20th November – 23rd November
We have to admit, during our time in Indonesia, we have been pretty naive when it comes to getting around. We decided the day before we got there to make our next destination Nusa Lembongan, a tiny pair of islands just south of Bali. Keen to get everything booked, just so we would have it sorted, we decided to buy the ferry tickets online. There are not a whole lot of forums on travel around Indonesia and those that do exist seemed to agree that this was the best course to take.
The boat trip took about half an hour and was fun, if not mildly terrifying. The method of transportation consisted of a large speed-boat with three extra engines strapped on the back to make us fly over the waves. I will admit I spent a fair amount of time planning my escape route just in case we were to capsize.
When we arrived on the island, we jumped straight in the back of a flat-bed truck, converted to include benches and a roll cage, and headed off towards the opposite side of the island. We opted to stay on the smaller of the two islands, mostly because our hotel looked adorable in the pictures and because we fancied some quiet time after the hustle and bustle of Kuta.
We were dropped off at the Yellow Bridge, the crossing point between the two islands, and greeted by our hotel owner, his father and two scooters.
By this point, my backpack has somehow grown to be a beastly 17kg, fine for me as I am expecting it. Although I’m still not sure HOW it weighed this much, especially as I had started with 13kg, I even threw away my jeans because they were “too heavy”. When a friendly hotel owner or worse, his elderly father, try to take my backpack and squeeze it into the footwell of a scooter, it gets a little embarrassing.
The hotel was perfect, just four rooms, a terrace overlooking the ocean, a sandy area for lounging and a cute little swing to take some of those famous Bali shots on. The aircon in the room was if anything, too powerful and the bathrooms were open-air, which we thought was pretty cool.
We dumped our bags, drank our welcome drinks and then decided to wander up the road to get a view of the famous Blue Lagoon. The walk was only 20 minutes, but the heat was intense, even for this late in the afternoon. Once we arrived, the view was so stunning that we decided to stay for sunset. I ran off to grab us a couple of beers (and some much-needed water), and Martin set up the camera to capture a cool time-lapse of the vista.
The next day we decided to rent some mopeds. The roads on the island left a lot to be desired, so we decided to rent one each. This is a solid way to prevent arguments if you’ve spent too long travelling together by the way, and a great way to grab a little alone time. We started by going to see the Dream Beach (after some delicious banana pancakes back at our hotel). The beach was beautiful but very crowded with tourists, all who want to get the classic “we were along on this beautiful beach” shot. So there wasn’t much opportunity for relaxing. Plus the heat.
We had seen an advert for a waterpark a little way around the island. While the pictures of the slides intrigued us, what eventually enticed us in was the opportunity to sit by the pool on the coast, under an umbrella, hopefully catching the breeze coming off the sea. This turned out to be an excellent decision. The slides were super fun, and we entertained ourselves for a few hours during the heat of the day by racing down them, splashing each other and indeed hiding under umbrellas.
Once the heat had receded to a slightly more acceptable level, we jumped back on the bikes and decided to complete our tour of the big island.
The whole island took us about 90 minutes to drive around, so we went round again. We took advantage of our little scooters and zipped around traffic, running a few errands and working on our scooter tricks. We explored the mangroves of the island, visited the Sandy Beach and spent some time exploring the main town on the island.
That evening we popped to the restaurant next door to our hotel. We were drawn in by the fairy lights and cheap beer. We are some incredible fish, drank said cheap beer and politely nodded along to the ramblings of a drunk British guy who lives in Australia but seems to hate Australians.
Despite promising ourselves that we wouldn’t see another sunrise in Indonesia, we found ourselves rising just in time for it once again the next morning.
We were going surfing.
We rocked up to the Lembongan Surf School (LSS) at 6 am. It was blissfully cool at this time of the morning, which made it almost worth it. After a quick crash course on the beach, in which my leading foot changed about four times, we jumped in a boat with our boards and drove out to an area which, frankly, looked pathetically short of waves.
We were incorrect in our assessment. There were, in fact, many waves. Some which knocked us off our boards as we sat recovering from the absolutely knackering sport. I consider myself a strong swimmer, but swimming on a board, with your head up, and your arms unable to reach into the water adequately, is a significant challenge even to me.
That being said, I had actually had a few lessons earlier on in the year. As such, I found that I did have some sort of muscle memory, and I managed to stand up on my second wave. Looking up and feeling all smug and proud of myself, I just about caught a glimpse of Martin doing the same, the difference being that he hasn’t ever had a lesson.
Two hours later, we were back at the hotel for our morning banana pancakes and Bali coffee. This morning, however, we actually felt like we had earnt it.
We jumped back on the scooters with today’s plan to take it super easy and explore the smaller of the two islands which form Nusa Lembongan. What we found was a pleasant surprise. The route around the top of the highly questionable ‘road’ was littered with very cheap, lovely little spots for drinks and food. We stopped off at a couple, one for coffee and one where we shared a mango smoothie because secretly all we wanted to do was use their viewpoint to take some cute pictures.
We finished off our day chilling out at another of these bars, this one boasting no other customers and an infinity pool.
Being Basic Bintang Bitches 
That evening we popped to the local warung for dinner, having spotted that they sold Sumatran food. We had enjoyed almost everything we had eaten in Indonesia. Still, some of our favourite dishes definitely were served to us in Northern Sumatra. We chose ourselves some very generous portions of delicious and intensely spicy food and sat down to tuck in.
One of our favourite things about this island, and specifically our hotel, was how friendly everyone was. Not just the locals, we had become used to how warm and genuine every Indonesian person we had met was, but also the other tourists. We had great evenings chatting to all the other guests of the hotel, they ranged from travelling couples and solo travellers to cousins who were just out on a 2 week holiday. And of course, our host, Augus, was a total babe. Seriously, if you ever find yourself heading to Lembongan, Double A’s would be our recommendation every time.