Where should I begin?  Ah Nusa Penida, a place so close to paradise.

You probably have seen these pictures on Instagram a million times already. Me too, but it was only when I got there that I realized what a wonderful thing to be alive and witness all things of beauty in person.

I don’t know why would we decide to go party the night before, knowing that we need to get up at 5 am the next day. But if you follow my wife on social media, you would see some of our infamous photos with blurry faces and #poordecisionmaker hashtags. To her, it all makes sense.

So when the driver showed up in front of our door as scheduled, I was still sound asleep on the sofa where I passed out last night. We literally got ready in less than 10 mins. ( We even showered! I know, respect!) When Bali slowly wakes up at 5:10 in the morning, we three packed a beach bag and headed to Sanur in the dawn.

Guys I really want to help and put out a link, but when I asked wifey for the links, she just sent me two phone numbers, and for privacy reason, I will not post their numbers here but do drop me a line if you would like to know their name and contact to book your adventures too! Our driver in Nusa Penida for the day was an actual angel sent from Heaven, what am I saying, we were in heaven!

Nusa Penida is the largest of three islands off the southeastern coast of Bali, the others being Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Ceningan. We took the boat from Sanur and 45 mins later, we arrived on the island, our driver Ketut was already there waiting for us. His smile made the sky brighter and can cure any sadness in the world. I had a feeling that “today is gonna a good good day! ”

Kelingking Beach

The first place we went to was Kelingking Beach. This is probably one of the most photographed site ever. The viewpoint can make you have an excellent grasp of the dinosaur shaped cliff edges. It does look like a T- Rex, doesn’t it?  We would love to go down to the beach, aka the most beautiful beach we’ve ever seen. Papi Diego was like let’s go down there and swim. What wifey and I said was “we didn’t have the swimsuit with us. ” He was soooo mad, I know, right? How could you not wearing the swimsuit knowing you are going to the beach! I am mad at myself too!” What was I thinking! So he left us and ventured down 45 mins to swim in that secluded, beautiful turquoise green water. There’s one more plus point to this hidden gem, even though it’s right down there, not so many of us had the courage to trek down the bamboo railing and so the beach is tranquil and has almost nobody there. Heaven!

Ok, so we learned our lesson the hardest way possible. Bear in mind that it is a very hard trek down, however I am sure it will worth every step of it, but Luiza and I both wore flip flops while all the other people prepared with their backpack and hiking shoes, and I wore all white outfit which is an epic fail, the outfit turned into dark grey in just 10 mins time. And car parking is pretty far from where we were and it’s impossible to return and change and back on the trek again. So wear your swimsuit already if you want to go down all the way.

We decided to wait for Papi until he returns, and went to the car to change our outfit. We stopped at one of the shops and had the most delicious coconut! The shop lady told us that she got them just this morning from her uncle’s yard. She asked us where we were coming from. When I told her I’m from China, she started to sing a song that’s very popular back in the day from a TV drama, and I sang along, it was pretty surreal. She had a great voice by the way.

Angel’s Billabong

I thought we were heading to the broken beach, but Ketut took us to this place first, I didn’t know this place and only during our visit I learned that it is called Angel’s Billabong and it’s simply breathtaking.

Me and wifey are the masters of winning at life, why are we wearing all these inappropriate shoes! It was quite slippy and dangerous to walk down, let alone swim. So we just sat down and simply admired the view! We are coming at a low tide time and it’s relatively safe to swim actually.

Angel’s Billabong is a rock formation with nature built-in rock pool. Nusa Penida is famous for its coastline and from Angel’s Billabong, you can have this infinity pool view of the Indian ocean coast! As hard as we tried, we got the shot with just each one of us, but please keep in mind that you will almost never have the pool alone to yourself.

Just a kind reminder that it takes about another 45 mins drive from Kelingking cliff to here so be easy on the coconut water intake. We almost peed our pants but we made it to the closest toilet which is, …here, 45 mins later, so, just thought it’s useful and helpful to share, no? TMI?

Broken Beach

Broken beach, just as its name implies, was broken. It’s not actually broken, the reason why they named it “broken beach” is because of the arch. Sometimes you just have to hand down to the mother nature for the wonders she created that no human can ever achieve. Thousands( Insert Liya: Try millions Jooj.) of years of erosion made the broken beach a spectacular site for us traveling half of the earth to pilgrimage today.

Although, because of the name, I couldn’t help but wonder if mother nature was indeed heartbroken at that time. And if she was, what was it about? The war, the damage we did to her? Plastic in the ocean, iceberg melting?

Yes Joey, now that was a thinker.

Crystal Bay Beach

Crystal Bay beach is just as beautiful and the only beach that is approved by Ketut for us to swim. Boy was he right! The current was not crazy and temperature perfect. I even went in for a dip too!

While Papi was holding my hands in the water cuz I was still a bit scared, we saw something very sweet, a girl was trying to teach her mom how to swim, and it reminded me of my own mommy and how much I wanted to write her a letter from this island. We always thought mom knows everything and can do everything for us until one day she asks us for help, maybe an English menu that she can’t read anymore, or how to online shopping, and those were the moment that made me understand that it might be true each mom is a superwoman, it also feels nice to be protected by her child too. My mom always says I’m stronger than a boy and has a brave heart, and that she’s proud of me. I know behind all these words, she knows she can rely on me and I know I will protect her.

With all those thoughts in my head, I fell asleep by the bay and had some marshmallow cloud dreams. You know, like somewhere over the rainbow.

When it was time for us to leave the island and head back to Bali, Ketut helped us negotiated a deal and got us to sit on the deck of the boat!

As the boat started to head back home at full speed, I took a final glance of the fascinating island over my shoulder, the sun started to set into the coconut trees and somewhere by the port, a group of girls was singing a sad old Chinese song.

“In that place wholly faraway…”

All photos by me and Diego Gonzalez shot in Nusa Penida, Indonesia.