“I don’t want to ride a motorbike,” declares my three-year-old daughter as she stamps her foot in the dusty earth. It’s our first morning on Nusa Lembongan, a small island about 30 minutes by fast ferry from Bali’s Sanur Harbour, and already our plans are being tested by a pint-sized dictator.
Lembongan is one of three islands in an archipelago that also takes in Nusa Penida and Nusa Ceningan. The most developed of the three, Lembongan has long been popular with surfers, who come for its famous reef breaks. But thanks to a surge in ferry operators and luxury accommodation, it has become a haven for tourists wanting to experience a taste of “old” Bali, while still getting a flat white as good as any in Melbourne or Sydney.
Most first-time visitors to Nusa Lembongan stay at one of the two main beach areas, Jungutbatu or Mushroom Bay, both of which offer accommodation for all budgets. For this trip to the island, our second in as many years, we settle for a boutique hotel located between the two at Tamarind Bay.
Pandana Boutique Hotel is run by a friendly Kiwi named Trish and its six rooms and two pools mean there’s no trouble getting a sunbed. For less than $150 a night, we feel like royalty in our family room, which has a king bed and two singles, and a fully enclosed, renovated bathroom – a rare find. (Outdoor showers, while a nice holiday novelty, are a beacon for mosquitoes.)
The island is our first stop on a 2½-week trip that will also take in Ubud and Sanur on Bali, so the goal here is to slow down and do little. Pandana’s location atop a hill, with panoramic views of Jungutbatu, makes this all the more achievable, our three-year-old travelling companion notwithstanding.
Lembongan is only eight square kilometres in area but it’s hilly, so having your own transport is handy. Taxis are expensive by Bali standards (the minimum fare is equivalent to $10 for an eight-seater van) but a scooter that carries three will set you back just $15 a day and, like most things in Bali, the price is negotiable. To make things more efficient, ask your accommodation to sort it for you.
We plan to ride to the lesser-known parts of the island, including some secluded beaches, to visit the mangroves that line the north coast, and to cross to Nusa Ceningan, which is only accessible on foot or two wheels via the famously narrow Yellow Bridge. But we may find ourselves stranded if our daughter refuses to get on board.
Thankfully, Disney saves the day: included with our rental scooter is a child’s helmet decorated with stickers of Frozen characters. (While not heavily policed, most travel insurers will want proof you wore a helmet in the event of a claim.) One look at Elsa and my daughter’s motorbike strike is over.
Our adventure begins tentatively at first. My husband, while an experienced rider, needs time to get the hang of the potholed back lanes that connect our hotel to the better island roads.
By day three, he’s more confident, and we’re zipping to Jungutbatu for gelato (for my husband and daughter) and a sound bath (for me), before stopping for lunch at the popular Ginger & Jamu cafe, where we enjoy eating with our feet in the sand.
Nusa Lembongan extend all the way to Mount Batur. Alex Grabchilev / Stocksy United
Despite the freedom our scooter brings, in the interests of safety we limit our escapades to daytime, helped by the many restaurants on the island offering free hotel pick-up. We also discover an excellent husband-and-wife-run restaurant, Warung Kevin, a short walk from our hotel. It’s so good we eat there twice in six days.
On our final full day, I cross my fingers and toes as we traverse the narrow Yellow Bridge to Ceningan, feeling as though my knees could scrape the sides with even the tiniest of errors. Safely across, we choose the family-run Seabreeze restaurant, which serves tasty Western and Indonesian bites and has a swimming pool and swings to keep our daughter busy.
After lunch, we walk down to the water to watch farmers drying sheets of seaweed – an important export crop here – on their wooden boats. Construction on a new hotel hums in the background, a reminder of how lucky we are to see old and new coexisting in harmony.
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Melissa Singer is Associate Editor of Sunday Life magazine, and was previously national fashion editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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