12.11.11
Today we hired mopeds and went off up the coast to try and find
the site of the Japanese shipwreck. We buzzed over the
hilly terrain with terrific views over each little black
sanded cove lined with smiling water-boatman fishing boats.
We took a wrong turning in land and wound through a tropical
feeling valley, the road shadowed by tall palm trees. Coming
reound a corner at one point was a swarm of school children all
piling out of school, driving like lunatics on both sides of the
road. We had quite a hairy experience when one boy came
tearing towards us on the wrong side of the roads turning around
chatting to his passengers, after several beeps on the horn he
realised he was heading straight for us and at the last second
swerved to avoid us and then continued laughing with his friends.
We didn't find it quite so funny!! We stopped for petrol from a
man at the side of the road, sat on his veranda, he kindly told us
we were going the wrong way and were headed straight for the police!
So we back tracked and found the turning he had directed us to. This
continued up and down hill aong the coast passed numerous small
resorts and diving schools, until we came across a sign for parking
for the Japanese wreck.
The wreck was off a stony beach, only about 5 metres off shore.
However it still took a little time to find as the tide kept taking
us off in the wrong direction. Snorkelling around this wreck was
another magical experience. We had been disappointed that we couldn't
afford to scub around this and the Liberty wreck but in actual fact
you couldn't have seen a huge amount more around this wreck as it was
in such shallow water.
It's really quite eery under water, I'm always a little afraid, especially
when you are swimming over the skeleton of a near complete hull and you
can imagine what the ship must have looked like. On the ships carcass
was all different types of coral. Barin matter was being nibbled on by
tiny electric blue fish. I swam through huge sholes of silver fish
flashing in and out the autumn forest growing off the main hull. Below
on the sea floor was huge blue starfish and larger fish lurking in the
shadows. Just behind the main bulk of the ship the sea bed suddenly got
a lot deeper. There was little coral from this point and the water seemed
a lot cloudier. I was too scared to venture beyond this point, my
imagination going in to over drive!
Afterwards we went for lunch a short walk in to a resort up a hill with
great views overlooking the bay, before we had to nip back for a taxi to
take us to Kuta.
On the 3 hour drive back to Kuta, we passed Tirta Ganga again and the
beautiful views of the rice terraces in the valley below. Our driver
kindly stopped for me to take snaps. The journey was relatively swift
all the way to Sanur, as there is a dual carriage way that is partly
open. Then at Sanur you hit traffic and Kuta is a maze of one way
systems with hundreds of taxis sat at a stand still.
Our driver 'missed' the turning for the one way road we needed to get to so
dropped us off in Poppies II and we began the arduous prcess of room hunting
in our budget. We ended up choosing somewhere slightly over our budget
because it was just so much nicer and cleaner than the places we had
found at the top end of our budget, which were just really grotty!
To be honest neither Martin nor I had been looking forward to coming to
Kuta, with it's reputation for being the 'party capital' of Kuta but
we thought we should probably do some partying at some point on our
travels. I particularly had to coax Martin in to coming somewhere
where the main purpose was to go out for beer!!
Anyway on first impressions, Kuta lived up to our expectations. Poppies
I and II are full off tacky souvenir stalls and trinket shops interspersed
with cafes and bars. The place is full of skimpily dressed Aussies/Brits in
obscene T-shirts! But we found a a warong that was in lonely planet that
had a huge menu of Indonesian food and for really cheap.
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