It has been 2 1/2 year since my wife and I had our last bubble therapy session!! And that is way too long!!
So we really just wanted to ease back in to it. And there is no better place to do that then diving around Tulamben in Bali.
It's our 5th time back to the area and we decided to stay some where new. I really liked the look of Mimpi...especially their Ocean View villas, and they were having a good deal so I booked it.
Mimpi is a beautiful resort. And I'm amazed that it's 25 yrs old!! Usually in SEA the longer the place is around the worse and worse it looks. But this place is pristine. The villas are big, with a great out door bathroom and patio. But the real winner is the outdoor day bed. We spent so much time chilling here, reading, playing card games, having afternoon tea...and the view it right out over the sea.
For the boys Mimpi put an extra bed downstairs and another mattress up in the "loft". Our boys are now 10 & 7. When we got there we saw that the ocean view villas can link up with the garden villas....so next time we will book one of each. I think the only minor criticism I have is that the beds were fairly hard...but that's it.
The pool and restaurant area is also really picturesque. And we spent much of our time here. Breakfast was included and the choices were fairly extensive.
The food in general was more expensive than the next door neighbors...but not excessively and the quality was pretty high on the whole. We are also pretty lazy so ate here most days. Our boys have dietary restrictions...so it tends to be easier for us to stay put and have the kitchen staff get to know us and what we can and can not eat. And to this extent the staff were great, always helpful and happy. @Luko we did venture up to Chop and Hops and enjoyed our meal there, although it was pretty similarly priced to Mimpi.
I had a free massage as part of the deal, and it was great...
The snorkeling out front was also surprising decent. Tons of fish! The boys loved the snorkeling and I even took them for a night time snorkel and saw crabs and eels. It was good fun. I was tempted to do the open water course with the 10yr old...but he is not the biggest of lads and nothing really fits him yet...so he is going to have eat more meat!! ha ha
Pool & restaurant area
Sunset over towards the wreck.
The sun rise in the morning is stunning....but you need to be awake at 6:20am!!
So on to the diving.
We dived with the Mimpi dive team and they were great. Super accommodating and we had our own guide (Teja) right through the week. Teja was a great guide and really tried his hardest to accommodate my critter requests. When both the wife and I dived together Mimpi organized a baby sitter for us and the boys loved her.
BUT I must say that over all the critter density was significantly lower than what we have had in the past. Even Melasti which usually has a Shuan the sheep on every green leaf was pretty much "sheepless", on one dive we turned over hundreds of leaves and only spotted one teeny tiny one. Teja was blaming the many divers...and there were certainly a lot of divers around the place.
But it was not all a loss. I spied a pic of a weedy rhino on the Tulamben FB page and suggested to Teja we go looking...and we found it all the way down at 35m!! It's the first weedy I've seen so I was pretty stoked to see it.
_DSC9524 by Alex Mitchell, on Flickr
Another first for me was the Halimeda Ghosty. Two stunning critters!!
Halimeda Ghost Pipefish by Alex Mitchell, on Flickr
My first few dives were really frustrating...it had been so long since I took pics underwater and I was just producing rubbish!! But finally towards the end things started to click...but shucks it took a while!
It was great to be underwater again. And the diving was chilled and relaxing and in the end we did see a few really amazing critters...so I really can not complain.
Here is my Flikr album: Flikr Ablumn: Tulamben - Mimpi
After a very restful and relaxing week at Mimpi we spent 4 crazy busy days in Canggu...a first for me.
As I've mentioned in another SB post Canggu is great, IF you do not have to get into a vehicle. Lets say we spent way too much time in a vehicle as we went into Kuta twice, once for the Waterbom water park, which is great for the kids, and the second time to do a we bit of shopping!!
The restaurants are amazing (special mention to Arte, which was the best meal we had in Bali), the sunsets are stunning. BUT wowzers the traffic!!! Just insane. Took us 90+min to do the 18km back to the airport!! So ye probably wont do that again.
Thanks for reading.
So we really just wanted to ease back in to it. And there is no better place to do that then diving around Tulamben in Bali.
It's our 5th time back to the area and we decided to stay some where new. I really liked the look of Mimpi...especially their Ocean View villas, and they were having a good deal so I booked it.
Mimpi is a beautiful resort. And I'm amazed that it's 25 yrs old!! Usually in SEA the longer the place is around the worse and worse it looks. But this place is pristine. The villas are big, with a great out door bathroom and patio. But the real winner is the outdoor day bed. We spent so much time chilling here, reading, playing card games, having afternoon tea...and the view it right out over the sea.
For the boys Mimpi put an extra bed downstairs and another mattress up in the "loft". Our boys are now 10 & 7. When we got there we saw that the ocean view villas can link up with the garden villas....so next time we will book one of each. I think the only minor criticism I have is that the beds were fairly hard...but that's it.
The pool and restaurant area is also really picturesque. And we spent much of our time here. Breakfast was included and the choices were fairly extensive.
The food in general was more expensive than the next door neighbors...but not excessively and the quality was pretty high on the whole. We are also pretty lazy so ate here most days. Our boys have dietary restrictions...so it tends to be easier for us to stay put and have the kitchen staff get to know us and what we can and can not eat. And to this extent the staff were great, always helpful and happy. @Luko we did venture up to Chop and Hops and enjoyed our meal there, although it was pretty similarly priced to Mimpi.
I had a free massage as part of the deal, and it was great...
The snorkeling out front was also surprising decent. Tons of fish! The boys loved the snorkeling and I even took them for a night time snorkel and saw crabs and eels. It was good fun. I was tempted to do the open water course with the 10yr old...but he is not the biggest of lads and nothing really fits him yet...so he is going to have eat more meat!! ha ha
Pool & restaurant area
Sunset over towards the wreck.
The sun rise in the morning is stunning....but you need to be awake at 6:20am!!
So on to the diving.
We dived with the Mimpi dive team and they were great. Super accommodating and we had our own guide (Teja) right through the week. Teja was a great guide and really tried his hardest to accommodate my critter requests. When both the wife and I dived together Mimpi organized a baby sitter for us and the boys loved her.
BUT I must say that over all the critter density was significantly lower than what we have had in the past. Even Melasti which usually has a Shuan the sheep on every green leaf was pretty much "sheepless", on one dive we turned over hundreds of leaves and only spotted one teeny tiny one. Teja was blaming the many divers...and there were certainly a lot of divers around the place.
But it was not all a loss. I spied a pic of a weedy rhino on the Tulamben FB page and suggested to Teja we go looking...and we found it all the way down at 35m!! It's the first weedy I've seen so I was pretty stoked to see it.
_DSC9524 by Alex Mitchell, on FlickrAnother first for me was the Halimeda Ghosty. Two stunning critters!!
Halimeda Ghost Pipefish by Alex Mitchell, on FlickrMy first few dives were really frustrating...it had been so long since I took pics underwater and I was just producing rubbish!! But finally towards the end things started to click...but shucks it took a while!
It was great to be underwater again. And the diving was chilled and relaxing and in the end we did see a few really amazing critters...so I really can not complain.
Here is my Flikr album: Flikr Ablumn: Tulamben - Mimpi
After a very restful and relaxing week at Mimpi we spent 4 crazy busy days in Canggu...a first for me.
As I've mentioned in another SB post Canggu is great, IF you do not have to get into a vehicle. Lets say we spent way too much time in a vehicle as we went into Kuta twice, once for the Waterbom water park, which is great for the kids, and the second time to do a we bit of shopping!!
The restaurants are amazing (special mention to Arte, which was the best meal we had in Bali), the sunsets are stunning. BUT wowzers the traffic!!! Just insane. Took us 90+min to do the 18km back to the airport!! So ye probably wont do that again.
Thanks for reading.
