Friday May 27
Today was the transfer day to Mimpi Menjangan. We set up the transfer for after breakfast at 9AM, and he was ready and waiting. Check out went fine. We went around the northern side of Bali. This area was much more populated with more traffic than we were expecting. It was pretty slow going for the first ¾ of the trip. Our driver was very good about stopping to the side of the road so I could get photos of the incredible scenery. This island is just stunning.
We stopped off to tour a Balinese temple: Pura Ponjokbatu. We were the only visitors there, and it was a lovely temple built in 3 sections, with each section being built higher, with acess via a pretty steep staircase. We both had to wear sarongs with a sash tied around our waists and Jim had to wear a little hat. Our guide (monk? Brother?) wore all traditional garb, plus Quicksilver thongs. I thought that was funny. It was well worth touring, especially since it wasn't overrun with tourists like the temples in south Bali.
The last quarter of the drive, the traffic finally thinned out and our driver (different one than last time), went into crazy driver mode. They have a system for roads in Bali, and it obviously works as long as everyone knows the rules. I think a tourist who was driving would get killed in about 10 minutes and take a bunch of other people with him. Basically, the mopeds and motorcycles drive near the shoulders of the lanes, and the cars straddle the center lines. Then when there is oncoming traffic, everyone moves over to the correct side (mind you, all of this at about 60 MPH!) But we made it to Mimpi Menjangan alive.
This resort is just gorgeous: peaceful, quiet, and just beautiful. The resort is built on grounds that house a natural hot spring. Our cottage is by far the best “room” we have ever had anywhere. We have a very large couryard that has a natural hot spring tub (all the cottages have this), plus ours also has a very good sized plunge pool, plus a gazebo and a table with chairs. The inside is lovely too, with a king bed and a fully outside bathroom, like at Tulamben. It is an incredibly romantic cottage!
This resort is much bigger than Tulamben. It doesn't seem very busy right now. There are two pools, and we had the one right by our room all to ourselves. The restaurant is built over the mangrove lagoon, with some outdoor tables.
With dinner we ordered the house red wine, which was the same brand as the horrible rose we had at Tulamben (that should have been a clue, right?) It was awful: NO MORE HOUSE WINES HERE!! Dinner is a set menu of 2 different choices. Jim and I both had the meats in white mushroom sauce. It was decent, not specacular.
We are both really tired after the travel day, so it's straight to bed and looking forward to diving Menjangan Island tomorrow!
Saturday May 28
This resort uses a set menu for the included meals, plus we get our choices of a lot of different lunches while out at Menjangan. For breakfast the choices were a very extensive American breakfast, continental, and Indonesian. We both had the American breakfast. We noticed several volcanoes that were not visible yesterday when we had lunch. They are on Java, which is very close to Bali. Have to remember to bring the camera tomorrow!
This resort set up a collaborative agreement with the local fishermen when they built the resort years ago. In return for the locals agreeing not to fish around Menjangan Island, the resort guarantees them a monthly payment, plus hires them as boat captains (all they staff here is local as well). So our boat is a true Balinese fishing boat. It's pretty good sized (around 25 feet long), painted blue and white. They don't have very powerful engines, so they can't go real fast.
It took about 30 minutes to get to the island and the sea is protected here and very calm. Yay!!!! No signs of seasickness. All the dives here are wall dives. Our first one was POS II. There was a strong current here, and I had to turn around and face into the current. It was frustrating, because I feel like I don't have any control when I dive in current. There was also other dive groups around, and I got hit in the head several times. The wall was gorgeous, but it was kind of a frustrating dive, due to the crowds and the strong current. Plus I had a splitting headache by the end of it due to my mask being too tight.
For our surface interval, a bunch of the boats tie up together, at one of the piers on the Island. Jim got a club sandwich and I had an Indonesian chicken noodle dish that was fabulous. Loved it. The second dive was MUCH better. Little to no current, gorgeous reef, and a large cave to go into that had sunlight streaming in from the top. Our guide Putu, is VERY good at finding tiny little creatures. He showed us tiny shrimp, crabs, and 2 pygmy seahorses. We got back to the resort at about 2PM. Relaxed for a little while by the main pool, then enjoyed our courtyard pools.
At 4PM, we went for our couples Balinese massage. The resort just opened a new spa last month. It's very nice and the massages were great. Both people were doing the same movements on each of us in tandem. It was very relaxing.
Our choices for dinner tonight were a chicken parmigian, and the same menu as last night except for seafood instead of the meats. I had the chicken pasta and thought it was very good. Jim got the seafood and wasn't happy at all with it. Win some you lose some. :)
Sunday May 29
I've woken up at 3:30 or so just about every night we've been here. The good news is that I've been able to fall back asleep until 6-6:30. We definitely feel over the jet lag. I wasn't overly hungry today so I had the continental breakfast and that was just right.
We had the same divemaster as yesterday, Putu. We are getting so spoiled on this trip! Most of the dives have been just us plus the divemaster (including Tulamben). Yesterday we had a snorkeler on board, but she kept to herself (Russian, I don't think she spoke much English). So it was just the 3 of us on the dive.
Well, today we had the whole boat to ourselves! We went to the western side of Menjangan, and it was much less popular. We didn't see anyone else all day.
The first dive was Garden Eels, which had some moderate current. I felt like I did a better job today of dealing with the current and not getting knocked around. Amazing amount of fish at the end of the dive. Gorgeous. The walls here are just beautiful; the best I've ever seen.
We did the group tie up for the surface interval. This time I had a club sandwich, because I couldn't remember the name of what I had yesterday :(. The second dive was the Ankor Wreck. We didn't go down to the actual wreck itself, because it is a deep dive at 150 feet. He did show us the remains of the ship though, and that let me know how fantastic the visibility was, because it was very easy to see when we were at 70 feet or so. Saw a large turtle, but he didn't want anything to do with us and swam away. Saw a ton of pyramid butterfly fish. Very pretty. Just a great day diving. Nice flat water, and NO SEASICKNESS!!!!
I should mention the weather in Bali; in a word: perfect. It's been sunny and gorgeous every day. Here where we are now we are near some mountains, so we can get some cloud buildup in the afternoons, but every dive has had stunning sunlight lighting up the reef.
We spent the afternoon enjoying our courtyard pools, and started packing to transfer to the Conrad Bali tomorrow.
We had our choice of three menus for our final dinner. Jim had a pork dish and I had a Balinese fish entree. They were both very good. We ordered a bottle of Australian chardonnay and it was quite good, and it didn't knock us flat either!
Monday May 30
Final call for banana pancakes! I'm kind of sad to be leaving. This was such a nice, peaceful resort. All the staff were very friendly, and always greeted us. I was able to get to the gift shop right when they opened and bought a couple of t shirts.
Our driver today was Yuda; we really liked him. It was a long trip down to Nusa Dua, five hours total. It was a stunning drive though. We went over the central mountain range, with views of steep valleys covered with rice terraces. There were also two very scenic high mountain lakes.
We stopped at an organic plantation once we got down from the mountains. They make Luwak coffee here. This is the most expensive coffee in the world, and made well known by the movie The Bucket List. The raw beans are fed to a mongoose-like creature called a Luwak. They then pass through the animal's digestive system, where they are collected and then roasted like regular coffee. It has a very distinct and earthy flavor (as you would guess! :)) We bought some ginger coffee and some lemongrass tea. They were both delicious.
The traffic from Denpasar down to Nusa Dua was just horrendous. I've been to some places with crazy traffic before, Mexico City, Paris, and Rome all come to mind. Nowhere is even close to as crazy as Bali! I can't even imagine driving here myself. It's really insane.
We got to the Conrad Bali, where I used Hilton points to get our room. When we checked in, they told us they had upgraded us to a Conrad Suite! It is huge and just gorgous. We have really hit the jackpot with rooms on this trip. I had mentioned when I made the reward reservation months ago, that we were celebrating Jim's birthday, so they sent up a birthday cake, which was a very special touch.
There is a lounge here just for the Suites guests, we were able to go there for afternoon tea, where we had smoothies and hors d'eurves. Very nice since we didn't stop for lunch and were hungry. We were also able to have some pre-dinner cocktails here also. All this on a free room!!
For dinner we ate at Suku at the Conrad. Just a stunning setting in front of the main pool with koi ponds all around and lit up at night. We ordered a Balinese tasting menu that had 5 different Indonesian dishes. It was really good.
This resort is really gorgeous. Lots of water features, ponds, and fountains. The main resort (we're in a separate section with our own pool) has an enormous lagoon pool. I wish we could stay longer, it's just lovely.
But we have to get up at 5AM tomorrow to go to Wakatobi!!! When we mention we are going there it seems to get a big reaction here in Bali. Yuda has family that works at the resort and wants us to say hello from him. They are supposed to send us up a box breakfast tomorrow morning to eat before we leave and we have a car to the airport arranged for 6:15. Check-in for the charter flight is by 7AM.
We are so exited!!
BALI FINAL IMPRESSIONS
Best dive: Tough one but I would have to say Liberty Wreck. Just so many fish and so different from anything we've done before. Walking along the narrow seawall to get there, while the women carried our fully loaded kits on their heads!
Best thing topside: The stunning scenery and the Mimpi resorts. I just loved both those places, but especially Mimpi Menjangan. I LOVED our room! And eating breakfast on the deck of the floating restaurant looking at the volcanoes on Java. Such a beautiful, serene, peaceful place.
Worst thing topside: I hate to say it, but Bali desperately needs some sort of municipal garbage pickup service. There was a lot of trash around. In some spots it was terrible. One place we spent our surface interval on Menjangan Island just looked awful. I guess every garden of eden has to have its serpent :)
I loved Bali. Too bad we weren't able to get to Ubud. If we come back to stay at Wakatobi again, we might not spend any extra time on Bali, simply because it takes so long to get anywhere. But we thoroughly enjoyed our time there. What a beautiful place.
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