Tuesday, June 22, 2010

More about Tulamben...

The main purpose of our trip to Tulamben was to snorkel at the shipwreck (about 120m long and 30m from shore). However, we decided to do 2 dives instead after discovering how cheap the diving was - $30 each! The diving was amazing. It was almost otherworldly as you’re swimming and suddenly the hull looms out of the blue haze. While we didn’t go inside the wreck (you need a special certificate), the majority of the ship is pretty open so we got to see pretty much everything. The highlight? Seeing a badass barracuda that was about 1m long and a grouper that was hanging out at the very bottom of the wreck that was easily 1-1.5m long and 70-90lbs.

Tulamben beach

view from our room

Although Tulamben is famous for the wreck, they fail miserably in the food department. There were a few restaurants in town but they all served the same crappy food. We couldn’t take it anymore so on the second day, we drove to Amed to try and find something more palatable. What a mistake! After a hour and half of driving around, we stopped at a random warung that looked pretty nice. Silly us – looks are definitely deceiving! We both ordered sate babi and orange juice. What did we get? Raw sate babi and lemon/lime juice in rusty glasses… we’re lucky we didn’t get some sort of food poisoning!

Disgusting fried chicken smothered in tomato sauce at the Paradise Beachfront Restaurant - dinner on the first night

Eating raw pork + drinking lemon/lime juice = unhappy campers

Another highlight of this trip? Watching the local volleyball games. At 4pm everyday, a bunch of villagers get together for some intense volleyball games (they play for $$). I was itching to play but was too shy/nervous to interrupt the games. Some of the guys were pretty decent players too!

On the way home from Tulamben, we got stuck for 20 mins in a religious procession. It was insane - at least 1000 people on the street walking a couple km from temple to temple.

The local seatbelt system

We had heard about this delicious babi guling in a town called Gianyar so we made a little detour to Warung Pande after the procession. I can honestly say that this babi guling blew Ibu Oka in Ubud out of the water (Ros: impossible sounding but true!). The meat was perfectly cooked – succulent, tasty, fresh, and delicious! We stuffed ourselves and was getting ready to leave when they brought out a freshly cooked pig - it was love at first smell...


drool..

1 comment:

  1. I don't believe it! Better than Ibu Oka????!! Also, tell me about Tippi!

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