Tulumben

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Fri 11th:
Got the 6am bus from Kuta to Tulumben thinking it sounded a nice place to celebrate Matt's 25th birthday. Tulumben by the way sits right under an active volcano, last erupted 1964.
After quite a long drive we arrived at Tulumben and got the driver to drop us off at a hotel (Bad idea as it tuns out).

The Putri Mardhi hotel was nice, and we got it down to a good price. The beach, whilst made of volcanic rocks was about 40 metres from our room and a further 40 metres from the beach into the sea was the wreck of USAT Liberty (An American war ship torpedoed by the Japanese in World War 2).

After standing by the room waiting for the driver to remember he hadn't taken the Rp 190,000 off us yet, we saw him drive off. Well, it's not like we were going to remind him, sucker - or so we thought.

So Leanne arranged to do an 'Introduction to Scuba.' dive, for 2pm, and we got some breakfast, checked into the hotel and other menial things in which you'll have no interest. About an hour into our sitting there the driver came back, asking for his money. The idea to tell him to swivel did cross our minds, but, bad things happen to... etc. So we gave him the money, cursing our stupidity for getting dropped of at a hotel and not the main street.

So 2pm came and a vey nervous Leanne went and did her first dive to 8 metres. She was very brave and saw all the marine life around the wreck.

Later that night we sat outside the hotel and drank some of the duty-free vodka and coke and then slept.

Sat 12th - Matt's 25th Birthday!
Well, first thing we didn't really do a great deal. at 2pm Matt did a scubadive to 28 metres at the wreck which was quite scary and afterwards met up with Leanne at the restaurant. Leanne was chatting to a Pakistani family from Manchester, the Mum was a social worker, the daughter worked in London as a journalist for ITN and the son was a business development manager for HSBC in Singapore (kind of an events co-ordinator getting ex-pats to switch to HSBC)

In the afternoon we snorkelled around the wreck for about an hour and then tried to come up with a plan for how to celebrate a birthday in Tulumben. Harder than it sounds in a town where there are about 3 restaurants, maybe 10 hotels and dozens of diving schools, and everything shuts down at 7pm. So we sat and drank the rest of the vodka and coke and decided to move the celebrations forward a few days to the first day in Lovina.

Sun 13th:
Got up at 8am and did our first scubadive together, only to 12 metres but it was fun.

Then we got the Bemo (a local bus, that charges non-locals extortionate rates, but less so than 'transport' (a taxi). We coughed up the Rp70,000 and we were on our way.

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Photos

The main street.
Party town! Like Ibiza once the lights go out. At 7pm.

Rice fields.
"You'll remember me...dum-dum-dum-de-dum...among the fields of Bali." Like some sick joke every restaurant plays Eva friggin Cassidy. Barley/Bali. This is one of the fields anyway.

View from our hotel porch.
We slept so well to the sound of crashing waves.

The beach.
It's black volcanic stone. The USAT Liberty shipwreck is straight out from here, and it's right outside our hotel.

Gunung Agung
As seen in all its' glory. Big thing. After being in a place (Kuta) bombed by terrorists not that long ago, the thought did cross our minds - will we see the volcano errupt.

Gunung Agung
View from across the main street.