Bali's Balangan Beach

Around noon today, I checked out of my hotel near the site of Fredrik and Jess's wedding and, along with two others, took a taxi to the villa where most of the crew will be hanging out for the next few days. 

Unfortunately, there wasn't enough room for me there, so I'm staying with one of Fredrik's groomsman at a nearby bungalow. He's originally from Stuttgart actually, so it's nice to chat someone up in German. Our bungalow is actually pretty sweet, and it's closer to the Balangan Beach (Jess and Fredrik's favorite beach in Bali, I think) than the villa is.

The villa is only 1 km away, so the walk over is not bad at all. Walking up the driveway is pretty sweet, because the villa looks like a little palace on the hill.

The inside, though, is just incredible. Look at these pictures!

The villa has bedrooms everywhere, and there is a bathroom in nearly every bedroom. The pool is also quite nice. I really like what is written in the villa guestbook.

Next door, there is also the staff who stay during the day to take care of the place. They also offer meals you can order, so we had our lunch right at the big table and straight from the kitchen next door. 

I was quite hungry, so I had both a mie goreng (noodles) and nasi goreng (rice). The 80,000 Rupiah total is a bit less than $7 for both. Not too shabby by NYC standards. ;) Plus, it was nice to have real mi goreng after only ever having had it as instant noodles. 

After all that food, it was simply lovely to sit around in the villa. Open walls, comfortable breeze, and just gorgeous everything. The only downside might be the little ants crawling everywhere.

We decided to walk down to Balangan Beach, which meant walking back toward my hotel. Perfect. On the way, we saw a whole bunch of dogs just hanging out.

This little guy decided to walk with me for a bit of the way.

The walk down to the beach was a bit rough, by which I mean the terrain was not easy to navigate. There were lots of uneven rocks, but the view when you finally get down to the water is absolutely worth it.

Is this beach heavenly or what?

The sand is crazy deep though, so when you take a step, your entire ankle goes into the sand. Never experienced sand like that before. I had to take my shoes almost immediately. Then again, I should've brought flip flops. 

We got to the beach around 5 or 5:30 PM, so the sun would be setting within the hour. 

The tide was low, which meant we could walk out to the rocky part. But without proper footwear, it was actually quite painful walking around out there. We did see an eel though. 

Also, with the low tide, it was easy to pick out cool shells in the sand.

The sunset was undoubtedly the best part of our visit to Balangan Beach today. I missed a lot of great pictures, because I was sitting in the water for a while. But the pictures I did get do not do it justice. Tonight's sunset was probably the best one I've seen in person since Santorini in September 2009.

Not sure what the group's plan is for tomorrow, but I may just go spend the day at Balangan Beach again, since it'd be nice to spend a whole day down there. Having gotten a feel for the surroundings, I will make sure to bring my underwater camera and goggles. 

I can hardly believe I still have three whole days here in Bali. Unreal. Oh, and if I can somehow find a much better deal (aka must be insanely cheap) than the $170 US fee to play a round of 18 at the New Kuta Golf Club next door (it's on top of the cliff you see to the left of the beach above), I just may go. Unlikely though. Oh well.