East Bali Trip 2010: Itinerary Beyond Kuta-Legian

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Kuta-Legian has become boring. There are times where I love the Kuta-Legian strip, surf the beach as the sunset approach, then patron one of the club, just to have cans of beer or glass of Martini. But on when working on the Bali itinerary for this trip, I begin questioning myself: "Is there anything else in Bali aside from Kuta-Legian? Can we do something else than surfing, clubbing and watching sunset?"



The east coast of Bali got my interest. It is relatively unexplored, and offer something different: Scuba Diving. There are Tulamben, with its famous Liberty Wreck that I last visited in 2006. And also Amed, a relatively new area developed to cater Scuba Diver as well.

Along the way, there are plenty of place to stop by. The Tirta Gangga, one of 3 water palace built by the last monarch of East Bali is a short detour away from the main road. If you are interested in culture, Bali Aga, the origin of Balinese village, is also short detour away. For a longer exploration there are Pura besakih, the holiest place on the island. Trekking of highest peak of the island, Mount Agung, are also available for naturalist.

There are simply too much place to go and things to do in East Bali, that it is practically impossible to cover all in one trip. We did spend quite some time to finalize our itinerary, and finally made our mind. We choose the beach: Tulamben for Scuba Diving, and Candidasa, the sleepy fisherman town to escape the hustling Kuta-Legian.

For practicality purpose, we are going to spend few night at South Bali. We choose Seminyak, which has undergone a massive development in the recent years, but still relatively new to explore, and Petitenget, which is trailing Seminyak in terms of development.

With that plan in mind, we drive our car to Ubud, our staging point for the exploration.