Tembeling Beach and Forest in Nusa Penida is a beautiful park nestled within the jungle. This is Nusa Penida’s hidden gem for the simple fact that the narrow street only allows scooters to make their way down. Therefore barely any tours come here.
If you are looking for somewhere off the beaten path and away from the tourist hot spots, add Tembeling to your Nusa Penida list of things to do.
Getting to Tembeling Natural Pools
Tembeling is on the west coast of Nusa Penida. And is around 45 minute ride from Toya Pakeh harbour, the main tourist strip in the north. Just to give a perspective, to cruise across the island takes roughly an hour. Road infrastructure is improving fast in Nusa Penida. But still many side streets leading to the hot spots have a few rough patches. While you plan your day, allow extra time for the bumpy parts.
Once you reach the main entrance, a challenging, steep downhill single lane road leads to parking. If you’re not confident with the ride down you can leave your bike in the parking area before the hill. From there you may either get a motorbike taxi to take you down or simply walk. The trek takes around 30 minutes, is easy enough and is very interesting to walk along such a lush landscape.
From the second parking area, it’s a 10 minute walk to the pools and beach.
TIP: Google Maps in Nusa Penida is outdated and many times took us to the wrong entry point. Tembeling was one of them. We were first lead to a dead end road where a local offered to take us to Tembeling for a fee. We turned and were yet again led to another place which wasn’t the right entry point. Here we decided to dump our scooter and continue on foot through the jungle. It only took us a 15 minutes trek to finally reach the official path downhill. Unless you’re into a little adventure, avoid reaching Tembeling entry point with Google Maps. Google takes you further away from the official entry so keep your eyes open before actually reaching the final destination.
Tembeling Pools
Tembeling is a retreat away from the popular and sometimes crazy tourist hot spots. The park looks like it just popped out of a fairy tale. Dense jungle nestles natural pools and places of worship are surrounded by cliffs.
During the day, Tembeling barely gets much attention but you may still have to share the place with a few others.
If you really want to be captivated by Tembeling charm, try getting here as the sun starts to rise. I can guarantee, you won’t regret the early wake up and most likely there won’t be a sole. We came here after an early morning stopover at Banah Cliff Point.
Once you’ve made your way down through the forest, you will come across a parking area. This is where you need to park your bike, if on foot just carry on down the stairs.
On your way down the winding stairs, you will quickly realize how stunning this place is. Small huts rest on cliff edges and a little further is the first pool and a place of worship.
Small temples are nestled within a cave and freshwater flows out of a number of spouts. These spouts are used as a cleansing process, to wash away any sins. This reminded us of Tirta Empul back in Bali.
The cleansing place looks directly onto a bright blue pool with an overlapping cliff. This is also the largest and deepest of the two pools but wasn’t our favourite.
Following the next flight of stairs, you will understand why we preferred the second pool.
Sitting right on the beach with waves crashing behind, surrounded by huge cliffs and hidden away by jungle, I can’t think of any better setting. This truly was an amazing experience and our favourite place in Nusa Penida.
Not a soul was around and we spent over an hour just playing around in this little pool. Messing about with the slow-mo camera while the waves crashed right behind us.
Tembeling Beach
Right beside the pool is Tembeling beach. Not so much of a beach but more a small patch of sand littered with boulders. Huge cliffs dwarf the little bay and the waves are quite intimidating. Don’t even try swimming here. For that don’t even get close, currents in Nusa Penida are crazy. We’ve seen seemingly calm waters create huge unpredicted waves.
Another beach is on the opposite side of the pool. The beach can be reached through a little archway in the cliff face. But not sure how to go about this. Loads of balanced pebbles have been patiently placed on one another creating a cluster of temple-like structures. I was considering trying to reach the beach but seemed impossible to do so without knocking down a couple of these.
Tembeling Forest, Pools & Beach on Map
Click on the map for the exact location and live directions to Tembeling forest, pools and beach.
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