Indonesia
part of the On the Road travelogue
 
 

 

Manado

Our next stop would be nine days at a diving resort on northern Sulawesi.  The place was called Murex (for Manado Underwater Exploration), just outside the main city of Manado.  The complex is actually pretty small: the lodgings, the dining area, and the boat dock.  As with most other things Indonesian, the atmosphere of the resort was very relaxed.  It was enough off the beaten track to feel isolated.  In fact this was it's main drawback - without a good beach or any other amusements around, there was the diving, or there was nothing.  So we dove about half of the days - I did nine dives total including a night dive.  The highlight of this area is the Bundaken National Park - a small group of islands with amazing coral walls that drop off hundreds of feet.  After not having dove in many years, it took me a little while to get comfortable with it.  We jumped right into it - our first dive was 80 feet down to a shipwreck.  But the divemasters were fairly attentive and the operation seemed to be run fairly smoothly.

I missed one day of diving, due to the fact that I got wholly gastrically sick - I'm talking complete flushing at both ends.  But after a day in bed I was fine again - I'll consider myself extremely lucky if this is the only time!  One day we took a land tour of the region inhabited by the Minihasa.  Their standard fare includes rats, bats, dogs, and lizards.  The tour was fairly standard tourist stuff, but it was good to get away from the complex.  One cool thing we saw was a pottery village.  We stopped by the side of the road to check it our, and there were people with foot-wheels throwing stuff just like I had done.  Pretty cool.  We also saw them digging up the clay.

Bali

After the diving, we flew back to the island of Bali for a few days of touring.  We spent the first night in Kuta Beach, which is the equivalent of Spring Break at Ft. Lauderdale, all squished into about eight square blocks.  Lots of insistent hagglers, cheap bric-a-brac stores, cafes, and nightclubs.  This area is known as a big Australian surfers' hang out, and we saw nothing to disturb this image.  There is a great beach, with white sand and a gentle slope into the curling waves of the sea.  After one day of beach and pestering, we took a bus inland to the craft-township of Ubud.

This was a marked difference.  We stayed (for $1.50, including breakfast) at a budget hotel a few blocks from the main street.  The first night there we caught one of the Indonesian dance performances, held at the old Central Palace grounds.  Very different from anything Western eyes are used to.  The next day we walked the town up to the big Neka Museum.  This is a good little museum with a room dedicated to each of the distinct Indonesian painting periods.  After walking back into town, we negotiated a ride to our next destination: the Central Mountain region of Agung Batur.  There is a huge crater there, replete with a lake and three volcanic peaks nestled inside.  One is still active!

Crazy at it sounds, we got up before 4am the next day to hike to the top of the peaks, and watch the sun rise.  We had a breakfast of eggs and steamed banannas, cooked inside holes in the ground at the top of the peaks.  The hike past the active peak showed a hissing, steaming cave, glowing red with heat. All in all, an interesting experience. From here, we negotiated another ride back to Kuta, where we did the only thing there was to do: shop and go to the beach. After a marathon shipping session at the local post office, we hit the airport for our overnight to Sydney.

...next: Australia

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