Got up early and had our typical egg and pancake breakfast at the Sarinande. We checked out and at 8am were met by our ride from the Scoot Cruise people. The Scoot Cruise operates a fast boat from Sanur to Nusa Lembongan. We first had to get a ride to Sanur, about 45 minutes away on the east side of Bali. After paying for the return trip on the boat we were off to the beach to climb aboard the surprisingly small boat. There are no piers here – you literally climb onto the boat from the shore!

Craig removed his shoes and put on the recently purchased flipflops and we climbed aboard. The ride was pretty choppy and towards the end of the 30 minute journey we were feeling a bit queasy. We arrived at Nusa Lembongan through scattered showers, but nothing could detract from the sheer beauty of this island of paradise. Think Robinson Crusoe!

To get to our hotel, we had to climb aboard a modified flat bed pick-up truck with some wooden benches to get to the Pondok Baruna, our home for the next few nights. Upon arrival our room wasn't quite ready yet, so we lingered in the pleasant open air lobby for a bit. Pondok Baruna is famous as a scuba diving school, and the island and Nusa Lembongan is well known as a dive spot. They opened up a few beach bungalows awhile back and recently built some plushier air conditioned rooms in the garden. That is where we are staying.

We were shown to our room and found it to be very pleasant with a modern bathroom and a really cool sitting area outside. It wasn't until later that we realized the water coming out of the shower was seawater, but that wasn't a big deal. There is also a gorgeous pool that is also used by the dive students. We decided to tackle the "30 minute" walk to one of the most beautiful of the beaches on the island, Mushroom Beach. We walked along the beach for a couple of minutes, and the fiery sun started beating down on us and we stopped at a warung for a delicious jackfruit juice – yum!

Well, the 30 minute walk turned into a 60+ minute odyssey through the sunbaked shore of the island. The trail was extremely hard to follow, and we often wound up walking down dead ends. However, on several of those dead ends we encountered some truly beautiful isolated coves where it was just us and the pounding surf of the Indian Ocean. We stopped for lunch at Villa Wayan and had chicken and tuna curry. Villa Wayan offered gorgeous views of Pantai Selegimpak Beach where Efren took a nice dip in the Indian Ocean . We then trudged onward for the final few minutes and reached Mushroom Beach. It was definitely worth the effort! The perfect sliver of sugar white sand against cliffs tumbling into the sea. Just amazing.

We had a few drinks at the very nice Café and Bar Bali before trying to figure out how to get back to our hotel without suffering through the heat anymore. We found a driver who took us back to the hotel. Again, the ride involved sitting the flatbed of a truck perched on precarious wooden benches. Far from first-class, but much better than the walk!

We cleaned up and went to the hotel lobby for dinner. It was here that we first saw the true charm of Pondok Baruna. The staff are just the friendliest bunch and were an absolute joy to be around. For dinner we ordered the BBQ tuna, which was just caught earlier in the day and grilled right in front of us. This was by far the most delicious fish we ever ate! Craig doesn’t even really like fish, but this was absolutely amazing. If you ever have the chance to come to Bali, you MUST come to Nusa Lembongan and stay with the Pondok Baruna crew and enjoy their hospitality and freshly caught fish.

After a long day were ready for bed. Tomorrow’s adventure includes snorkeling to see all the beautiful fish!

August 26

Today started with a nice breakfast at Pondok Baruna. We walked down the beach and arranged for a 90 minute snorkeling trip, including rental of fins, masks and snorkel. Before long we were on another small boat headed for the reefs on the north side of the island.

The snorkeling was amazing. We spent over an hour snorkeling around the reef seeing all sorts of beautiful tropical fish. No rays or sharks – you need to do the diving to see those! We then climbed aboard the boat and headed back to the hotel. We made arrangements with the boat driver to bring us back to Mushroom Beach later in the day for dinner. We weren’t interested in making that walk again as today is even hotter than yesterday!

One unpleasant side effect of the snorkeling was that we both got really wicked sunburn on our backs. I guess “water resistant” sunscreen doesn’t really fit the bill here. We lunched at Pondok Baruna and went back to the room to clean up. The power went out (pretty typical here as there are high powered flash lights in all the rooms) and we decided to take a nap. By the time we woke up it was time to meet our captain for the trip to Mushroom Beach.

The trip took about 10 minutes. Much quicker than the walk! Efren played around in the water for awhile while Craig downed a couple of Bintangs. We had a light dinner and watched the beautiful sunset. Unfortunately clouds lingered over Mt. Agung on Bali, so we didn’t get the see the fabled blood-red views of Mt Agung as the sun set.

Our captain returned to take us back to the hotel. When we arrived we saw they were cooking fresh tuna again, and we couldn’t resist ordering it again! Craig ordered the fried pineapple with honey which was also very tasty.

That’s about it for today. Unfortunately we leave tomorrow and head back to Bali. Nusa Lembongan has definitely been the highlight of our trip so far. For anyone who can handle the heat, flies, geckos and ants of the tropics, this is definitely a place not to be missed!