Nusa Penida

Tell a Balinese person you’re heading to Nusa Penida and you won’t get a positive reaction. The island is renowned as the home of the legendary evil figure of I Macaling, and was also formerly a place of banishment for the kingdom of Klungkung. It’s still regarded as a place of evil spirits and ill-fortune, and many Balinese make the pilgrimage to the island expressly to ward off bad luck by making offerings at Pura Dalem Penataran Ped, home of the dreaded I Macaling.Nusa Penida is too dry for rice cultivation and, while you’ll see maize, cassava, beans and tobacco in the fields during the rainy season, there’s nothing at all in the dry season. The island can only sustain a small population and many have already left as part of the government’s transmigration programme (see p.953), although road improvements and construction are taking place and more development is rumoured. As yet there are no dive operations based on Nusa Penida, but the operators on the mainland offer trips to the island’s north and west coasts. There are plenty of sites, hosting enormously varied fish life, with reef sharks especially common, as well as mantarays and the occasional oceanic sunfish. For snorkelling, the site known as Gamat off the coast near Sakti, and the reef off the coast from Ped, are popular. However, the sea can be cold and difficult here, with currents over four knots, so take care.

sampalan

sampalan is the largest town on the island, with a shady street of shops, a bemo terminal, a market and the only post office, hospital and telephone office on the island.The town is spread out along the beach, and its highlight, the Pura Dalem, close to
the cemetery near the football field, has a six-metre-tall gateway adorned with five leering Bhoma and a pendulous-breasted Rangda.
Nine kilometres from Sampalan, on the northeast coast of the island, the fishing town
of TOYAPAKEH is separated from Nusa Ceningan by a channel less than 1km wide,

seaweed farming
Seaweed is the source of two lucrative substances: agar, a vegetable ge! used in cooking, and carrageenan used in cosmetics and fooristuffs. Seaweed grows best in areas protected by a reef so it does not get battered by strong currents but has a How of water through it. The temperature must not get too high, the salinity needs to be constant, and at low tide the seaweed must remain covered by water. To “farm” seaweed, a simple bamboo frame is made with lengths of twine tied across it. Farmers tie small pieces of seaweed to the twine, harvesting the long offshoots every two weeks. The seaweed is then dried (8kg of wet seaweed reduce to 1kg when dry) and compressed into bales. Areas of Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Ceningan, the Geger beach in South Bali and some areas of Lombok are big producers of seaweed, both green liotoni and red pinnsun varieties. Seaweed farmers earn a good wage, around Rp200.000 a monlh, which compares very favourably with the Rp50,000 a month thai traditional salt producers can
expect to make.

Around the island
The only way to see Nusa Penida is by motorcycle, although you shouldn’t drive unless you are confident on very steep terrain. The island is a maze of country lanes, and signposts are few, so make sure you start early and have plenty of fuel. A full circuit is only about 70km but, allowing time to visit the major attractions, it takes most of one day. The road between Toyapakeh and Sampalan is the busiest on the island and roughly follows the coast; traffic around the rest of the island is much lighter.
Sights worth aiming for include the limestone cave of Goa Karangsari ,10km south of Sampalan. The tiny entrance is about 100m above the road and opens up into an impressive cavern, which emerges after 300m onto a ledge with fine views looking out across a mango grove, surrounded by hills on all sides.However, the real highlights are at SEBULUH. From the end of the road a couple of hundred metres beyond the village green, a path leads to the left between high stone walls and heads out to the coast, a walk of about 45 minutes. There are numerous paths through the outskirts of the village to the cliffs and you may be lucky enough to find a guide to take you through them, although they rarely see visitors here. The coast here is similar to the coastline at the south end of the Bukit, with dramatic limestone cliffs rising sheer out of the ocean for hundreds of metres and views that are utterly spellbinding. There are also two temples – one out on a promontory linked to the mainland by an exposed ridge, and the other, somewhat amazingly, sited at the bottom of an extremely narrow, incredibly exposed path that winds down the face of the cliff to a fresh-water spring at the bottom.

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