If you speak to any local in Bali for long enough, they will ask you if you are on your honeymoon. “No”, we tell them “just friends”. This is fast becoming our catchphrase. As for a honeymoon in Bali, I can’t say it would suit my tastes. It’s undoubtedly a very beautiful island, but the traffic is just unbelievable. It’s like a permanent rush hour, but the roads are only just wide enough to fit two cars and the drivers act like they’re cruising down the motorway as they casually overtake vehicles on blind corners, hills, and without much thought to how close the oncoming vehicles are. Not my kind of honeymoon.
Apart from the crazy traffic, Bali has been one of my favourite places so far. The landscape varies from rice paddies to forests, and from beaches to mountains, and if you can find some peace and quiet it really is a lovely place with a lot of activities on offer. We chose diving and surfing as the activities to break the bank, and I think we chose well. The WWII shipwreck off the coast of Tulamben proved a lucky first dive for us. No licence necessary, we were given a 10 minute beach lesson, followed by 15 minutes practice in the shallow water, and then straight on down to the wreck. It’s amazing how close to shore the boat is, and still we were going down to 15m on our second dive. There is so much coral and so so many different kinds of fish to admire.
Good thing we purchased an underwater camera, although the photos are yet to be developed, so their quality is questionable. It felt like we were exploring the Titanic – the wreck looks just like the footage in the film, all covered in greenish brown sludgy plants, with sections that you could swim down into. All in all it was A-OK!
From Tulamben we got the minibus to take us to the nearby town of Amed, and from their we got a taxi across the island to Kuta. Taxis in Bali are so cheap that many tourists hire them for the day, so we settled for the luxury of our own private car for no more money than a minibus would be.
Kuta is surfer-central. And it is packed full of Australians. So much so that the market sellers call out to you in Aussie accents. I can’t say it’s a great selling point of the place. I think the people who come here are like the typical Brits on holiday in Mallorca. I don’t think the tourists reflect well on Australia! Kuta’s reputation for surfing, on the other hand, is well deserved. In fact, the swimming section of the long beach is limited to a tiny area between two red flags and the rest is of the sea is filled with surfers. Decked out in the gear and with a surf board each we had a quick beach lesson to go over the basic techniques of standing up and paddling, and then into the sea. What followed was four stints (each lasting just over an hour) of some of the most exhausting time I have ever spent. Backwards and forwards in the water trying to stand up on the wave then struggling back against the current to repeat over and over again. By the end of the day I was covered in bruises and rashes on my knees from the board, blisters on my toes, sand rashes from falling off and being scraped across the sand, and oh how I ached! Walking the next day was a struggle, but it was worth it. Money well spent!
Wander Hopping 