The last week of our trip

Our last stop on our trip was the island group Lembongan. This includes the three islands Nusa Lembongan, Nusa Ceningan, and Nusa Penida.

We booked our accommodation on Nusa Ceningan, which is directly connected to Nusa Lembongan by a bridge.

Both islands are well developed for tourists but are much quieter than Bali and the Gillis, which is why they are another highlight of our trip for us.

In the first few days, we explored Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Ceningan. Nusa Lembongan offers, among other things, the two beautiful beaches Mushroom Beach and Dream Beach, and you can watch the waves crash against the cliffs in many places with tremendous force.
The spectacle can also be seen on Nusa Ceningan. It is also nice to follow the play of the tides, as the water between the islands recedes so far after sunset that you could almost walk over without getting wet.
Another attraction is the "Yellow Bridge", which connects the two islands and can only be driven on by scooter. It lights up in all sorts of colors at night and is visited by many tourists during the day. We didn't find it particularly spectacular and were always relieved when we arrived on the other side, as the bridge collapsed last year.

But our absolute highlight was the island of Nusa Penida. It is by far the largest island in the Lembongan group. We took a boat in the morning and rented a scooter directly at the port. Although the weather here hadn't been great in the past few days, we had glorious sunshine until the afternoon that day.

So we first visited the popular spots Crystal Bay, Angel's Billabong, and Broken Beach. But the best was the Kelingking Beach, where the water went from dark blue to clear and vibrant turquoise. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to see it up close, so we could only see our new favorite beach from a distance.
We then went on to a "natural swimming spot" which was marked as an attraction in our navigation app. After an adventurous ride with the scooter and a short hike, we arrived there. However, the swimming spot was more like a small knee-deep wading pool without a spectacular view. In the end, it definitely wasn't worth the effort.
Our last stop on Nusa Penida was supposed to be Atuh Beach. Since our boat picked us up at 5, we were a bit pressed for time.
Long story short, we could only see it briefly from a distance because the road there was so difficult to drive on that we had a minor landslide accident and decided to drive back to the port instead.
So everything went perfectly according to schedule, as we arrived at the harbor 5 minutes before departure and could drive directly back to our accommodation.

Although the weather forecast for our last full day here was very bad, we booked a snorkeling tour for the morning, mainly to swim with the resident manta rays.
It had already rained a bit early in the morning and the sky was gray.
Our first stop was the underwater Buddha garden. However, the current there was so strong that one of the Asians in our group drifted so far away that the lifebuoy was thrown out and the rest of the group also didn't move away from the safety of the boat. The spot wasn't really worth the risk either. In addition, the rain started to get stronger.
So we continued to Manta Bay, hoping to see a few manta rays. Manta Bay is located directly near Angel's Billabong and Broken Beach on Nusa Penida. The weather had already turned to doomsday mood and the waves were crashing against the cliffs. But our skipper quickly spotted a manta ray and Meret was the first to jump into the water to chase after it. The rest of us followed slowly and only 2 out of the 6 of us saw one of the manta rays underwater. Meret was one of them. Unfortunately, I had problems with my diving mask fogging up repeatedly, and when I exchanged it with Meret's, I couldn't find any more rays with the guide. Furthermore, the weather got worse and as we sailed to the last spot, just the raindrops splashing against our bare skin were painful.
Luckily, the last bay was calm, and because we were so frozen by the wind, the sea felt initially like a pleasantly warm pool. But even more impressive were the countless fish swimming over the brightly shimmering corals.
Our guide had brought some bread, so we could snorkel in the middle of the swarm of fish while our guide took a few photos of us with his GoPro.
So the last snorkeling spot actually saved our entire snorkeling tour, even though we were looking forward to the warm bed and the day was already over due to the continuing rain.

It's kind of strange that we'll be back in Aachen the day after tomorrow. We have experienced and seen so many great things and would prefer not to stop and explore Indonesia or another country in Southeast Asia. But of course, we are also looking forward to going home, to our family & friends, and to good German food :D (There are absolutely no tasty sweets here at all.)