Mushroom Bay, the main midrange/high end beach on Lembongan. You can walk over here from Jungubatu, the other main concentration of accommodation via a coastal track which passes several other small beaches in about 30 minutes. Mushroom Bay tends to be pretty busy from mid-morning to early afternoon with daytrippers from Bali but is very laid back at other times. A fringing reef means water near the beach is pretty calm. There is a smaller, deserted beach around the far headland, easily accessed at high tide (CLICK TO EXPAND IMAGE)May 09
Nusa Lembongan is a small island about 15km off the south east Bali mainland. It and even smaller neighbour Nusa Cenigan are dwarfed by nearby bigger, higher Nusa Penida.
Lembongan was has 5 very good reef surf-breaks suited to expert wave riders and was “discovered” by surfers in the 70s. This in turn attracted backpackers to the budget accommodation and laid back island life at Jungubatu Bay, the main surfing area. Midrange and higher tourists then became interested with some pretty attractive accommodation going in on non-surfing Mushroom Bay a few km south west. In recent years this type of development has accelerated greatly - with Mushroom Bay fully built out some time back most of this new stuff is on the southern hill overlooking Jungubatu Bay and lining the cliffs and small beaches between there and Mushroom Bay. I was amazed by the amount of new development since my last visit 3 years ago.
Note that diving is now a popular activity, snorkelling trips to the seldom visited bays of Nusa Penida are rewarding and it is possible to organise fishing expeditions. Hiring a motorcycle or bicycle and exploring Lembongan and Ceningan is good value. Walking the coast track from Jungubatu to Mushroom is pleasant scenery wise.
Nusa Lembongan with neighbours Ceningan and Penida (far right). The northern half of Lembongan is quite flat, the southern hilly. Cenigan is even hillier while much of Penida is a very high plateau.The surfing area of Jungubatu Bay takes up the top half of the west coast. The surfers’ places are towards the northern end, a lot of the new midrange stuff is built up the hill at the southern end with fabulous views.
Mushroom Beach is Near the western most part of the west coast. Lovely Dream Beach is a few km south of this in the south-west of the island.
This is a small island - Google Earth shows a straight line distance of 4km from the lighthouse to Dream Beach. (map from Made the motorcycle tout)
Jungubatu Bay from my May 09 accommodation, Agung Bungalow’s seafront dining area. The bay is protected by a fringing reef about 500m from shore with 3 passes - each pass has an excellent and very challenging surf-break. Waves breaking on the southern most section of the reef can be seen in this shot. Local boat guys have a thriving trade shuttling surfers out to the reef - 500m is a fair paddle.The far end of the lagoon has some big platforms near the reef where fast daytrip boats from Bali moor - people use the platforms as a basis for snorkelling, water skiing, banana boating and paragliding. The south west corner of the island near Dream Beach is far right background.
Another shot of the lagoon. The new midrange and better developments up the hillside at the far end can be better seen in this shot. This now continues in patches along the coast to Mushroom Bay which is out of shot to the right.Close to the camera are a bunch of surfer/traveller places, although I was amazed at the push upmarket of quite a few. Mainski Inn, one of the originals, now has aircon and a real nice horizon pool out front - and prices to match. Google for the website. Neighbour Ketut‘s, the first place I stayed at on Lembonan some years back, is now very similar. My place this latest trip, Agung (yep, you can see Bali’s Agung volcano when there is not too much clould - best early morning in May) was more old-style surfer digs - my basic but comfy room was only 70k (abt $US7 at the time) and they had some attractive two storey bungalows at 150k a double or 200k for 4. These prices didn’t include breakfast. Their food wasn’t bad or expensive, and there were plenty of neighbouring bay-front restaurants. As you can see the beach along Jungubatu is nothing to get excited about - plenty of (often untidy) sand at low tide but in many areas none at high tide.
Dream Beach - best on the island and the best in Bali IMHO. This is near the south west corner of the island - that’s Nusa Ceningan in the background.One caveat - this was shot in a lull in the waves: the surf is quite tricky here. There is a permanent rip current on the far side of the beach - anywhere past that clear-sandy area extending out into the water where the people are should be avoided otherwise you may find yourself disappearing towards the distant fringing reef and the bigger waves at a rapid rate of knots. Remember, if you get caught in a rip current swim sideways out of it - towards the centre of the bay in this case.
The above pix was shot from the loft dining-drinks area of Dream Beach Bungalows which can be seen in the shot below.
When I first visited this beach there was a very simple warung and no bungalows. A long time guest told me owner Wayan has put a couple of new bungalows in each year - ph 081 239 83772 or 081 337 457 842 for bookings. As you can see below they are very attractive, but at 400k for fan and cold water, no bargain. This beach seemed to attract those European couples and families who seem so expert at finding little known gems.
The very next bay north of Dream Beach is called Sunset Beach. This has a nice beachfront restaurant, a flash villa place with pool on the northern headland and two other similar places under construction in May 09. The surf was equally tricky and the beach markedly inferior with a line of rock at water entry level.
Mushroom Beach Bungalows on the beach of the same name is very
similar to Dream Beach Bungalows in position with a great scenic restaurant and bungalows on the north-eastern headland. This was flash-packer standard when I first visited the island, but is now decidedly midrange with a nice pool and upgraded bungalows, some with air and hot water. I was quoted 400k but the website shows considerably higher prices. Maybe for peak season - May is shoulder.
View from Mushroom Beach Bunalow's restuarant. Mushroom Bay has a good selection of other midrange and higher places.
Fishing and sea-weed farming are the traditional industries at Lembongan. At low tide the locals tend their sea-weed plots. This is towards the southern end of Jungubatu Bay - note the daytrip platforms in the background. There does not seem to be any unpleasant odour associated with this sea-weed activity.GETTING THERE.
Public boats leave the small harbour at Sanur, 20 minutes from Kuta on Bali, at 8am and 11.30am. They take about 80 minutes to cross. Cost was 55K in May09. More conveniently, Perama, one of Bali’s bigger transport operators can pick you up at your Kuta hotel around 9am and have you on Lembongan via their own boat before mid-day for less than $us15.
Even quicker are the daytrip operators who can take you out on their big fast boats for around $35. Bounty Cruises (www.balibountygroup.com) and Bali Hai (www.bali-paradise.com/balihai) are two of a number of daytrip outfits. If you simply want to do the daytrip you are looking at $80-120.
However these days there are a number of speedboat operators who can whisk you out even quicker for around the same money as a one way ride on one of the day trip operators - Google will find them. Note the public boat office at Sanur now runs 3 speedboat trips per day too - for around 200k which is cheaper than the other outfits, but would not include a shuttle bus from Bali accommodation.
It is also possible to buy a ride for a few dollars on one of the seaweed boats or supply boats from Kusamba on the central eastern coast of Bali. I came across on my first trip with two Dutch surfers from the gorgeous little town of Padangbai, north of Kusamba. We chartered a local fisherman to take us in his small prau at just under $10 each - you cxan get some serioulsy big swell on this trip in the right conditions. Padangbai is the port for the big ferries from Lombok.
If you are coming from Lombok, one of the fast boat operators which connect The Gilis/Senggigi to Bali will divert to Lembongan for an extra charge. I was quoted 490k total in May09.
UPDATE JULY 09 FARFLUNG JUST GAVE THIS ADVICE:
There is now a daily speedboat service between Nusa Lembongan and Gili Trawangan operated by BlueWater Express. It takes just 1.5 hrs. and costs Rp590,000 one way.
Package brochures by Garuda, Qantas and others feature Lembongan’s mid-range and high-end places. Because package airfares are heavily discounted, this can be an excellent way of visiting the island.
This is a copy of an article I did on Lembongan after my first visit (I have done 3) which was published in the travel section of an Australian newspaper. It gave me a bit of a thrill, because I have no training as a writer. There are some practical facts at the conclusion.....
Surfers, divers, backpackers, package tourists and high end travellers will all find laidback tranquility on the small island of Nusa Lembongan.
Okay, I have found one! After a half dozen snorkelling trips covering at least fifteen different sites in Lombok and Bali, in which I have seen some great coral, an excellent variety of multi-coloured fish and some really big turtles, I am face to face with my quarry. Jammed into a small crevice three metres below the surface in a small inlet on the rugged southern shore of Nusa Lembongan is a magnificent lobster, huge feelers waving in the current. Resplendent in its striped tropical livery, it looks so different from the mono-coloured green of the lobsters back home.
I have been peering under coral outcrops, diving into canyons in the rocks, separating seaweed to see what is in crevices, and at last success! Only one small problem. I have no glove. Here is a specimen that would drive cookie back at the bungalows insane, and I am facing the risk of a lacerated hand if I grab it. So I signal my fellow snorkellers, five Basque girls and their three male companions. They take turns diving down to check this magnificent specimen out. In a way it would be a shame for it to end up in the pot.
We then swim in to the small beach under the cliffs at the back of the cove and sun ourselves for a half hour until the boat guy signals it is time to head back to base.
Twenty minutes later I am sitting on the upstairs balcony of my $12 bungalow overlooking the beach in the surfer/backpacker section of Jungubatu Bay. A local motorised prau taking harvested seaweed across to Kusamba on the mainland is sliding across the lagoon in front of me and further out I can see kamikaze Japanese surfers and suicidal Brazilian bodyboarders doing banzai runs at Shipwrecks, a lightning fast right hand break along the edge of the fringing reef. It was surfers who first discovered this lovely little island 20km off the east coast of Bali in the 70s. There are five surfbreaks here, the others more distant and best reached by hiring for a few dollars one of the small fishing praus always waiting on the beach.
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Jungubatu surfbreak (image Island Explorer Cruises)
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Budget accommodation quickly developed to cater for the surfers. Backpackers soon heard of the combination of laid back island beauty and cheap digs, as did divers, attracted by the clear water and excellent reef sites which are unspoiled by Asian standards. The result is a string of a dozen or so bungalow outfits and restaurants lining the shore along the northern end of the bay. A room here ranges from under $5 for basic but clean and comfortable through to around $20 for very comfortable. Food is little more expensive than the bargain mainland prices, except for seafood, which is cheaper - my favourite garlic-fried barracuda with lovely sauce and side plate of rice costs $3. A large bottle of beer will set you back $2.50, a thick papaya, pineapple or banana fruit juice $1.
This accommodation-restaurant strip is no real place for ravers... Usually at least one place has some music after dinner and another couple show latest release movies on widescreen TVs. But for a lot of people, conversation at one of the seaside tables, sipping a drink or three while watching the lights of Sanur and other mainland Bali towns twinkling across the Badung Strait is a fine way to spend the evening.
The Jungubatu backpacker/surfer strip - Agung volcano on the mainland in the background (image Panoramio - Arouel)So what to do after lunch? Yesterday I grabbed a hire bicycle and toured the island. Lembongan is only about five by two kms, and largely flat in its northern three quarters. Simple tracks follow the coast and divert to avoid the northern mangroves and here you can observe the unhurried pace of island life - fishermen’s huts in pockets around the coast, some simple farming further inland, a small area devoted to salt making and one or two coastal warungs where you can stop and buy a drink or a snack. Local women spread washing to dry on roadside rocks and old timers pass the hours sitting and jawing on simple roadside platforms called bales. Bicycle riding is very safe. Over several hours I was passed by less than a dozen motorcycles and I saw no other motor vehicles.
There are two villages, Jungubatu at the southern end of the bay, a simple ribbon development with a bank, wartel (telephone kiosk) and a range of basic shops and Lembongan, a bigger development in the hilly northern section with maybe a thousand inhabitants. Some local kids will flag you down here and offer to take you on a guided tour of the Underground House for a dollar or so. This collection of interconnected underground caverns was built by a local as a memorial to himself. Some Belgian travellers had told me it is cramped and claustrophobic and no big deal, so I passed up the offer.
A short distance from Lembongan village, a new suspension bridge crosses the narrow passage to neighbouring Nusa Cennigan. Roughly equal in size to Lembongan, it is much more hilly with some seriously challenging slopes that will cause the unfit to wish they had taken one of the hire-motorcycles instead. However the effort is worth it. From a viewpoint on the southern tip of the island I can see back over Cennigan and Lembongan to Bali. Directly below me the cliff drops into a bay very similar to the lobster’s home this morning and to the west is Nusa Penida, a much bigger island with 100m cliffs falling abruptly to the ocean. Penida’s nearest point is only one km away across a narrow passage. I could see dive boats parked in two of the inlets facing me. Tomorrow’s snorkel trip goes across there, one I definitely won’t miss.
I came across an unlikely sight shortly after starting downhill. Pushing his bicycle up a killer slope was an itinerant ice-cream seller, complete with cooler box and a Mr Whippy like tune produced by a small generator connected to the front wheel. Who he aimed to sell to up here, with only a few scattered farming huts, is anyone’s guess. Perhaps the crazy cycling tourist. He probably overcharged me at a dollar for the choc-coated ice cream, but in its slightly melted state it was simply delicious and worth three times the price.
Lembongan and Cennigan have less than five thousand people between them. It took me around 4 hours to do my leisurely tour and I swear half the people I saw were kids. Indonesia has a system of shift schooling in some areas (morning school for some kids - afternoon for others) and in other areas extended mid day breaks from class. So no matter what time of day, there always seems to be kids walking along the tracks to and from school. And when you pass a school, kids in there too. Immaculate in their blue and white or all brown uniforms, they unfailingly greet you with a wave and a smiling “Hello!”
Okay, maybe no cycling this afternoon. I notice a few backpackers piling into a prau loaded with fishing rods. There are apparently some excellent angling spots in the near vicinity. But I feel more like a laze on a beautiful beach and maybe a leisurely swim.
The beach at Jungubatu is not exactly shabby, but the tide has gone down so that much of the lagoon has become shallow pools and exposed coral flats. Great for the seaweed farmers to tend and harvest their crop (and no, as far as I can tell, there is no smell involved) and excellent for fossikers to inspect the micro-life of the pools and collect seashells. But not so great for a swim. No problems, I know an excellent place.
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I walk down the beach, past the village and then take the coastal path along the cliffs heading south. Down to my right the seaweed workers are banging anchoring stakes into the coral. Further out in deep water are two big shaded pontoons with fast motorised catamarans moored to them. These are big daytrip boats from Bali. I can make out groups of snorkellers in a section near the pontoon and there are kayaks and a banana boat ride operating on the other side. To my left a handful of mid-range bungalow places are built up the hillside with panoramic views over the water and back to Bali. See shot of Coconuts below.
I walk down the beach, past the village and then take the coastal path along the cliffs heading south. Down to my right the seaweed workers are banging anchoring stakes into the coral. Further out in deep water are two big shaded pontoons with fast motorised catamarans moored to them. These are big daytrip boats from Bali. I can make out groups of snorkellers in a section near the pontoon and there are kayaks and a banana boat ride operating on the other side. To my left a handful of mid-range bungalow places are built up the hillside with panoramic views over the water and back to Bali. See shot of Coconuts below.
Coconuts Resort overlooking Jungubatu Bay - on a later trip I stayed in the highest chalet. Nice midrange place (images - Island Explorer Cruises - Coconuts Resort)
Fantastic view from the top bungalow. But killer set of stairs to get there
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I cross down over a couple of nice beaches and small coves and after about 20 minutes reach a simply gorgeous beach in a place called Mushroom Bay, so named for the shape of some coral outcrops offshore. This place has blinding white sand, deep water even at low tide, some good coral for snorkelling and casuarinas growing behind the beach for shade. Not surprisingly, it had attracted some high-end and mid-range boutique hotels.
After a leisurely swim, I elect to sit on the sand at the southern end of the bay, which by mid afternoon is shaded by the trees. There are maybe two dozen people scattered along the sand and the occasional prau comes in and unloads daytrippers who mainly head for the pool area of the Beach Club behind the trees. The emphasis here is on tranquillity. Unlike most beaches in Bali there are no hawkers with their: “pineapple - papaya - shells - massage - beer - paintings - sunglasses - I give special price - later? - tomorrow? - okay, when?” The beach back at Jungubatu has a similar absence of these people - with the sole exception of the boat guys who wander along in the morning and ask you if you would like to join the snorkelling or fishing trip. Plus I did see my ice-cream guy down on the beach at the village on the way over.
Another unlikely sight. An old wizened local leads one of the doe eyed island cattle down a path from the southern headland. Two cute untethered calves tag along. The animals have small tinkling bells around their necks. They cross a section of the beach and take the road towards Lembongan village. After 20 minutes they retrace their steps. I can hear the bells long after they disappear back up the headland track. Please don’t think this beach is part of the island’s answer to the Canning Stock Route - I see this once in three afternoons on the beach.
After a few more swims and an explore of a deserted sandy cove immediately to the north around a small headland, I start to stroll back to Jungubatu. But first a pleasant diversion. At the top of the stairs leading out of Mushroom is a little warung, sensationally perched on the northern headland looking back over the bay and out to sea. Food and drink prices here are only about 20% higher than back at Jungubatu, as is the tariff for their few bungalows. This is the perfect place to grab a late afternoon beer or juice, check that lovely beach and watch the sun go down in a golden glow behind southern Bali. Any breeze tends to disappear around sunset, turning the sea into molten glass. Even better, when I turn a little I notice that the usual late afternoon melt-off of clouds around Agung, Bali’s loftiest volcano has occurred. Agung is considerably higher than Kosciusko and at this close distance should be pretty spectacular. But when the clouds part, it is always twice as high as I expect. The peak has a northern ridge which drops precipitously to the coast no more than 25km from where I sit.
Awesome.
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I cross down over a couple of nice beaches and small coves and after about 20 minutes reach a simply gorgeous beach in a place called Mushroom Bay, so named for the shape of some coral outcrops offshore. This place has blinding white sand, deep water even at low tide, some good coral for snorkelling and casuarinas growing behind the beach for shade. Not surprisingly, it had attracted some high-end and mid-range boutique hotels.
After a leisurely swim, I elect to sit on the sand at the southern end of the bay, which by mid afternoon is shaded by the trees. There are maybe two dozen people scattered along the sand and the occasional prau comes in and unloads daytrippers who mainly head for the pool area of the Beach Club behind the trees. The emphasis here is on tranquillity. Unlike most beaches in Bali there are no hawkers with their: “pineapple - papaya - shells - massage - beer - paintings - sunglasses - I give special price - later? - tomorrow? - okay, when?” The beach back at Jungubatu has a similar absence of these people - with the sole exception of the boat guys who wander along in the morning and ask you if you would like to join the snorkelling or fishing trip. Plus I did see my ice-cream guy down on the beach at the village on the way over.
Another unlikely sight. An old wizened local leads one of the doe eyed island cattle down a path from the southern headland. Two cute untethered calves tag along. The animals have small tinkling bells around their necks. They cross a section of the beach and take the road towards Lembongan village. After 20 minutes they retrace their steps. I can hear the bells long after they disappear back up the headland track. Please don’t think this beach is part of the island’s answer to the Canning Stock Route - I see this once in three afternoons on the beach.
After a few more swims and an explore of a deserted sandy cove immediately to the north around a small headland, I start to stroll back to Jungubatu. But first a pleasant diversion. At the top of the stairs leading out of Mushroom is a little warung, sensationally perched on the northern headland looking back over the bay and out to sea. Food and drink prices here are only about 20% higher than back at Jungubatu, as is the tariff for their few bungalows. This is the perfect place to grab a late afternoon beer or juice, check that lovely beach and watch the sun go down in a golden glow behind southern Bali. Any breeze tends to disappear around sunset, turning the sea into molten glass. Even better, when I turn a little I notice that the usual late afternoon melt-off of clouds around Agung, Bali’s loftiest volcano has occurred. Agung is considerably higher than Kosciusko and at this close distance should be pretty spectacular. But when the clouds part, it is always twice as high as I expect. The peak has a northern ridge which drops precipitously to the coast no more than 25km from where I sit.
Awesome.
Mount Agung, Bali, from Coconut's Pool overlooking the bay at Jungubatu, Nusa Lembongan (image Island Explorer Cruises)..........
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