It’s been a while since I wanted to visit Nusa Penida. One of my friends, Gusde, invited me to vacation on that small island back then on 29 May 2021 for one day after some discussions and information sharing.
Before our departure, I reserved the transportation (speed boat) to Nusa Penida from Maruti Express because it has many positive online reviews. For your information, the price of a one-way ticket from Sanur to Nusa Penida with Maruti Express is IDR 75.000 and IDR 150.000 return. Please take note that this price is for domestic passengers. For foreign passengers, you may check their website for any updates on the ticket price.
The next day, we went to Sanur Beach and parked our motorbike there. You don’t have to worry about your motorbike because it’s safe there. If you’d like to go to Nusa Penida from Sanur, park your motorbike at Sanur Beach. You’ll see many motorbikes parked here by those who want to go to Nusa Penida.
As it was still early morning when we got there, we bought a nasi jinggo for breakfast in one of the warungs at the beach while waiting for the Maruti counter to be opened. We enjoyed the sunrise on that semi-cloudy day. When the counter opened, I paid for the tickets, and they gave us the boarding pass, and we must show it onboard. The boat’s pickup point varies daily, so we should listen carefully to the announcement or broadcast near the counter.
It was 07:45 AM then, but our boat hadn’t arrived when we were supposed to depart at 07:30 AM. There was a British couple who were asking the staff at the counter about the boat’s departure. Speaking of the devil, the team announced that the boat had arrived. We followed one of the staff to the pickup point. Before onboarding, we were informed that we had to take off our sandals/shoes and put them inside a box, which we did, and we were free to choose where to sit and chill.
Arrived at Nusa Penida
After about a 30-minute way, we arrived at Nusa Penida. I’ve been living in Bali for 24 years, and to be honest, this was my first time visiting this place. The crystal clear blue water greeted us, and it invited me to swim there, lol! First, we were looking for a motorbike rental because it’s easier to travel the island with a motorbike (and more fun, too!). There were a lot of people who offered motorbike rentals. I rented a Honda Scoopy for IDR 120.000 (for 2×24 hours). We then were looking for the gas station because we would like to travel to some places while waiting for our check-in time at our accommodation.
Our first destination was Smoky Beach, which local people here called Pasih Andus. We actually needed 30 minutes to get there, but due to the poor performance of our motorbike (yes, it’s an old motorbike and less maintained) took us more than our estimated time. In Nusa Penida, there are a lot of uphill roads that you will find along the way with little to no roadblocks. But other than that, the scenery was beautiful, and we snapped some pictures along the way.
We continued our journey as we felt the heat. Nusa Penida seems to have 2 suns. 😣
Smoky Beach
Even though we had Google Maps, we still had to pay attention to the road sign. Can’t really trust Google Maps here, as it might direct us to the wrong place. The road was crazy and had many potholes and rocks, as if we were entering another world. Please pay attention and be careful if you’d like to come here. There’s no parking sign, so we park our motorbike near the impassable road.
We walked for about 15 minutes under the sun’s heat and, finally, found heaven! The view was amazing; of course, we snapped pictures there while taking a break.
As the sun rose, we sat on a nearby gazebo. The gust of the wind made us sleepy, but that didn’t stop us from going to our next destination.
Broken Beach
It took only 10 minutes to go to Broken Beach from Smoky Beach. Some small shops sell snacks and drinks. We bought a Pocari Sweat (regular size), which cost about IDR 15.000, which was quite expensive compared to Denpasar. But we understand that it takes a considerable effort just to bring logistics to Nusa Penida, so we didn’t mind that.
These were the pictures that we took at Broken Beach. If we followed the path, we would arrive at Angel’s Billabong. But we decided not to go there because we had to go up many stairs.
As we were walking back to the parking lot, this Russian couple took some footage with their drone. Being mischievous, we decided to walk back and forth so that we would appear in their footage. 😂
Gedhong Hostel
We had lunch at KFC look-alike, JFC. We stayed for a bit longer there after lunch to cool ourselves. After a 15-minute rest, we continued our journey to our accommodation, Gedhong Hostel. When we arrived, we were greeted by the hostel’s owner, Bapak Komang Arsana, and provided with a welcome drink. Orange juice was our choice due to the sunny and hot weather!
We chatted a bit with Bapak Komang about how the pandemic has been affecting his business since 2020, and there weren’t many guests, as usual, he said. We also told him about ourselves and that we were there to take a break from city life. Pak Komang then escorted us to our room and handed us the key. The room was a twin bedroom with an AC, which was pretty lovely. Not a big room, but it was enough for us to chill and relax. Not also forget to mention that it has cold and hot showers!
Gusde went to the pool immediately after putting down our belongings, while I was lying on the bed, enjoying the cool breeze of the AC. I took a cold shower afterward and had a nap.
The Blue Paradise Island
It was 04:00 PM, and we felt hungry. So, we decided to grab food outside while exploring Nusa Penida. We eventually found a night market and bought Mie Ayam for dinner. The portion was quite huge for only Rp. 10,000/person. We also purchased a Terang Bulan for snacking while enjoying the Blue Paradise Island sunset. We sat on the seawall, but unfortunately, it was cloudy that day. We still enjoyed the mesmerizing view of the crystal clear water there.
Atuh Beach
We woke up early the next day as we planned to go to Atuh Beach and Teletubbies Hill. All the way, it was really dark, and only the light from our motorbike illuminated the way. After a pretty long ride, we eventually reached Atuh Beach, but we had to climb down to reach the beach. But before climbing down, we explored the area to find some good spots for photos. We eventually discovered this secret spot, and some people there were fishing.
After taking some best shots, we climbed down to Atuh Beach. If you’d like to go here, make sure that you bring your drinking water and be in your finest condition because climbing up and down this beach is exhausting, to be honest. There’s not much to do at the beach, but the view and the water were clean.
Climbing up was tiring, and I had to stop a few times to catch my breath. Once we reached the top, we sat briefly and drank our drinking water. After a 15-minute break, we moved on to our next destination.
Teletubbies Hill
It took approximately 30 minutes to reach Teletubbies Hill from Atuh Beach. The rice field view accompanied us all the way to reach this place. There weren’t many people when we got there; some even stayed for less than 15 minutes. Luckily, Gusde has good eyes and a taste for photography. He directed me for the photo shoot, lol! 🤣 There wasn’t much here, just a view of coordinated green hills like in the Teletubbies TV series.
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We went back to our accommodation to pack our stuff. We thanked Pak Komang Arsana for the service he provided during our stay. Our boat was scheduled to depart from Nusa Penida to Sanur at 3:45 PM, and it was still 01:00 PM, so we had to wait somewhere to kill time. We went to a minimarket to buy some snacks and stayed at The Blue Paradise Island. Killing time in this place is good. Even though the sun was up there, it wasn’t hot.
The time passed quickly, and then we returned to the harbor to return to the rented motorbike and wait for our boat to pick us up.
Back to Sanur
After waiting for quite a while, our boat arrived, and we hopped in. We sat on the boat’s rooftop to enjoy the view and the upcoming sunset.
We eventually reached Sanur and bought some spring rolls while relaxing at the beach before heading home.
So, that’s our backpacker story for this post! Thanks so much for reading this blog.
See you in my next blog post, readers!
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