Sidemen Retreats
Padang Bai is the port about an hour south of Sidemen, and it is where you leave Bali from if you are going to Lombok, the Gili islands, or on to Nusa Lembongan. It is a small working harbour rather than a destination, and most people see it for forty minutes.
The drive itself is the least complicated leg in east Bali: down out of the valley to Klungkung, then southeast through Dawan to the coast. No mountain road, no switchbacks, nothing that goes wrong in the rain.
The only thing that actually matters: leave early
Boats leave on their own schedule and the road does not always cooperate. An hour of driving is the normal case, not the safe one.
Work backwards from your departure and add margin for three things: the walk from the car park to the right jetty, which is longer than it looks and is not signposted in any helpful way; the check-in queue, which for a busy morning fast boat is genuinely slow; and the fact that the coast road into the port bottlenecks when two boats load at once.
Leave Sidemen at least two and a half hours before your boat. That is an hour of driving and an hour and a half of everything else. It will feel like far too much on a quiet morning and exactly right on a busy one. Missing a fast boat to the Gilis usually means buying a new ticket rather than being moved to the next one.
Fast boat or public ferry
Fast boats to the Gilis and Lombok
Several operators run from Padang Bai, mostly departing in the morning, and the crossing to Gili Trawangan is in the region of an hour and a half. They are the reason most people are standing on this dock.
Book the boat before you book the car, not the other way round, and take the earliest departure you can stand. Afternoon crossings are more exposed to weather and to cancellation, and a cancelled afternoon boat leaves you looking for a bed in a port town that is not set up for it.
The public ferry to Lembar
The government ferry to Lembar in west Lombok runs around the clock and costs a small fraction of a fast boat. It also takes four to five hours to cross, and Lembar is a long way from anywhere you actually want to be in Lombok, so budget for another substantial drive at the far end.
It is the right choice if you have a vehicle, a lot of luggage, or time rather than money. It is the wrong choice if you are trying to reach Gili Trawangan today.
Getting there
Private car
Rp 350.000 one way for the car, up to 4 people with luggage, and the same price in the other direction if you are arriving off a boat. Tell us your departure time rather than the time you want to be collected, and we will work the pickup back from it.
Ride-hailing
The same problem as everywhere else in the valley: there is no pool of drivers sitting in Sidemen, so a car has to come to you before it can take you anywhere. On a normal morning that is an inconvenience. On a morning with a boat to catch it is a risk with a price attached, and the price is the boat.
Coming the other way
Arriving into Padang Bai off a Gili boat and heading up to Sidemen is the same drive and the same fare. It is a good direction to travel: you land in the middle of the day, you are in the valley by mid-afternoon, and the contrast between a crowded boat and a quiet rice terrace three hours later is the reason people put Sidemen after the islands rather than before.
Boat arrival times slip more than departure times do. Send us the operator and the scheduled arrival, and the driver waits for the boat rather than for the clock.