M&C: Nusa Ceningan

From Munduk, the final planned stop on the trip was Nusa Ceningan, one of the three "Nusa" islands off the southeast coast of Bali. This was going to be our "vacation within the vacation," and we had booked four nights at a little hotel right on the water, looking forward to relaxing, exploring the little islands, and doing some scuba diving.

It took just over two hours to drive from Munduk in the mountains back down to Sanur, a beach-resort town on the eastern side of the little peninsula sticking out from the south side of Bali. From there, we took a speedboat about 45 minutes to Nusa Lembongan, the most developed and populous of the Nusas (Nusae?). The ride over was incredibly choppy, and our bodies bounced up and down as the tip of the boat crashed into wave after wave. At the beach, we met up with a kind of pickup truck with benches, which took us to the narrow yellow bridge, which connects Nusa Lembongan to Nusa Ceningan, which is significantly smaller and much less populous. (The third island, Nusa Penida, is by far the largest and least populated of the three and is only accessible by about a half-hour boat trip from Nusa Lembongan.)

Our little hotel was situated on the lagoon between Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Ceningan, a very shallow but beautifully turquoise body of water that was much prettier than it was a functional swimming spot. But our hotel had a little pool and a small lounge area where we spent the remainder of the day, nearly the only guests at the place, swimming in the pool, having a couple of drinks, reflecting on our trip so far, and chatting with the manager about the tourist business and the burgeoning global pandemic.

The following morning, we rented a scooter from our hotel and set out to explore Lembongan and Ceningan. We had no real objective other than to tool around, maybe buy a few souvenirs, and book a diving trip for the following day with one of the innumerable dive shops on the islands. We started off heading south along the edge of the lagoon before curving up and over the hills to the far side of Nusa Ceningan. This side is even much less developed than the side facing Lembongan, and we found some pretty amazing views, including a craggy cliff from which we could watch the turquoise water crash dramatically into the rocks below. A little ways offshore, we could see a pod of dolphins playing around in the surf, mirroring the dolphins we saw way back in Laguna Beach on our first day out of Denver.

From this relatively isolated spot, it took about 45 minutes to get back over the yellow bridge and into the heart of Nusa Lembongan. We found a highly-rated and reasonably-priced dive shop where we booked a really cool-sounding dive for the following morning, then ate a delicious Balinese meal at a restaurant nearby. After lunch, we explored Lembongan a little bit, visiting a couple of very pretty but unswimmable beaches before finally heading back to our hotel in the mid afternoon. Once again, we hung out by the pool for a couple hours, relishing the beautiful evening and the feeling of not having to rush (a novelty at this point in our trip). That evening, we had a mediocre meal at a nearby restaurant. Forebodingly, we were the only diners, as had become the norm these previous few days.

When our alarm went off at 6:00 the following morning, we found a dramatically changed situation from the night before. The US State Department had issued a global Level 4 travel advisory and there were several anxious texts from our parents asking about trying to coordinate an earlier return to the States than we had planned. Under our existing itinerary at that time, we were scheduled to spend two more nights on Nusa Ceningan, one night near the airport in Denpasar, then fly from Denpasar to Bangkok, spending one night in Bangkok before flying back to Denver on March 24th.

While our existing flights had not yet been cancelled, more restrictions were going into effect every day, and we quickly realized that our best chance to make it back to the US was to leave as soon as possible. With substantial logistical and financial help from our folks, we got tickets for a flight leaving that night from Denpasar. The decision was made and finalized by about 7:00AM.

Because of the mandatory delay between diving and flying, this meant that we had to cancel our diving plans that day. But we still had several hours to kill before we needed to return to Bali proper to catch our flight. So we hopped back on the scooter and drove over to the north side of Ceningan, where we hadn't yet explored, looking for a coffee shop we had seen on Google Maps. After a very vertical climb up a pothole-ridden road, we found the coffee shop, perched high on a bluff overlooking a beautiful mangrove forest, beyond which you could see the impressively high hills, and beautiful turquoise-water beaches of Nusa Penida. Despite all appearances of being open, including music blaring from the speakers, there was absolutely nobody around at the restaurant. We waited about 15 minutes for someone to show up, then went on our way. A little further up the road (even steeper and more potholed), we found a somewhat fancy resort with an equally beautiful view where we ate a decent late breakfast, talked with our roommate back in Denver, and sort of tried to process the speed with which our plans had changed.

From there, we went back over to Lembongan to do a little souvenir shopping. Whether it was because of the new travel advisory or just because we were now more attuned to it, the whole island felt completely deserted. Very few shops and restaurants were even open, and all the locals we interacted with bemoaned the lack of people and wondered how they were going to survive economically with no tourists. We did what we could, purchasing a variety of little trinkets and knickknacks from the shops that were open, until we had to head back to our hotel, organize our things, and make the trip back to the main island.

Next up: The Return Trip