Happy New Year! And a great new year it was for Laura and myself as we kicked back in Bali Indonesia.

I’ve finally finished in the digital darkroom with my photos and now have the task of sitting down and boring you with my thoughts following my first visit to Bali.

So why Bali? My partner Laura isn’t a diver so we were after a break where I could get some good diving in but she would also be happy with some relaxing, some culture and some snorkeling, and Bali fitted the picture.

My understanding was that Bali could be broken up like this;

• North West – good for diving, not at all touristy, reasonably dry even in the wet season.
• South and Highlands – touristy, culture (especially around Ubud), tacky in a few spots like Kuta but otherwise OK, average diving but Mola Mola a couple of months of the year.
• North East/East – great diving especially around Tulambem but not much else to do, resorts very much diving focused.

With Bali being to Australia what Majorca is to Europeans, we had plenty of opinions about where to go and what to do and we decided on 5 days (covering the New Year) at Taman Sari in Pemuteran which is North West Bali. That would be the diving part, I’d get a couple of dives in during the morning and afternoon and Laura could kick back and later we would have the evening together.

View Larger Map

For the non diving part of the trip we decided to go south and the candidates were Sanur or Ubud. We settled on Sanur, we should have gone to Ubud.

The accommodation at Natah Bale Villas was very nice, the food there was average, but wow, Sanur and surrounds (all of that southern bit)…what a hole! Sorry, no other way to put it.

Look, I know Indonesia is a developing country, I have been there before, but southern Bali really is a mess, from unbelievable litter to rats, syringes on beaches, hawkers annoying the hell out of you and shops that all sold the same poor quality Bintang T-shirts and poorly made board shorts.

Yes, if going to Bali, stay well clear of the southern part unless you intend to spend it all in the safety of a big resort.

Our savior from Sanur was a nice pub next door to the villa’s, a couple of nice restaurants and a great day trip when we went to Ubud and the volcano. Visiting Ubud we realised we should have done an extra day or two at Taman Sari and a couple in Ubud rather than going to Sanur but we couldn’t do much about it and just enjoyed the rest of the trip.

Now that I’ve had my rant about Sanur, let me tell you about the diving.

Pemuteran is about a 3.5 hour drive over the mountain from the airport in the south. Note “Mountain” if you go there diving remember this so you don’t get bent on the journey back, you can take a coast road if you need to.

There are a number of resorts lining Pemuteran bay and we settled on an Ocean view cottage at Taman Sari which pitches itself as a local community friendly eco resort.

Plenty of Nemo’s about;

The cottage and the resort were beautiful. The food was good and the people fantastic. I think if going again, we might go for a Garden view, better value than an Ocean view but even the Standard room’s looked good. BTW it isn’t really an Ocean view, just near the Ocean, there are tree’s, the spa and the pool in the view.

All the resorts on the bay have an independently owned dive centre on site. Taman Sari’s is run by Bali Diving Academy.

It had taken me ages to decide where to stay, never mind who to dive with, so before I went over I had also got prices for diving from Sea Rovers at the  Adi Assri Resort. Sea Rovers really appealed to me, a couple of emails passed between us and their attitude was great but I felt the accommodation was much better at Taman Sari and I didn’t fancy dragging my camera the 5 minute walk down the beach a few time a day in 30+ temps, so I went with Bali Dive Academy.

I wasn’t shy in telling Bali Dive Academy that their prices were high (8 dives) and ended up getting free gear hire and a 20% discount…even still I thought all the dive operations there were expensive but the free gear hire was awesome and I traveled with my lightest bag ever.

3 similar, couldn’t decide what not to show;

To the actual diving…they have a fantastic artificial reef program right off the beach at Taman Sari, I’ll have video of it in the next blog post. Lots of cool coral, anemone fish but being close in, not many big fish. Further down the beach is a muck dive I didn’t do called Jetty (house reef for Sea Rovers).

Then there is Close Encounters and Napoleon Reef which are a couple of km off the bay which was great because I dived, came back in, hung out with Laura for a few hours and later went out for another dive. Lovely Reefs, what looked very healthy coral after what I believe were “dynamite” years about 10 years ago. Pygmy Sea horses, Pipefish and lots of fish but no really large fish, certainly no sharks. Current when the tide turns but manageable.

Menjangan Island is the big attraction. Wall dives with moderate current, good for the snorkelers even the slightly timid ones like Laura, who had a great time…but the place was filthy. The litter on the island and in the sea was incredible. Apparently the currents for the larger region all bring the rubbish to this island, it didn’t impress me. I did one days diving there, saw a Green Turtle and one Reef Shark and by all accounts they were even rare encounters for my great dive guide, Edi.

Menjangan;

Secret Bay at Gilimanuk (45 mins away) is the best known muck diving site in the area but with big tides while I was there I decided to give a rarly dived muck dive at Kalanganyor a go and that was well worth it.

Kalanganyor;

My pictures probably tell the rest of the diving story, I’ll just say that I enjoyed it but wasn’t blown away, great potential in the area, I wonder if the dive operators focus on divers that pass through rather than stay for a few days, they know their sites but weren’t as proficient at matching the customer as I have had before.

Some Textures from the trip;

I’d go back to Bali some day but it wouldn’t be too soon as I’ve other places I want to dive … and plenty of saving to do in the meantime.

I’ll shut up now….more in a week or so when I edit the video.