Our Bali Road Trip may have come to an end, but our time in Bali wasn’t quite over yet. We took a side trip to a small island east of Bali called Nusa Lembongan. To get to Nusa Lemaongen, there are many private boats you can charter, but if you’re on a budget like me, you can take the public ferry.  It’s quite a big cost savings and not nearly as uncomfortable as my previous ferry experiences (ahem, I’m referring to this one. Oh, and this one too). The public ferry takes about an hour and half (vs. 30-40 min. on a fast boat) but is 1/3 of the price- I definitely recommend it!

Lauren and I stored our main packs with our guesthouse in Sanur and just took a daypack with the essentials. We were early in the boarding line which was definitely a good thing. We waded into the water, hoisted ourselves onto the boat and climbed over a couple of benches to find a seat. The people who boarded last had to climb over all of the benches to get to the seating at the front of the boat. As we pushed off from Bali, we noticed the views of the volcano. It was a really pretty ride to Nusa Lembongan. There was a storm brewing, and we were nervous that it would be raining when we arrived, but luckily, it passed on by.

When we docked at Nusa Lembongen, we got off the same way we got on- in the water. I was so relieved not to be carrying all my stuff at that point so that I didn’t topple over as I jumped down. When we reached the beach, we headed to a guesthouse nearby that we had read good things about online. It was low season, after all, so we didn’t think it would be a problem. But, this guesthouse has a lot of people book to go scuba diving with them so their rooms book out far in advance. We didn’t have a plan B, so we started walking down the beach. There was litter along the beach, and we were feeling a bit discouraged. Everything right on the water was more than we wanted to pay until we reached the Pacific Inn. The place was really small with only four rooms, but had an area with beach chairs. It was in our budget, and the older couple who owned it were really friendly. Sold! We set our stuff down, changed into our swimsuits, and took our rightful place on the beach.

A swim quickly followed as it was getting pretty hot. We soon met our neighbor who was around our age and from San Francisco. While we only made small talk with him the first day, we would later find out that he had quite an interesting story. I’ll leave you with a couple more photos of our guesthouse on Nusa Lembongan and pick up tomorrow with our activities on the small island!