Advertisement
Published: February 27th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Rice fields
Central Bali Lovina, Northern Balinese coast Wednesday 25th February 2009
Since returning to Bali from Flores, we have been chilling out in Lovina on the North coast. We were a bit concerned that, having left Flores sooner than planned, due to washed out roads and travel difficulties there, we would be disappointed with our final Indonesian week in Bali, since Flores is so scenically beautiful and we would have liked to spend longer there. We needn’t have worried because northern Bali is so very different to the frenetic tourist hubs of the south and the scenery across the central mountains is pretty spectacular.
Lovina is a quiet little seaside town nestled between the mountains and the sea. The weather has been glorious, sunny mornings and cooling rain in the afternoons, and the seas are calm. The coral reef is too far offshore to swim to from the beach but for just a few pounds one can get a wooden fishing outrigger to the reef, which is teeming with tropical fish. The first day we went out, the water was the clearest we have ever seen, but yesterday it was a little cloudier due to the rain, which washes down mountain silt
Journey to Lovina
Mountain region, central Bali from the rivers (as well as rubbish unfortunately). The beach, like most we have seen in Indonesia isn’t clean; the locals have no idea of how precious and valuable their beaches are. It is picture postcard scenery, black soft volcanic sand backed by lush forest and mountains, fronted by a gentle blue sea. However, when one walks the beach, the detritus of humanity is all too evident. The inshore coral is dead and/or dying. Further out on the reef it is alive and colourful, but for how long? Everything here is thrown in to the rivers and washed out to sea. Having said that, the Aussies are killing the Barrier Reef with chemicals from intensive farming, so there we go!
Apart from snorkelling, lazing about, reading, eating and drinking we have done little for a week and it has been so nice; this is necessary chill before busy Singapore! One morning, however, we made the effort to get up early to see the dolphins. One needs to leave the beach by boat at about 6 a.m., head out to the edge of the reef to find them. We saw several schools of dolphin, some seemed to delight in showing
Setting off at dawn....
....to see Java Sea dolphins off by leaping clear of the surface, to the delighted shouts of our pilot who proudly yelled “Attraction, attraction!” every time, as though the dolphin jumped to his will for the delight of his paying passengers!
Our bungalow faces west with an uninterrupted sea and sunset view across a lush little garden. It is neat and clean and has a four-poster bed draped with netting. We‘ve discovered that “Arak Attack” is a pretty good evening drink, a mixture of Arak (local cheap Indonesian booze), honey, lime, fresh orange juice topped up with Sprite. We’ve met some nice fellow travellers here as well. Comparing notes about where we’ve been as well as getting information about where we are heading is good fun and really useful. Everyone, including some who have travelled very extensively, including exotic locations like Venezuela and Cambodia, agrees that New Zealand is probably the most rewarding travel destination on earth, backpacker-friendly, beautiful, good value (much cheaper than Oz) and so diverse. Our next-door neighbours here (in the next hut) have just spent two months on Koh Chang in Thailand, a place we loved when we stayed there nine years ago; they had planned just a few weeks
there but loved it too much to leave! They are in no hurry to leave here either! It is really very nice here, but if only it were as clean as Fiji it would be paradise (although the Balinese could never match the warmth of Fijians who are the ultimate Friendly People).
We have just booked our transport back south for Friday, where we’ll spend one night n Kuta, maybe do some shopping, before heading to Singapore on Saturday morning. Meanwhile, we have one more day to enjoy the tranquillity of Lovina, with a few Arak Attacks to boot, just to aid the mellow!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.073s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 11; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0419s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb