What You Don't Know About Bali's Most Popular Spots

During our days in Bali, we visited two of the island's most popular spots back-to-back: Kelingking Beach on the island of Nusa Penida and Lempuyang Temple, famous for its "Gates of Heaven." Both welcome millions of tourists a year, often just for a single photo.

Crossing Over to Nusa Penida

Nusa Penida is an island located southeast of Bali that has gained fame in recent years, especially through the landscapes we see on social media. With its rocky shores, turquoise sea, and steep cliffs, it has an appearance quite different from Bali's main island.

Nusa Penida is reached by ferries departing from Sanur Beach. The fee per person is 300,000 IDR. Once on the island, bargaining when renting a scooter is almost mandatory. Although the initial offer was 100,000 IDR, after talking to a few people, we managed to bring the price down to 75,000 IDR. It's worth remembering that the first price quoted to tourists in Bali is usually somewhat inflated.

Kelingking Beach: Instagram's Most Famous Coastline

Our first stop in Nusa Penida was Kelingking Beach, one of the island's most popular and photographed spots. Reaching Kelingking, however, is not as easy as it looks in photos. The condition of the roads leading here was quite poor, and we covered a distance of just 15 kilometers on rough roads in about an hour.

So, is the journey worth it?

What makes Kelingking so special is not just its beach, but the rocky formation stretching out into the sea that resembles a T-Rex when viewed from above. The shape of the rocks, combined with the turquoise sea and the small beach below, has made this place almost a symbol of Nusa Penida. Most of those iconic views we see on social media are shot from right here.

However, if you don't want to settle for just watching that view from above, things get a bit harder. To get down to the beach, you have to descend a steep, rocky trail. At some points, holding onto ropes is necessary, while at others, you have to wait in line along paths narrow enough for only one person to pass.

We encountered many people here trying to climb down in flip-flops, but realistically, safely navigating this path without sneakers doesn't seem possible. The descent takes about half an hour. Toward midday, crowds increase significantly. That's why arriving at the earliest hours of the morning makes a huge difference.

Despite all these challenges, Kelingking Beach was one of the most impressive places we saw in Bali. The view from above was truly worth all the effort spent getting down.

An Overnight Break Heading North

Exhausted after leaving Nusa Penida, we returned to Bali by ferry. Then we rode our scooter north for about an hour and a half. In the evening, we stayed overnight at a place with a truly beautiful view overlooking rice fields. The next morning, our route led us toward one of Bali's most photographed temples: Lempuyang Temple.

Lempuyang Temple: The Secret of the Gates of Heaven

Lempuyang Temple is one of the major Hindu temples located on the slopes of Mount Lempuyang in eastern Bali. Sacred to Balinese Hindus, the temple complex sits at an impressive vantage point overlooking the surrounding mountains and landscape due to its high elevation.

To avoid the crowds, we arrived at Lempuyang Temple early at around 6:45 AM. Despite this, the crowd density was surprising. The roadsides were lined with queues of vehicles and scooters.

At the entrance, we underwent a blessing ritual with holy water. Afterward, we moved toward the "Gates of Heaven" that made this temple so famous on social media.

Much of the gate's fame stems from photos taken by social media influencers here. The line to take a photo in front of it is so long that you have to wait for hours. We couldn't bring ourselves to wait that long and decided against taking a photo.

However, what surprised us most here was not the gate itself, but the reality behind the photos we see on social media. In those photos on social media, it looks as if there is a lake in front of the gate. In reality, there is no body of water there at all. The "reflection" effect in the image is created by a photographer holding a mirror under the phone camera. So the lake in those iconic photos is actually a complete illusion created for social media.

Even if the temple is known for such an artificial image, it is actually a genuinely beautiful place. The complex consists of six temples in total, considered among the most sacred in Bali. Exploring all of them takes about four hours.

Situated at one of Bali's highest points, the temple is quite impressive not only for its architecture, but also for the surrounding view.

Places Created by Social Media

Our experiences at Kelingking Beach and Lempuyang Temple showed us once again that social media is an incredibly powerful yet equally misleading tool.

Just because thousands of people visit a place doesn't mean we will inevitably have the dream experience there. Sometimes we travel for hours, drive through rough roads, wait in long queues, and ultimately struggle to capture that single frame seen on the internet.

And sometimes, that very frame shows something that doesn't even exist in reality. That's why keeping expectations a bit low when visiting a tourist destination is probably one of the best ways to avoid disappointment.

And perhaps what really matters is enjoying the moment itself, rather than standing in line for hours just to capture a perfect shot.