Ten days between Bali and Nusa Penida, by scooter most of the time, among hidden waterfalls, rice terraces overrun by Instagram and an unexpected encounter with manta rays. A solo trip, punctuated by unlikely reunions with faces met on the very first day — and an ending somewhat rushed by a phone call from far away.
Arriving in Bali, first steps in Padang Bai
Out of the airport around 2:30 p.m., hassled by taxi drivers from the very first steps. A tout points me toward what he presents as the “public bus” — actually his own minivan — with a price that tumbles from Rp 900,000 to Rp 400,000 in a few seconds of haggling. Still too expensive. I walk a little and run into two backpackers, Jules and his girlfriend Christelle, a Swiss guy and a French woman. They had also been looking for a bus without success, and explain that they plan to order a Grab instead — a word that means nothing to me at the time; the Asian equivalent of Uber, as they sum it up. They show me where they’re headed and offer to share the ride. Looking at their route, I notice that Padang Bai is on the way: a port village I’d vaguely heard of, the departure point for ferries and speedboats to Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, the Gili Islands and Lombok. The perfect opportunity to stop there and make it my base: rent a scooter, explore the island as I please with no fixed itinerary, and maybe push on later if I feel like it — to other islands, without knowing yet which ones.
The driver arrives and, once on the road, explains why: at the time, it was impossible to order a Grab directly from the airport, since local taxi drivers saw it as unfair competition, to the point that it had already led to real tensions, sometimes fights. Two hours on the road, shared three ways for Rp 250,000, and a bit of chatting — he’s looking for a job as a diving instructor, she’s following him on his wanderings. In Padang Bai, the driver first drops Jules and Christelle at their place, then takes me to mine: a hostel at Rp 115,000 a night, breakfast included. Little sleep on the plane: I collapse at 7 p.m.
An endless wait and the road to Ubud
Awake at 4 a.m., then dozing until 7. Lots of people at the hostel are leaving for the Gili Islands; for my part, I first want to rent a scooter to explore Bali, with the idea of maybe coming back this way later for a possible crossing to Nusa Penida, nothing certain — but every scooter rental place around insists on keeping my passport as a deposit, out of the question for five days. So it’s the bus to Ubud. In the meantime, I go and kill some time at Blue Lagoon, a quiet cove but with rough sea: snorkeling doesn’t last long, poor visibility and too much current to venture far from my things, left unattended.
Back at the meeting point, where the bus is supposed to leave as soon as a boat arrives from the Gili Islands — a globe-trotting Australian waits with me. The guy from the agency, meanwhile, spends his time laughing with his taxi-driver buddies parked right next to us, serving us at regular intervals a “leaving soon” that sounds less and less convincing. The minutes pile up — 45, then a full two hours of waiting — during which he doesn’t hold back from suggesting, like a not-so-subtle salesman, that a taxi (one of his pals’, as luck would have it) would surely be faster. Hard to know, looking back, whether that boat was really late or whether the whole wait was just a way to make us crack. We don’t give in, despite the pressure. The minibus finally shows up, a good two hours after the announced time — we finally get on. An hour and a half on the road later, I get off in Ubud and set out on foot to find somewhere to stay. I find Phostel, tucked away in a lane near the market: Rp 150,000 a night, spotless dorm, breakfast included, a nice little rooftop. Bed.
Waterfall after waterfall, all the way to a fever
I rent a scooter at the hostel for Rp 60,000 for the day and set off to discover the waterfalls: Tibumana, Goa Rang Reng, then Tukad Cepung — all pleasant, without being breathtaking. The last one, Tukad Cepung, is clearly the most spectacular, reachable only by walking through a small cave with your feet in the water. Not many people there, but enough for a queue to form in front of the falls, everyone wanting their photo with nobody else in the frame. Really nice spots, but each time the access is somewhat “developed” — stairs, marked paths — which no doubt explains why none of them is free: taken one by one, the entry fees (a few thousand rupiah each time) seem trivial, but the bill ends up adding up across three sites in the same day.
The day alternates between showers and sunny spells, and the scooter ride back is no exception: soaked by the rain after sweating all day on the stairs in full sun, that hot-and-cold combination probably doesn’t help. I get back to the hostel feeling under the weather — no appetite — and go to bed feverish, without managing to fall asleep.
A thieving monkey and rice terraces that are too touristy
Not exactly in great shape when I wake up, after last night’s fever. Off to the Monkey Forest, a stone’s throw from the hostel (Rp 60,000 entry) — exotic all the same, between the mossy temples overgrown with vines and the macaques strolling around as if they owned the place, but an exoticism that feels a bit staged: here, the monkeys are clearly looked after for the show, to the point that you can pay a guard to pose with them. One of them takes it upon himself to remind me who’s in charge here: he literally climbs on me, grabs my bag and pulls with all his might to try to snatch my 1.5-liter water bottle. Luckily it’s too heavy for him — I take off the bag, monkey still hanging from it, and wait, as unfazed as possible, for him to finally let go.
The urge to see something else then sends me on the road to Mount Batur, by scooter, an hour and a half through constantly changing landscapes — rice fields, then steeper and steeper slopes. Climbing to the summit, however, also comes at a price; so I settle for admiring the volcano from the road, its silhouette half drowned in clouds that day. On the way back, a scene stops me in my tracks: a funeral procession crosses the road, the deceased carried in a coffin on a bamboo platform, the whole procession in traditional dress. They’ll walk like this for more than ten kilometers, including a formidable climb — probably a ngaben, the great Balinese Hindu cremation ceremony, though I didn’t get the chance to learn more about it on the spot.
Still on the way back, a last stop at the Tegallalang rice terraces — and here, the contrast is brutal. Gone is the relative calm of the rest of the day: here, everything seems designed for Instagram. Giant swings hanging over the void (probably outrageously expensive; I didn’t even go near them to check), droves of tourists taking turns at every viewpoint, and above all that string of “donations” at every new plot you cross — presented as voluntary, demanded like a toll as soon as you try to pass without paying. I end up giving in, less out of conviction than to be left in peace. On the main paths, the staging continues: fake rice farmers, traditional tools in hand, offer to pose for a few coins — the kind of moment that leaves a slightly bitter taste. A good twenty minutes of waiting later, while two aspiring models finish their never-ending photo shoot, I finally find a quiet spot for my own. But pushing farther, where the crowd thins out, the scenery changes completely: real farmers are busy in the rice fields, getting on with their own work, asking nothing of anyone — a real breath of fresh air after that whole circus. Back to Ubud, dinner and a beer shared with other travelers at the hostel.
A floating temple on Lake Tamblingan
A coin toss decides it, because of uncertain weather: off to the Twin Lakes. The road, magnificent, winds through rice fields and small villages before climbing in hairpin bends lined with monkeys. After a cloudy viewpoint and a much more damaged stretch of road, I reach Lake Tamblingan — the smaller of the twin lakes, but also the least visited. Everything costs money, no surprise there (Rp 25,000 entry, and no trekking on your own: you need a guide, Rp 350,000 for an hour and a half). I settle for the basic entry, which is more than enough: a temple that seems to float a few meters from the shore, a silence broken only by birds and insects. A man comes over, offers a boat ride (Rp 100,000, declined), then comes back just to chat — he explains that the water level can vary by two meters depending on the season, and that you can also reach the temple on foot. Back to Ubud by the same road, busier at this time of day.
Ferry and scooter hassles on Nusa Penida
A quiet morning, a quick look around the market while waiting for the 12:30 p.m. bus to Sanur — the obligatory gateway to Nusa Penida, an island off the south of Bali that can only be reached by boat. Once there, no regular ferry as the hostel had said, only speedboats at Rp 200,000. On arrival at Nusa Penida’s port, a surprisingly calm atmosphere.
At the port, a first “rental agent” approaches me — actually just a guy who seems to be renting out his own scooter, with no shop or address to return it to, and no helmet either. Not very reassuring: I decide to look elsewhere. Walking on, I come across a homestay that also rents scooters, looking a bit more official — but still no helmet in sight. The woman there tells me with a smile: “No police here.” Apparently nobody wears a helmet on this island. I think I catch a glimpse of Christelle and Jules on the way — the same Swiss and French travelers I met on the very first day at the airport.
Off to Sampalan to find a hostel. The lady at reception isn’t sure she has room, leafs through her ledger muttering “180”; I try, laughing, “can you go down to 150?” — she smiles and whispers “okay, but shh, the boss is right next door.” With the dorms full, it’ll be a small room behind the main hall, two small beds and a fan — more than enough. A message exchanged with Jules in the meantime: confirmed, they’re on the island. Dinner out together. Back at the hostel, I’m sitting in the hall for a bit when a girl turns up: “There’s someone sleeping in my bed…” Since I happen to have two beds in my room, she comes to settle in there.
The cave temple of Goa Giri Putri and a godsend of a warung
No breakfast that morning, straight off to Goa Giri Putri temple along a pretty coastal road. In the parking lot, I’m asked to rent a sarong — normal for a place of worship, with lots of locals bringing their offerings. We watch a ceremony before being allowed into the cave itself, accessible only on all fours for the first few meters (Rp 20,000 entry) before the passage widens. Very humid, with altars scattered all over — a visit as original as it is enjoyable.
On the road to Atuh Beach, a stop at Warung Forest — a “warung” being, in Indonesia, a small family-run eatery, this one set right in the middle of the forest, with animals roaming free (chickens, cats) all around. The owner, generous with advice, even draws me a map of his favorite spots. Excellent food, total calm: a real find. Then off to Atuh Beach, after a failed detour to another beach (30 minutes of bumpy dirt track for nothing, U-turn). A superb view from the top over a small island with a hole through the rock, turquoise water below.
A quick detour to “Thousand Islands,” a complex with treehouse-style huts (Rp 10,000, nice but nothing more), before trying to get to Teletubbies Hill — glimpsed from the road, but I couldn’t find a way up in time before sunset. Another time. Back to the hostel through a handful of smiling villages, with a distant view of what looks like Mount Agung, on the island of Bali.
A new hostel and the blue steps of Peguyangan
A change of hostel to “Bintang homestay & hostel,” farther west on the island — classy, though a bit overwhelmed when I arrive. While I wait, I act as an improvised interpreter for two travelers: a Frenchman who doesn’t speak English, and a Russian who swears only by Google Translate. Then off to Peguyangan Waterfall, with its famous flight of blue steps carved into the cliffside (Rp 5,000 for parking, Rp 10,000 for the mandatory sarong). At the bottom, a small waterfall pouring straight into the sea, a temple, and natural pools set into the rock — I don’t really enjoy them, too hungry and in a hurry to climb back up before my legs give out completely.
Next, off to Saren Cliff, a lesser-known viewpoint near Manta Point: the road, alternating excellent stretches and wrecked tracks, isn’t easy to find, but the reward — a little swing, a view of the cliffs, almost nobody there — is worth the detour. I leave before nightfall, not too keen on riding these roads once the sun has set.
(Along the way, I spot a few manta rays from the road, cruising offshore — a nice foretaste of the next day.)
Swimming with manta rays
Determined to see the mantas up close, I head to Crystal Bay at 9 a.m. The solo rate turns out to be double the group rate — so I wait for other tourists to show up. Lucky break: an American couple I’d met the day before comes by, heading for Manta Bay and Gamat Bay, Rp 250,000 for the two spots; an Australian woman joins us. At Manta Bay, a ray appears almost immediately, then two at once a little later — I’m the last one back on the boat, and they pass right beneath me, almost brushing against me. Swimming a few meters from creatures with a wingspan of one to one and a half meters, back and forth again and again: one of the great moments of the trip. Then on to Gamat for more classic snorkeling — colorful coral, fewer people, a surprising mix of warm and cold currents.
In the afternoon, off to Broken Beach (Rp 5,000 for parking): a spectacular natural pool, but a dangerous one because of the waves surging into it, then the famous circular cove with a natural bridge through the cliff — magnificent, but I don’t linger, since there’s no room at the hostel for an extra night and I need to keep moving. Then on to Kelingking Beach, the famous T-Rex-shaped cliff: the view from the top is more than enough, no need to go all the way down to the beach. A last attempt to reach Gamat Bay for a sunset beer — bad idea, the path turns out to be a real ordeal of sand and big rocks, and two French guys I meet on the way talk me out of pushing on (they had wisely left their scooter higher up). I push mine over the last few meters, reaching the top a bit out of breath but smiling: final destination Crystal Bay, for a well-earned beer and a sunset that rounds off the day perfectly.
A rushed return
Back to Padang Bai by ferry. An Indonesian man strikes up a conversation, I show him a few videos on my phone, he’s a fan and captures the moment with a selfie posted straight to Facebook. Back on land, the hostel is full, and I manage to find a small room elsewhere. Then a call from my landlord, thousands of kilometers away: a problem that needs sorting out urgently. The trip comes to an abrupt end — decision made to bring my return forward to the next day.
Looking Back
Ten days that didn’t go to plan right to the end, but that will stay marked by a few strong images: a monkey’s attempted theft of a water bottle, a funeral procession met by chance on a mountain road, and above all those few suspended minutes swimming alongside manta rays at Nusa Penida. And then that funny constant all along — running into the same faces day after day (Christelle and Jules, met at the airport and then found again by chance on an island) even though nothing was planned for that to happen. Bali remains a treasure trove of natural wonders too often captured by mass tourism and its “mandatory donation” logic — but sometimes all it takes is to push a little farther, as at Saren Cliff or that godsend of a warung on Saturday, to find a bit of calm again.
