Lovina

After leaving Ubud on Friday morning I drove north direction Lovin. On the way I made one detour to visit a place that was very scenic indeed. There were a lot of rice terraces of course, and there I also made a small break with hot tea and fried bananas.

On the way I also stopped by a famous temple, it was really crowded there so I didn't really spend much time there. Anyway it was nice to see the temple that is depicted on the 50.000 rupia bill.

Breakfast in Ubud at the Hibiscus Cottages

Woman working in the rice field

Scenery on the way from Ubud to Lovina

The lake where the water temple is

 Water temple at the lake

On my way down to Lovina from the mountains I didn't make any more stops, the scenery was beautiful as always. Around 2pm in the afternoon I arrived in Lovina, which wasn't as touristy as I had expected. I found a nice hotel, and arranged for diving at Menjengan Island for the next day. Diving on Saturday in Menjengan was good, but not as good as I had hoped, in Amed the week before diving was much better. While diving I made some friends, and in the evening we went to the local club called Volcano Club. Clubbing was interesting, and there were mostly locals in the club.

Lovina Beach

Sunset at Lovina Beach

Menjengan Island from the dive boat

Around noon on Sunday I drove to Denpasar to spend one more night there.

Amed, North-East Bali

After getting on the fast boat from Lombok to Bali I arrived in Padangbai in the early afternoon, from here I shared a van with a Dutch family who were also going to Amed. Arriving in Amed I checked in at the Kadek Home Stay, here I got a nice bungalow with sea view, and really nice banana pancake for breakfast.

My place in Amed

The view from my place, the wooden things in front are made to produce sea salt

The sunset seen from my place

Saturday morning I woke up at 6am in order to meet up with Fabien from France to go diving the wreck of the USS Liberty. We had two fantastic dives at the wreck, and one dive in the afternoon at a wall just 500m east of the wreck. The visibility was great, and so was the diversity in marine life.

Sunrise before going diving

On our way back to Amed we went to visit the local factory for Arrac, the strong alcohol they produce here. Of course I had to buy a bottle while I was there, so I brought my own 1,5 l bottle and filled it up with freshly distilled Arrac.

Well, this is where they put the finished product

This is the distillery, run by wood fired ovens

This is the finished product, the one to the far left is the #1 quality that's been distilled many times.

Tomorrow I'm going on a motor bike trip in the are around Amed, heading east along the coast.

Gili Trawangan, Lombok

After staying in Kerobokan north of Kuta for 6 days to recover from a small illness I finally made my way to Gili Trawangang, one of three Islands on the west coast of Lombok. The other islands are Gili Meno, and Gili Air which is closest to Lombok. Arriving here I went to a place called Nusa Tiga on the north tip of the Island. Here I got a basic but good accommodation really close to the beach, and with a good breakfast included in the price.

After meeting up with a friend staying at the same place during the day I went for a few beers in "town" which is a 20 minute walk from Nusa Tiga. The next day started quite slowly, with a banana pancake for breakfast and hanging around on the beach for the rest of the day. In the evening I met up with some friends from the night before to have some drinks in a small bamboo hut on the beach with a reggea band playing.

Well that's how the days go by here in Gili Trawangan, on Monday I went diving at a dive site called Manta Point, the visibility was quite good and so was the dive company. It was really great to go diving again, since the last dive I did was in Australia just before Christmas.

The next plan is to meet a Swiss friend to go for a hike on the Rinjani Volcano in Lombok, this trip will take us 3 days, so 2 nights we'll spend camping in the mountain. Our trek we'll start from Senaru which is 2 hours drive from the ferry port of the Gili Islands. 

On the fast boat from Padangbai to Gili Trawangan

The sunset view from Nusa Tiga, the place where I was staying

A local boat outside of the main jetty in Gili Trawangan

Top End bar in the late afternoon, just before sunset

Sunset at Nusa Tiga, at the north of the island

Early morning at Nusa Tiga, the tide is high and the sun is rising

Sunrise at Nusa Tiga

The view towards the mountains in Lombok from Gili Trawangan

Singapore!

Now I'm back in Singapore after 3 months in Australia. The next plan is to fly to Bangkok and probably do some diving at the Similan Islands in the Andaman Sea.

Greets from Singapore!

The Pump Room at Clark Quay

Chimes, close to City Hall.

Diving SS Yongala of Ayr

I left Cairns together with Torstein (first Norwegian I met in six months...), and we drove to Ayr. We arrived at 5 pm in the afternoon and were lucky enough to dive the SS Yongala because of two cancellations. The next morning we packed up the gear and ready to go, but due to uncertainties about the weather we had to wait for a bit before the trip could start.

After landing the RIB from the beach and a 45 minute long rough boat trip we finally arrived at the dive site of the SS Yongala, a ship that sunk of the Queensland coast in 1911. During the dive we saw the bathtub, the toilets, and parts of the steam engine.

The marine life on this wreck was amazing, we saw a giant Elephant Tail Ray, Giant Cod, and heaps of other marine life.

While we had our surface interval there were several turtles catching a breath while we were having refreshments.

This was definitely a different and interesting dive!

For more information about the wreck, check out this web site.

http://www.timsaxon.co.uk/divesite_yongala.html

The SS Yongala

The position of the wreck, where it has been for 100 years.



The dive briefing before we went out on the RIB.

The RIB with 2 x 200 horsepower engines taking us out to the wreck in only 45 minutes.
The tractor landed the RIB from the beach.

The Great Barrier Reef

Hi,

From Tuesday until Friday this week I was on the liveaboard ship MV TAKA diving the Great Barrier reef. We boarded the boat on Tuesday afternoon, and the next morning we arrived at the dive site called the Cod Hole.

Each day was filled with nice dives, good meals, and poker and Black Jack in the evening. Even though the boat takes 30 passengers there were only 15 diver onboard, this means that there was plenty of space and not so busy during the dives.

Wednesday and Thursday night we had night dives, this was a very nice experience. Friday morning we had two dives in the morning before we went back to Cairns.

The portside of MV TAKA, my home for 4 days while diving.

Overview of the Great Barrier Reef.

Cairns

This is the last weekend in Coolum Beach, on Monday night I'm flying to Cairns for some diving and some tropical days :)

Einar

Ao Nang

Once we got back to the mainland we decided to head over to Thailand and Ao Nang. The bus we went with had had to pass through a lot of military checkpoints due to the unstable conditions in southern Thailand, but it was quicker than taking a plane...

After a night in the Krabi outskirts, we finally reached our destination, Ao Nang and Krabi Resort. Here we had some great days with fishing, tanning and diving before we continued our journey to the awesome city-life of Bangkok!

Fishing trip: I got two quite big fish and had them for lunch the same day :)

This is the Lagoon at Hong Island. At low tide there is no water here at all, so only during high tide it's possible to access this stunning place.

This is after our 2 amazing dives, we went diving with a company called Scuba Addicts and we had 2 great dives.

Semporna, Mabul, and diving at Si Amil Island

Hi,

- Night bus to Semporna and slept on a chair outside a hostel

- Found an hotel for the next night, the Sipadan Inn Hotel

- Went to Mabul Island and stayed at the Summer Friends homestay

- After two days at Mabul we went back to Semporna to relaxed before we went on 3 boat dives at Si Amil Island close to Mabul.

Our flight to KL departed on 1st of August from Tawau, a rund down town close to the Indonesian border.

Our arrival at The Pacific Regency was in the evening, and we really liked our room...