Want to skip to the pictures, just click HERE.
Most people seem to think that Indonesia is this one very small country. We keep being asked questions regarding the impact of different news events and where we were. What about the volcano?. What about the big earthquake? Well, the Merapi Volcano is 322 miles away from Denpasar in Bali. And the earthquake; that was over 1,500 miles away from us. We were hardly aware of these events as we traveled.
Indonesia is BIG. In population, its the 4th most populated country on the planet following the US which is ranked # 3 after China #1 and India #2. Its an island country composed of 18,108 islands. If you draw a line from the North West most point to the South West most point of this country, you will cover a straight line distance of 3,300 miles. The distance from New York to Los Angeles is 2,500 miles for comparison. For more relevant information and details, I suggest you visit the following site: http://www.expat.or.id/info/overview.html. There you will find an excellent overview.
Here is an map of Indonesia (Bali is where the yellow circle is drawn and the little green circle is where Wakatobi is located):
A couple of good friends invited us to go to a Dive Resort called WAKATOBI. They even sent us a promotional DVD of the place. We were hooked and after further communications decided that we would visit Wakatobi during the week of May 26 thru June 2nd. But that is just one week and the travel time to get there is really LONGGGGG.
So, we did our "usual thing". We turned a 1 week resort vacation into a 26 day adventure; leaving on May 16th and returning on June 11th.
May 16 - 20:
Our first stop was the Hilton
Hawaiian Village Resort where we have now stayed a number of times after
experiencing "other" Honolulu hotels. Its a pricy stop but the quality
of this resort is very good. Sometimes you do get what you pay for in a positive
sense. I even managed to play a round of golf at the Kapolei
Golf Course located North of the Honolulu airport. A fellow graduate of
Beloit College invited me.
May 20-21:
After adjusting to the 6 hour time change between Cincinnati and Hawaii, we
then headed for Bali on May 20th via Guam on Continental airlines. We landed
at the Denpasar airport (DPS) at 9:20PM on the 21st having lost most of the
21st to our traversing of the dateline which throws you forward by 1 day. The
reality of the new time change was just another 6 hours.
I've always wanted to visit Bali. Altho, the primary religion of Indonesia is Muslim, Bali is primarily a Balinese version of the Hindu religion and its people are well known for being open to other people and other beliefs.We visited Egypt in March and we did not feel the same "welcome" that we felt in Bali. Egypt was actually pretty scary.
We started our Balinese adventure in a resort hotel called the Alum KulKul. This is a wonderful boutique hotel located in the Kuta area of Denpasar. We stayed here a total of 4 nights.
May 22-25:
In our investigations of what to see and do in Bali, the community of Ubud was
frequently mentioned. I must admit that we thoroughly trashed the pronounciation
of this town's name until AFTER we arrived in Denpasar when we discovered that
it is pronounced more like OOO BOOOD and not U BUD. Ah well, you always are
learning on these trips anyway. Our friends had already visited this community
some years ago and stayed at a resort called the Chedi. They discovered that
it had been renamed the ALILA UBUD. We
decide to stay there as we did not really know anything else about the area.
This is a georgeous resort a bit out of the way from downtown Ubud. The rooms
are beautiful and the food at the restaurant is excellent. However, there is
a 15 minute taxi/bus ride to get to the things that are going on in Ubud. If
I visit Ubud again, I will look for something closer to town.
We stayed 3 nights at the Alila and enjoyed every one of them. Ubud is lots of fun for shopping and also for experiencing the artistic side of Bali. We attended a Balinese Dance called the Kecak which also included a fire/trance dance. Amazing is all I can say about this.
Here is a map of Bali for reference (I stole this from another site and the circles are meaningless except that it is easy to see where Ubud and Kuta are. If you are going to do your own trip to Bali, some of the other circled areas may be of more interest. There is a lot of diving on the North East shore.
May 25-26:
On the 25th, we returned to the Alum KulKul resort in preparation for our charter
airplane flight to Wakatobi on the 26th. The drive from Ubud to Kuta is over
an hour unless you are driving at night when there is less traffic (there is
NEVER no traffic). We did not want to risk missing our flight to Wakatobi. Kuta
is only 2 miles from the airport.
May 26-June 2:
Wakatobi Resort: Dive Dive Dive. The pictures speak for themselves. If you are
looking for a cheap resort, this is not the place to go. If you are looking
for an amazing remote island get away with scuba diving as the focus, you bet
its the place to go. This is the best run diving operation that I've ever experienced.
Considering how truly remote it is from any city of any size, its absolutely
amazing how well it is operated and how good the food is and and and. Its just
not cheap. I might add that there is a dedicated air conditioned room specifically
for photographers; SERIOUS photographers.
June 2-3:
Staying again at the Alum Kul Kul, we explored Kuta and the shopping there.
Lots of good deals and lots of interesting things to see. If there is any place
in Bali that is not safe, Kuta is probably the spot. They did have a bombing
in 2005 which killed a number of Australians in a nightclub not far from the
Alum KulKul resort. When shopping there were a number of "fun" T-shirts
with different slogans indicating a certain lack of respect for the terrorists.
It angers me that the radical Muslims did this to such a gracious and peaceful
people as the Balinese. We had a great time in Kuta and will be going back in
the future. The Balinese deserve our support and our tourist dollars. S---W
the terrorists (substitute the F-word if you want as that was what was on the
T-shirts).
The reason we stayed in Kuta for an extra night before heading back to Hawaii and Maui was simply that the Continental flight to Guam operates only every other day. In retrospect, we could have spent an extra 2 days in Kuta. It was fun.
Shopping is an experience here. Be ready to bargain. If you are not willing to bargain for things, you WILL get the wrong end of the deal. If you are willing to bargain, you will find wonderful prices for clothing and art in the many shops located everywhere. You could furnish a home completely from Bali. Its just incredible. I purchased some very nice Batik shirts for under $7.00 each.
ATM's are everywhere. You can obtain the local currency by simply visiting the ATM's on an as needed basis. It does take a while to adjust to the exchange rate which was 9,200 rupia for $1.00 US. I tended to thing in terms of 10,000 rupia units. A price of 50 would mean 50,000 which would only be $5.43 US. Shirts were always less than $100,000 unless you happen to find the Milo's in Kuta.... Georgeous stuff but really expensive.
Food!!! Its very inexpensive and very good. We stopped at one local restaurant and had a complete lunch for both of us and it cost only $4.00 US including tip.
For those looking for an inexpensive vacation, there are good hotels for far less than we paid. I saw one where we ate lunch so cheaply. The Hotel Karthi has a "super delux room" for only $32/night. If you do a bit of research, you can reduce your costs for a Bali vacation by a bunch.
June 4th - Sighhhh.... Leaving Bali to return to Hawaii and then Maui on Continental. Again, flying thru Guam. This time, we go through the date line the other way and will actually arrive in Honolulu before we leave from Denpasar!!!
June 4th - Honolulu - Stayed at the Best Western Plaza at the Airport. DON'T STAY AT THIS HOTEL. ITS TERRIBLE. You can read my review at trip advisors for more information.
June 5-10
Back on track for more fun, we head to Maui and the Kaanapali Villas. This was
an OK place to stay and had a great beach. We rented a room which turned out
to be some form of time-share that someone else owned. It was an OK room but
only had a pull-down double bed which proved to be a minor problem.
I wanted to do a bit more scuba diving and looked up a local dive shop called Maui Diving . A very nice lady by the name of Bia arranged for me to have a couple of shore dives in the hope of seeing a manta ray. That did not work out but I did get my first experience with an underwater electric scooter. It did not take a graduate degree to figure out that it was either scooter OR camera and not both. So, I have no pictures from the scooter adventure. Was fun even tho we saw no Mantas. We did see a bunch of turtles tho. Bia also set me up with Ed Robinson Diving and a 3 tank boat dive to the Molokini Crater. That was a wonderful experience and when I go back to Maui, I will do this again. Ed Robinson's group was very professional as well and perfect for an experienced level of diver. They seem to be careful about mixing experienced and inexperienced divers on certain trips. On the scooter/shore dive, there was one real new diver and he slowed us down a bunch. The dive master associated with Maui Diving worked very well with him.
June 10-11:
Return to Cincinnati. We did a round trip on American Airlines to Maui in order
to get the best deal on air fare. American must think we all are shrinking in
size as they have compressed the coach seat to seat distance to such a small
distance that only a midget would be happy excepting the fact that the seats
are all built for larger people. They no longer provide meals on long flights
either. And, on our return, we had two different flights delayed due to equipment
problems. An equipment problem on one flight, I can understand. On two flights,
it indicates sloppy maintenance to me. I will not choose American Airlines any
time soon.
NOW TO THE PICTURES (CLICK HERE):
On