We’ve been in Bali for just over two weeks, with our first four days in Sanur, and the rest on the island (Ceningan) connected to Nusa Lembongan, the closest island to the “main” island of Bali. It’s about a 30 minute ride by fast boat. That connecting island, Ceningan (pronounced with a “CH” sound), is pretty amazing, and we have both pretty much fallen in love with this little piece of paradise. Thirteen months ago Bali was our initial stop on our journey through southern Asia, and we knew we’d be back.

For better or worse, this island is pretty isolated and to get here requires a ferry ride to Lembongan, then a bike (or shuttle) to what’s called the “yellow bridge,” which connects the two. The naming is obvious, but to GET here means going over the barely 6 ft wide yellow bridge by foot or scooter; no cars allowed, which is normally not a problem except for when they close the bridge—which they just did for several days. What was supposed to be overnight repair (yea, right…) to fix some worn out metal flooring, took nearly a week due to rain…basically because they were using an unshielded extension cord to power their tools.

Well, we arrived at our stunning location two days before Christmas, and because we had one of the few sunny days, it was bloody hot. Unfortunately, so was our room . The AC was not working properly and needed to be replaced, which we were told would take a few days, since they needed to get it from the mainland. Bummer. Thankfully, the weather cooled off, but also brought more rain, leading to challenge #2: it was leaking inside of our room , directly over the bed where Kat was trying to sleep. While they fixed THAT in a few hours, we recognized that our lack of hot water was NOT our imagination, since we HAVE dealt with on certain islands; it was out of propane. This was all frustrating, but we stayed because there was no other rooms available, and the location IS heavenly! But the real problem that put us over the edge, and demanded a change of rooms, had nothing to do with any of these.

Bali has a unique shower thing going on, and we found that many showers are OPEN above, with no roof. We had it last year in our first stay and worried that skeeters would come in, but it really wasn’t an issue. Taking a shower in the rain is actually kind of cool, but when we got to our room HERE, not only was the shower open to the sky, but so was the rest of the bathroom! I don’t need to paint a picture, but imagine the toilet and sink totally exposed to rain–which we gota lot of! Including at night when yours truly needed to make (a few) pit stops… Anyway, with THAT as a clincher, and the other problems we dealt with, we moved and

now have a large, beautiful room with an ocean view, so, as usual, it all worked out.

Except for the almost daily rain, we’re digging it here. The ocean views are exceptional all over the island, especially from our resort, since we’re at the very end on the point. There are also many restaurants with pools that offer free “day use,” which we have taken advantage of. The water temp is ideal, the surf is all of a minute away, and even though low tide has remained high, it is just now dropping with the new one-quarter moon phase, giving us the opportunity to explore the tide pools.