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Published: September 15th 2007
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So for our final 10 days it was off to Candi Dasa, a small village on the East coast of Bali. We had booked ahead after it was so busy in Ubud but actually changed places once we had looked around the village and found somewhere that was right by the sea, had better facilities and was cheaper!!
We hadn't really planned on doing too much during our time here but lie in the sun and swim in the pool but as things turned out we ended up doing quite a few things.
We astarted off with a couple of days in the sun but I was soon tempted into going on a fishing trip!! I have never fished in my life before but an Australian guy called Jim was keen to go out with the local fisherman and was looking for someone to share the cost so I thought I would give it a go. It was only after agreeing that I was informed it meant being on the beach ready to go at 6.00am!!
So I snuck out at 5.45am, leaving Vicky snoozing away, and met Jim and our fisherman Lendle(spelling??). The early start was worth
it for the view of the sunrise alone. It was absolutley stunning as the sun rose over the island of Lombok in the distance and bathed the sea in fantastic colours. Once we out and over the reefs we setup our trolling lines, which consisted of myself and Jim holding onto a line in our bare hands and dragging it behind the boat hoping for something to bite!! After about 20mins I got the first bite and so for the next 5mins I struggled to pull in what felt like a large shark but was actually a fish called a Mahi-Mahi. It turned out it was a small variety of the fish but still weighed in at 3.5kg!!
This was the only fish we caught during the trolling so we switched to some line fishing over the reefs. Now being in Indonesia there are no rods, you hold a line in your hand with a couple of hooks at the bottom with bait and wait till you feel something and then tug hard on the line and hope it snags the fish!! I wasn't very successful with this to begin with and while Jim and Lendle caught some red
snapper, leatherbacks and banana fish I had nothing!! That is until about 10mins from finishing when I suddenly snagged 2 snapper! It was fantastic fun and I owe quite a bit of thanks to Jim and Lendle who gave me a fair bit of help as I was clueless to begin with.
The best was yet to come though as at lunchtime we all met on the beach agian, this time with Vicky and Jims family and Lendle and his friends cooked up the fish, some rice, some satay and a few cold beers all under a thatched shack on the beach, delicious.....
To finish off this action packed day I had rather foolishly agreed, along with another Australian called Ray, to play in a football match being played between a local village side and a team made up from the staff of our accomodation plus us foreigners!!
Luckily the game was played at 4.00pm so it was only 30degrees!! We were told it was just a bit of a fun kick around but when we arrived to see people booting up and putting on shin pads and proper kits we were a little concerned. The first
battle was getting the kit to fit!! It was not made for westerners to wear.
It was a good game which we ended up winning 3-2 and although it was bloody hot and most of the players on the pitch were about 17 and full of energy I did manage to last the 90mins without dying. The pitch was not quite what we are used to at home, being rock solid and covered in coconut husks, incense sticks and even a small fire smoking away in the corner!!
One of our days we hired a car and drove to Kuta which is the heavily populated tourist mecca near the airport. The town is very small and crowded with everything you would expect from a Costa del Sol style resort so we were glad we had decided to give it a miss. The beach there is very big and has lovely sand which is really the only reason to go there.
After our enjoyment of the fishing trip we hired Lendle again to take us on a 20min boat trip to a small secluded beach called White Sand Beach which you can only access by moped or boat.
The idea was to do some snorkeling and spear fishing and cooking the catch for lunch again. However Lendle had forgotten that it was the full moon the night before so the tide was very, very high. This resulted in some huge waves and myself and Jim being knocked flying by a huge wave as we got out of the boat!
As a result we spent the morning wandering the deserted beach (only 2 other people on it apart from fishermen) until the waves subsided a little so we could snorkle. We couldn't snorkel for long as the sea was very rough still so we resorted to body surfing and generally hurling ourselves into the waves. Lendle and his friend went and caught the fish and we had another lovely lunch of fish, rice and satay washed down with a couple of cold Bintangs.
The return boat trip was quite something as some enormous waves were pounding the coastline as we rounded the corner back to our beach, Vicky was sitting at the front of the boat and was pummelled for 20mins by wave after wave!! It was great fun and far better than any rollercoaster you could
go on!
Our time in Bali has know sadly come to an end. We have enjoyed the last 3 weeks immensly and would not hesitate to recommend this island to anyone, the people are wonderfully friendly wherever you go and although determined to sell you something on most occasions they do it with a smile and politeness.
From here we are heading back to Kuala Lumpur very briefly before catching the train down to Singapore for a couple of days there.
N.B. There are 3 videos to go with this blog which we will post later as this internet cafe doesn't have the facility to make them small enough for the blog. They are well worth waiting for!!!
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Karen
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Wow. It looks absolutely amazing.