Our first trip to Bali was 3 weeks in 2008 where the cast was Mummy, Daddy and the two little monkeys (18 months and 3 years at the time).
This year, in a moment of sheer madness, grandparents agreed to look after the two little monkeys and allow mummy and daddy to be Mrs and Mr for a week. So from Sept 21 - 28 we were off to Bali for trip #2. Co-incidentally, both trips have been when the $A is near record highs, which was nice (somewhat counter-acting the time when we went to the Maldives and the $A was worth $US 0.5. Ever paid 8 bucks for a Coke?)
Good flight with Garuda, landing at a civilised time, a VOA service whisked us through in no time flat and deposited us in the car of smiling Wayan's for the drive up to Amed where we were planning on some SCUBA diving.
The road just north of Sanur is under repair and we arrived while villages in the north east were celebrating a ceremony that comes only once every 15 / 25 / 30 years, depending on who you talk to. This involved much sitting of people on roads and frantic waving at traffic by polisi. At one point Wayan took a call from a cousin and looked grim faced. 'Road at temple all blocked. We maybe have to go through the mountains. Long way'. But in the end he decided to risk it and thankfully the road had been reopened. It was slow going though up near this temple as hundreds and hundreds of motorbikes and scores of cars and vans had been parked on the edge of the narrow mountain road and there was a stream of traffic in both directions generated by late comers looking for their own parking spot. It was funny watching people stand and try to figure out how they were going to retrieve their motorbike which was interlocked with others, four rows back from the edge of the road.
After 3 and a bit hours we made it to Kembali Beach Bungalows as dusk arrived and were deposited in our simple little bunglow right on the black sand beach, with the aircon mercifully already on. This was costing us 28 Euros a night.
Ian, the Dutch owner of Adventure Divers popped over shortly after we arrived to make arrangements for the next days diving, which consisted entirely of telling us to rock up at 8am.
We were pretty hungry by this stage, so in the dark we walked along the beach 100m to Warang Bebo which was 8 or 9 tables right on the sand with candles. Mr still salivates when he recalls the barracuda fillet he enjoyed that night as we sat in the quiet under the nearly full moon, listening to the sound of the waves and not much else.
We both had trouble sleeping that night, purely from the noise of the waves breaking on the shore only metres away from us.
Next morning we rose to an overcast days and a few light showers and a nice simple breakfast accompanied by the worst coffee I have every drunk anywhere in my entire life. We popped up to the dive shop right on 8am and were efficiently fitted out and sent off with Made and a French guy whose name we can't remember, except that Mrs is sure it is the name of the dog in Monkey #1's Cinderella book.
It took about 20 min to drive to Tulamben where the wreck of the USAT Liberty lies on a slope about 50 metres from the shore. The ‘beach' at Tulamben is all big black volcanic rocks, which makes for interesting entry into the water with all the gear on, especially when you're also trying to get through the surf.
Porters carry all the gear down to the beach for you (and back again) which gives the amazing sight of women carrying two scuba tanks balanced on their heads with a third on the shoulder.
Our first dive we went around the perimeter of the ship and our second we swam between and through some of the broken up pieces (the wreck is pretty broken up). We got as deep as 21 metres.
We saw fantastic corals and lots of sea life. Mr was a bit disappointed no reef sharks (he's a shark nut), but because it is a pretty popular dive site it was always very unlikely. There is something fantastic about looking up to see the huge sweep of a piece of a big ships hull towering over you as you look to the surface.
It was about midday when we started back and by this stage the clouds had all disappeared for a beautiful day.
Adventure Divers provided lunch after dives, so we sat in their restaurant, enjoying Babi Kechap and chatting with Ian and other guests.
The rest of the afternoon involved a bit of a walk along the beach, a swim in the warmest pool I've ever swum in and reading. Mr had optimistically brought ‘War & Peace' with him.
We had pre-arranged to have dinner at ‘Sails' which is the ‘nice' restaurant up Amed way. They provided free transport to the restaurant, which is on a headland with a good view out over the water. It is amazing at night to sit up there and see how few lights there are up and down the coast and perfect blackness out over the water. The food was nice enough but the service was kind of Indonesian Faulty Towers. Mr ordered the chicken sate, so they cooked the chicken curry, which meant that his main arrived as Mrs was finishing her (very nice) NZ lamb. At dessert time it took them 10 minutes to work out that they didn't have any vanilla ice cream and then, to compensate for the mains, Mrs' Pisang Nasi arrived as Mr was finishing his banana split. At least they took us home to the right hotel.
The next day we were supposed to be doing a boat dive of Jemeluk beach, but they couldn't get a boat because everyone had to go to the special ceremony! So we headed north again in the minibus with an Aussie Chinese Herbalist (?!?!) and did another shore dive at an out of the way spot called Monkey Reef, again with the whole 'clamber over the big black rocks while not getting flattened by the waves thing'. The diving was again pretty good, and so was the Mie Goreng that Ian bunged on for lunch once we got back.
We were a bit ahead of schedule, which suited Wayan the driver who had agreed to take us down to Sanur because he had to put in an appearance at the ceremony and he was getting a bit of grief from Mrs Wayan about being late. We had a better run down the coast and got to see some of the fantastic rice paddy and mountain scenery that it had been too dim to see on the way up.
Traffic was bad getting into Sanur, not helped by rain and roadworks, but eventually we made it to Vila Shanti...