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After returning to Ubud from my short post-retreat surfing excursion in Nusa Lembongan, I decided that it would be fun to motorbike around the coast of Bali, which features some great surf and dive spots as well as a lot of local villages. I had already been in Bali for a month at this point, and wanted to get to the Philippines before the Southwest monsoon started dropping serious amounts of rain there. So instead of circumdriving the whole island, I was just going to jet North over the mountains for some more peaceful beaches and diving along the Northern coast and then head to the West coast for some surfing at low-key spots.
The drive North from Ubud is really beautiful. The mountains are covered in lush jungle and poke their heads through the clouds. At times I could feel like I was in Zeal (see pic).
On a motorbike, cars are just these elephantine creatures that move slowly and predictably, and you are a hummingbird that can dance between them. Trucks are more like dinosaurs. I capitalized on my mobility and buzzed through in 10 mins what was probably a 1 hour backup.
Entering the major Northern port of Singaraja is done via a long switchback road coming out of the mountains where it is very difficult to pass anyone, even for a hummingbird. As a result, big caravans quickly form behind the slowest of the slow trucks that must take it easy on the sharp turns. The emissions standards in SE Asia must be seriously lacking. When you get stuck anywhere in the neighborhood behind a big truck, you are breathing in pure junk. After this several hour trip North, I felt lightheaded for an hour or so, and resolved to get a face mask for future treks.
The Northern coast of Bali has a reputation for being laid back, quiet, and traditional. I had assumed this included a lack of touts that infect the touristic Southern areas, trying to sell all types of nonsense. I was quite surprised when I started being hollered at while riding along the Northern coast road by touts attempting to get me to come stay at homestays where they get kickbacks (I was easy to ID due to my travellers backpack). A few times I had to pull over to check directions on
my phone, and every time a tout quickly found me and started trying to recruit me. Despite having tried my best to make it clear that I had already booked a place (hence the tout's commission would be 0), a final one refused to leave me, and tailed me through the final kms to the place I had already prebooked in Anturan on the Lovina coast. It turned out that he was actually a tout for the place I was staying at, but I don’t think he got his commission.
The place I was staying at had decided to give away my room, since I booked it through an engine that takes no deposit and I arrived in the evening. Nevertheless, the guy running it assured me it was no problem to upgrade me to a more expensive room for the first night (TV?? What do I do with that!?), and then I would move to my room the next night, which I would later regret committing to.
From everything I gleaned, the Lovina coast is essentially a crap hole, EXCEPT for the village of Kalibukbuk, which has a decent beach and a cute
My impressionistic take on Bali mountains
Disclaimer: I didn't produce this great piece of art, nor was it Bali inspired, but rather from Zeal (if you don't know, don't ask) town with a bit of nightlife and fun places to eat. But there are far nicer beaches in Bali to hang around at, and there were no waves whatsoever.
I walked around Singaraja a bit, but there's very little worth seeing or exploring there as a tourist. After serving my two-night sentence, I continued along the Northern coast to Pemuteran. From a tourist's perspective, the point of Pemuteran is to dive Menjangan island, part of Bali's national park, surrounded by great dive sites. I had just gotten my open water certification last month in the dive factory (but beautiful!) Koh Tao in Thailand, and this was a good opportunity to put it to use.
I forked over 750k Rupiah ($67) for a two-dive day trip with lunch.
Our dives were along a massive coral wall. I hadn't seen any walls like this in my previous dives, so it was pretty cool. The coral was beautiful, and there were a decent amount and variety of fish, but we didn't see anything too exotic (I was really hoping for a sun fish!). It was just three of us + our guide there, and one girl's
air somehow got low pretty damn quickly. Our guide didn't want to cut the dive too short, so gave her his spare hose to share for the remainder. However, it didn't seem to work for her, and she started panicking, having let her hose fall away, and not being able to immediately relocate it. We were at least 15m deep, so I thought we were going to have a bit of a situation. Fortunately, the guide had the wherewithal to just grab her initial hose and shove it back in her mouth. He then just sent her up to wait for us, and we continued for another 25 mins or so. It goes to show that you need to
KEEP CALM
and
RECOVER YOUR HOSE!
*Ahem*, that is, you need to be brushed up on the basics (hose recovery and air sharing are basic skills), and you shouldn't do anything drastic without keeping your options open. After the fact, the instructor checked his spare hose again and said it was working, so I don't know
what the problem really was.
One day of diving was enough for me for the time being, and I was anxious to get to the West coast for some surfing, so I left Pemuteran after a short two night stay. Unfortunately, my surf ambitions would soon be laid to waste. . .
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