Bali is one of the most touristic province of Indonesia, located at the westernmost of Lesser Sunda Islands. It includes the magic and well-known Bali island and a few more smaller ones called Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nusa Ceningan.
THE LANDSCAPE
As many other Indonesian Islands, the weather is tropical, which means there are two monsoon seasons. A rainy season from october to mars and a dry season from june to september.
The Bali mountain range extending from east to west, has diferent active volcanos such as Mount Batur or Mount Augung. The last one is known as the mother mountain and has been active since 2017.
The northern side of Bali steeps directly into the see and their beaches are afected by the volcanos becoming black-sand-beaches. Whereas the southern side, descend peacefully into a grassland full of rivers and their beaches are long white-sand-beaches. The Island is surrunded by many incredible coral reefs.
At the east of Bali Island, the Lombok strait separates Bali from Lombok Island and marks the Wallace Line. This acts as a biogeographical division from the Indomalayan ecozone and Australian. As a result, the fauna and flora we may see at both sides are totally different.
PLANNING MY TRIP TO BALI
How to get around
The Bali airport is at Denpasar. It is not so big, however, many different airlines arrive and depart from Bali so it won't be difficult to get there.
The most popular way of travelling at Bali is, by far, with motorbike. Not only for the tourists but also by the locals. The traffic is really crazzy, specially at Denpasar and Kuta, you can take one or two ours to to make a ten minute road! The cars and taxis are always stopped at the road. Whereas the motorbikes look for different ways to cross, between the cars, over the sidewalk... Be carefull if this is your first time driving in a place like this.
However, if you don't want to risk and have money enough to do it, you can always rent a car-driver to get you around or a taxi just for a few ours. Just remember to ask them to turn the taximeter on!
Where to go
We wanted to have a route around Bali Island to visit many different places, travelling with a motorbike and our backpack. At the airport parking there is a motorbike rental however you will have to drive in the crazy denpasar traffic and I don't think it is very safe for beginners. Maybe it is better to take a taxi to your first destination and rent the motorbike there.
At this map there are the different interesting places of Bali. As you can see, they are all aver the island and not at the same place. After the motorbike tour, we planned to visit one of the small islands that belongs to Bali, which is called Nusa Penida. It is located at south-east on the map.
Nusa Penida trip
Nusa Penida is a small and rural Island located at the east of Bali Island. It has recently opened to tourism so the are few difficultes to have in mind. However it is really worth it.
There are three ways to get there:
- The cheapest one is by public ferry. It departs from Padang Bay to Pelabuhan Tradisional Sampalan of Nusa Penida (the nortwest part of the island). It costs 27.300 IDR and takes 1:30h. The weak point is that I heart some people complain that the ferry not always departs every day, it depends on the weather.
- The expensive one is by fast-public-boat. It departs from Sanur beach to Nusa Penida. It costs 75000 IDR and takes 40min. The departure time is 6:30h in the morning.
- The most expensive ones are runned by different speed boat companies that depart also from Sanur Beach. This companies are specially for tourists as it offers a transport from and back to your hote. They have many different prices and departure times. You can check them at this web-site: Fast-boat companies.
Have in mind that if your boat departs from the beach you will have to walk with your luggage until you get to the boat! I recommend you wear shorts or swuimsuit and the most important thing, no heavy luggage! You will laugh for sure at people who don't know this.
As Nusa Penida had been recently opened to the tourisme you will see that many roads are not really prepared, some of them are asphalted but the ones that take you to the most interesting places aren't. At least for know. Almost all the locals drive with motorbike there, it must be for some good reason.
There is a small rental motorbike at the same port. Just make sure you don't get cheated and rent a good motorbike with good suspension, or you will remember it for many days. Some tourists move around with taxi, however they can't take you as many places a motorbike can.
My trip to Bali
Our amazing trip starts at Ubud. We took a taxi from denpasar at night to get easier to our hotel. After renting the motorbikes and visit a few things of the most beautiful city of Bali we begun the north trip stopping to spend the night at Jatiluwih ricefields, Danau Baratan, Danau Batur, Amed and finally we came back to Ubud.
The fast-boat that would take us to Nusa Penida Island departs from a small beach called Sanur. Don't expect a port there, as the boats sail from the beach! This is a small and rural island full of incredible cliffs and beaches. The last days of our jurney would be at the main island to see the south part of Bali which is a paradise for surfers.
To know more about our trip and all the places we discovered, click at Ubud, this was the first part of our trip. If you want to go directly to another regency click at their link:
- The northern Bali
In Nusa Penida, we did an awesome day of diving with. If you want to know more about it click at Diving Nusa Penida. After 2 weeks in this magic island, we took our flight back to Kuala Lumpur.
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