Bali

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Just arrived in Tulamben from Mimpi Menjangan. Diving was great, but there are almost no tourists. There were 4-5 rooms in use while we were there, but they were looking forward to 10 days with no guests at all.

Tulamben is a little more alive, but not much.

Below the surface, it is a wonder. I dove the Mimpi house reef tonight and cna't even begin to list all the rare and beautiful things that I saw.

If you are sitting on a ticket to Bali, now is the time to use it!

Cary
 
Please help to support Bali by continuing to travel there for the amazing diving and culture. Every dollar is going to count for the Balinese from now on.
 
erwin.kodiat once bubbled...
I am both sad and very shock with the things happened in Legian, Kuta, Bali last 12 October. And I really hope they find the people who did this. I guess this will affect Bali’s tourism as well as global tourism. Hopefully everything will get well soon.


Don't wish to be the voice of doom and gloom, but i think you are kidding yourself if you think this will clear up soon, this is the tip of the ice berg!!

I am 34 and I can't see it getting fixed in my life time.

there also seem to be a pattern forming with the attacks 11/9, 12/10 so would it be wrong to guess that 13/11 but be another bad day in history?

on the news tonight, the uk government advised against non essential travel in indonesia and said to use extreme caution in the rest of SE Asia and advised not to travel.
 
It was just a positive thought .... I am trying to be optimist ...
I realize that situation since I live here in Bali. All areas lost a lot of tourist, even far away from Legian.

clive francis once bubbled...


Don't wish to be the voice of doom and gloom, but i think you are kidding yourself if you think this will clear up soon, this is the tip of the ice berg!!

I am 34 and I can't see it getting fixed in my life time.

there also seem to be a pattern forming with the attacks 11/9, 12/10 so would it be wrong to guess that 13/11 but be another bad day in history?

on the news tonight, the uk government advised against non essential travel in indonesia and said to use extreme caution in the rest of SE Asia and advised not to travel.
 
I was in Tulamben yesterday (Sunday, 21/10). Cary and I had a chance to dive the patch reef in front of Mimpi. I was quite lucky that with the help of Wally Siagian and I Made Suwena, I spotted some rare things that I've never seen before, such as spindle ovulids (Phenacovolva sp), ghost pipefish (Solenostomus paradoxus) and salp (pelagic tunicate/ unidentified tunicate).
I guess Cary even luckier than me since he will dive with Wally until this Monday (21 Oct).

PS: Cary, my apology when I left Tulamben yesterday, we did not have a chance to meet again. When I looked for you at Mimpi, it seems that you are in the middle of diving the patch reef (again...).
 
hello,

i asked for some advice severel weeks ago and thanks for the information gathered here had a wonderful vacation until the blast in Kuta.

Great thanks for the Bali Scuba guys. I truly recommmend them for anyone. This is the least i can do in appriciation. Especially in those hard times Bali tourism probably faces.

I did 2 dives in Tulamben, 2 in Menjang and 2 at Nusa Penida. Enjoyed the last ones most - probably cause i saw there my first shark, stringray, dolphins etc. My diving experience is still short:)

But for travellers interested in more than diving i also suggest to do some trekking - sunrise at Mount Batur was challenging and interesting as well. Rafting in Telawaja river -- it was good but not as much for the rafting experience, but mostly for the scenery and nature. U doñ`t see much of a jungle in Northern Europe :)

Anyway - i wish no-one has to go through the experience of such explosions. Have been at home for a week and only now start feeling safe and good again. Some of my friends i made in Bali whonwere also close to the site are still "hiding":(. But i do hope the best for Bali. At least some Estonian travel companies have not cancelled their plans and they have asked me to write about "Bali - as travel destination".
 
We returned to Los Angeles yesterday, having survived our Bali vacation and the dire warnings of our friends and families.

We arrived in Bali on Sunday 13 October. It was only a fluke that we heard about the Kuta bombing while we were between planes in Taipei because Judy stopped to check for new info about the Washingon sniper on the Internet. We decided to continue on to Bali, since our gear was going to go there anyway. Nobody else getting on the plane seemed to have heard about it, and while the airline personel know, they weren't talking.

Enroute from Taipei, we mulled our options, burnign the maps in the airline magazine into our brains. The viable options seemed to be: a) sticking to our Bali plan; b) Phuket, c) somewhere in Australia; and d) Rome (don't ask). Other destinations - Tahiti, Micronesia, Japan - came up, but they didn't make logistical (or financial) sense.

At DPS, we stopped for a chat with the China Airlines chief of station, Alex Cheu, who offered any assistance that we would need to reroute. We decided that we would spend at least the night in Bali to further assess our plans in light of the facts on the ground. We got an inkling of the true situation in the eyes of the customs official, an older gentleman who clearly looked on the verge of breaking down. Coming out of the airport, a cameraman stuck his lense about six inches (okay, 16 cm) from my face as someone asked "why are you going TO Bali". We couldn't see the huge queue upstairs trying to get out of Bali.

We had selected our hotel, The Villas in Seminyak, for its combination of privacy and quiet with easy access to shopping. Those qualities were well suited to or needs in light of the situation.

Excepting a small crowd of Australian expats at the Bottle Shop, there were no Westerners on the street and no shoppers in the stores. Everyone we talked to appeared to be in shock. Apros pos of this and a conversation with Andy Barski, an executive at The Villas who had spent the night at the hospital in Denpasar, helping to identify victims, and a call to the U.S. Consul, we decided that we would stay in Bali, absent any continuing threat, but we would move up our schedule to go to the North side of the island.

Tuesday morning, we set out with our driver to go across Bali to Singaraja then west to Mimpi Menjangan in Buleleng. We visited a Hindu temple, hiked to a waterfall and did tourinst stuff. Our driver was great but clearly disconsolate at the prospect of having to go to work in the rice fields as his job was about to evaporate.

Because of massive cancelations at Mimpi Mejangen we were able to change our room to a "Grand Villa", which featured not only it's own pool, but a private mineral hot tub as well.

I did six dives at Menjangan Island and Judy did three. While we did see a Black Tip Reef Shark, we concentrated on small stuff in protected waters. The visibility was great, ranging between 20 and 30 meters.

As some of you know, I tried for over a month to get ahold of Wally Siagen, coauthor of the wonderful "Diving Bali" (Periplus http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/9625933239). I finally got through to him from Tulamben where we dove together on six of my ten dives.

We also got to meet Erwin on Sunday morning, however briefly.

While the Liberty and the Tulamben Dropoff were great, my favorite dives of the trip were in "the River" and at Batu Kelebit. I consider diving to be like going to outer space, and, in that light, Batu Kelebit is like a visit to a far away galaxy. Several of the creatures that I saw down there (at 40 meters) don't appear in any book. The jukung ride from Tulamben (see picture) is a bonus
It is sad to note that, when we checked out of Mimpi Menjangen and Tulamben, respectively, both hotels were empty.

After leaving Tulamben, we had a great lunch on the nearly deserted beach at Sanur and went on to Ubud.

We had dinner at the Jazz Cafe (great music and atmosphere - okay food) where Judy approached a well turned out expat woman for shopping advice. She proceeded to launch into a tirade on how we muyst be insane to be thinking about shopping and not leaving as fast as possible. We are lucky that we didn't encounter her on our first night.

The next day was a gallery and artisan coop crawl back to Seminyak and The Villas.

Expressing massive confidence in me, Judy agreed to my renting a motorcycle and riding out to Jimbaran for lunch on Friday. Nowhere more than here were the results of the bombing more obvious. The entire stretch of the normally crowded beach from Jimbaran to the airport seemed deserted. There were a total of 5 customers, ourselves included, for the 30 or so restaurants along the beach. In spite of this, the food was wonderful - the best we had on Bali.

That afternoon, we made our way into Kuta. There were a few more people on the streets, but it was still pretty much empty of westerners. The massive Hard Rock complex was empty.

We left on Saturday after another productive shopping round and a meeting with our freight agent.

It is heartbreaking to see how devastated the tourist industry - eighty percent of the Balinese economy - is, and to know that this will not turn around quickly. Our experience of the people of Bali was wonderful. I really feel that Bali is safe and will remain so, as the bombing was not the result of indigenous activity, being, more than anything else, a calculated attack on Bali itself.

Bali is not paradise, but it is wonderful, beautiful and a bargain to boot. I know that it is a tough sell, but consider going...

Cary
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

Back
Top Bottom