arrived at high tide, and there’s no way you’d catch us swimming in there due to the out of control surf, but the golden sand and blue sea looks pretty appealing. We spent most of the morning at Dream Beach Hut, as here they welcomed outside guests at a nominal fee of about IDR 50k. In fact, as we got ribbons around our wrist, we left in the afternoon and came back just prior to sunset for another dip in their infinity pool.
Mushroom Bay
We fell in love with this little beach the instant that we set foot on it. There was something about it that we just liked. There are hotels and a few restaurants on the beach, and the perfect place for an afternoon swim. We arrived about 4pm in the afternoon, which is after the Bali day trippers leave, leaving behind the golden sand and clear waters to enjoy.
Yellow Bridge
The ‘back’ of the island, was perhaps our favourite, with the famed yellow bridge, stretching across the turquoise waters that stretch between Nusa Lembongan and neighbouring island Nusa Ceningan.
Since visiting just a couple of weeks ago, we’re so sad to hear about the bridge collapsing and several locals being killed on the bridge. When we visited there was a sign up warning that the bridge was far from being at full strength. We opted not to scooter across at the time and in retrospect even walking across was taking some risk. It’s sad to see another avoidable disaster happen in this part of the world. Not to be a downer, but another reminder to be safe in South East Asia.
We would totally recommend still visiting this part of the island given the beautiful stretch of water between the two islands, but only time will tell what the replacement bridge will look like.
We didn’t spend much time on Nusa Ceningan, but there’s the Blue Lagoon to check out and from what we hear, a few cool spots to visit.
Mangrove Forest
There’s copious tours offered for the Mangrove Forest. Given mangroves grow like weeds in NZ, it wasn’t high on our list of things to do, but we figured with all the fuss, they’re probably worth a visit at least, and they were.
We found a beach side warung, Nano-nano and had a Bintang for the journey. It was pleasant and a well earned break for these two adventurers. You might be requested to pay a small fee for even driving this road, but we managed to avoid it by just driving straight on through and we’re still here to tell the tale.
Jungut Batu – the main beach
This is where we stayed and we’re glad we did. There’s a decent selection of restaurants and bars to choose from and a couple of shops, but not a lot to spend your money on here. We ate at ‘The Deck’ one night for dinner, which was pleasant enough, but there are other restaurants and bars at the end of the beach to choose from too.
We stayed two days, three nights here and we think it was just about right for us to experience the island.
One of the highlights was the sunset each night, with this beach being the best place to enjoy it from.
