Lovina, Sekumpul, and Bambu Indah

A few tourists told me about a town named Lovina at the north of the Bali island which was reachable in about two hours on a drive over a 5,000 feet pass driving on a very winding way.

It was well worth the drive because the path goes by the two beautiful lakes : Beratan and Danau Buyan, before arriving at Lovina which is situated on the Bali Sea. Lovina has a very long, black sand beach with many restaurants and moored boats.

Walking on the beach, it is easy to wade in the Bali Sea which is only ankle deep for several hundred meters and I saw a few starfish.

Several locals were wading in the water looking for conch shells.

It was August 17 which is Indonesian Independence Day and there were may celebrations all over the country, including at the restaurant I went for dinner. Music, free LakLak cake,

The Lovina coast is very well know for its dolphin sightings and I signed up to go on a boat to see them the next morning at 5:30AM.

There were probably 30 or so boats heading out to see the dolphins in the morning.

At dawn, the Lovina beach looked pretty calm and so was the sea, even at the high tide.

The highlands were visible at a distance once the boat was deeper into the sea.

The sun rise was spectacular on the open sea and I saw it progress in its various phases over the next half hour.

Very far in the distance was a cruise ship that I could take a picture of with 25x zoom on the iPhone. The 30 or so boats were crisscrossing the sea for over two hours with no sign of any dolphins.

Dejected, all the ships headed back and the boatsmen were heard apologizing to their clients for bad luck. However, we all had a beautiful sunrise experience on a calm sea for two hours, which was certainly a win.

I found that there was the most renowned waterfall in Bali named Sekumpul waterfall about an hour drive away. I drove to it and found myself at a very lush green jungle with a set of three huge waterfalls.

There is a very steep path to reach the waterfall and a restaurant serving coffee and many types of Balinese food is right at the edge of the precipice from where the view of the waterfall is spectacular. They also server Balinese Arak.

It was quite a peaceful setting to see the water falling such a great height, people in the pool of water below, dense forest all around.

There were many banana and coffee trees all around.

After an hour of waterfall viewing, I started riding back to Ubud and renegotiated the steep and winding roads.

There was a huge tower in a distance that I later found to be 'Pegayaman Kabupaten Buleleng" but there was scant information about it on Wikipedia.

I came across Time magazine's list of top 100 places in the world and found one close by named Bambu Indah, which means beautiful bamboo.

They had a restaurant, so I visited it for an early dinner and was amazed to see the beauty of nature offered by this resort. It is made with bamboo and has sustainable, organic farming on premises which results in their farm-to-table offerings for their meals.

The elevator, which is made from bamboo, was specially attractive to me and the 40 seconds it takes to go to the only 1 floor, 60 feet below was quite an experience. I took a video of that journey.

The mycelium soup, the seafood, the fried bitter gourd and the stevia based panna cotta were all delicious and the staff was very attentive.

Even though I did not see the dolphins, the day was a success with the time in beautiful nature. Bali is indeed an "Island of the gods", like one of its many nicknames.