Nusa Lembongan is the best! We arrived the day before yesterday by a 30 minute ferry from Sanur, Bali. We looked online and found a great place to stay called Bungalow No. 7, and figured we would find it somehow when we got their, as the island is only 8 square km. When our boat arrived on the beach, we noticed we were literary right in front of the No.7 Bungalow! It couldn’t have been any closer. We checked it out and it was beautiful! The doors and window frames are all decoratively carved, like every building seems to be in Bali. They are only 2 people per room, as their is no room to add an extra mattress, and queen beds inside. So Kevin got his own bungalow for $10, and Dustin and I are sharing one for $15 because we upgraded to one with hot water showers. There is a restaurant at our place right in front of the beach that has the cheapest meals we could find, and the best fresh fruit juice! I drink a few glasses of fresh fruit juice a day, and you can watch them cut up and blend a whole pineapple for your pineapple juice, or watermelon (Dustins favorite), papaya, banana, lime (which they call lemon), orange, tomato or even avocado! The juices are only $1, less then you can buy most of those fruit back home for. We were also very surprised that our place has free WiFi! It isn’t the best internet, and cuts in and out every couple minutes at times, but it is internet none the less, in a place where ATM’s and banks to not exist! It really is the world wide web. I love that I can lay on my beach chair with a juice while on my lappy!
We love it here so much because it is much more laid back then the main island of Bali, with much less tourists, and absolutely no hawkers. The water is crystal clear, with amazing snorkeling and diving, and the island is surrounded by coral reefs, creating perfect surfing waves. The boys rented surfboards, and have been out everyday for about two hours. Yesterday we walked into the village and saw how many of the local people live, and went in a underground cave/house that a man built with only a hammer and chisel to hide his family after gambling debt.
The kids here are adorable! I don’t know what it is, but foreign kids are just so much more adorable and fun to watch than kids at home (I am talking stranger kids, not Colton and Callia, I love you guys 🙂 , and it would be really creepy if I enjoyed watching kids I did not know at home). Perhaps it’s because I can’t understand what they are saying, and they always seem to be laughing and smiling, and are always so excited to see us. They could be being bratty in Balinese, but I really doubt it. While we ate dinner last night, about a dozen kids where playing a game of soccer on our beach, while the younger kids around 5 years old played in the sand and ran in and out of the ocean with their clothes on, jumping off the side rigs of the boats. They were having so much fun, it’s just a daily thing here for all the local kids to get together after school to play until dinner. One our first day here, we walked along the beach, and this little girl about 3 years old was on the beach, (what looked like by herself as I didn’t see any parents around) she ran towards me with a huge smile on her face and handed me two little pieces of beautiful coral she must have found. I thanked her and asked her what her name was but she didn’t speak English and just smiled back staring at me, SO CUTE.
The only thing missing here is any sort of night life. We were invited to a party yeserday that is just down the beach, so last night at 930pm (after our bungalow restaurant/bar closed for the night) we headed down the beach to go to the party. Everything was quiet and everything was closed. When we arrived at the party location, the bar was completely shut down for the night and no one was around, I guess 9:30pm was too late!
This morning we walked to Coconut Bay and went snorkeling. It was so much fun and the visiblity is the best we have seen yet. Dustin and Kevin got some amazing GoPro footage, and we saw some really neat fish we had not seen yet. We are so excited to go diving, and the Bali Academy of Diving is right next to our bungalow.
Going for dinner now!
xo
Jade
jadeinasia 