Indonesia: Bali - July 2008

Pantai Songean is the perfect beach. A beautiful cove of black sand, discovered a year ago, in Bali.

Reef Seen Dive Center in Pemuteran hosts children's dance classes. Adorable little girls Balinese dancers ...

Everyone is scared of sharks. It's silly. There is more danger for divers: the giant triggerfish, also called titan triggerfish.

A few more images from my last stay in Bali. Unusual images this time, to start the week with a smile.

In Bali, all people seem to have the same name. You cross three Nyoman and five Wayan during the day. Bizarre. A joke made to tourists? But no !

Balinese coffee, or kopi Bali, is tasty and full-bodied. Every morning, since my return, I finish waking up in front of a cup of kopi Bali.

Yes, I bring you (again) under the surface ... To finish with the wreck of the Liberty in Bali, I propose below a small series of underwater photos.

The Liberty is Bali's best-known (and most popular) wreck. It is located in Tulamben, near Amed, on the northeastern coast of the island.

I'll take you back a few weeks in July 2008. Not quite in Bali, but right next door. A little further southeast, on the small island of Nusa Lembongan. A place I loved, where almost all the inhabitants are seaweed growers.

In Kuta (Bali), people are photographed in front of the monument to the Bali bombings of October 12, 2002.

I can not resist the pleasure of showing you on video the dance of the mola-mola (and, of course, the mola-mola), after having (finally) met this big moon fish in the waters of Nusa Penida. 

I'm taking you back to Bali, Indonesia. Amed, exactly, on the northeast coast of the island. Despite the development of tourism in the region, there are still some salt marshes and saunas here.

Among my most beautiful memories of Bali: the sunsets on the Agung volcano in Amed and the molas-molas, gigantic moon-fishes crossed off Nusa Penida ...

To fight the spleen of the return, I walk on the beach again. The one in Kuta-Legian-Seminyak, known as Kuta Beach. An immense and splendid tongue of grey sand, well packed as it should be, which I love to walk in one direction, then in the other, until the time of the fabulous sunset.

I'm in a melancholy mood tonight. I leave Nusa Lembongan to return to Kuta, Bali. The return is approaching. I console myself with a beautiful sunset on the bay of Jungut Batu ...

Yes, yes, I swear! It's exhausting to walk up and down this beach. From the losmen (small hotel) to the dive-shop (dive shop), then the dive-shop to the restaurant, the restaurant to the bar, then the bar to the losmen ... Crevant, I tell you!

Eh yes ! I am a little lucky. I saw a mola-mola today at Crystal Bay again. One time is not customary this morning: excellent visibility and little current, both for this beautiful first dive, and for the second, Toyah Pakeh Bay.

That's it !!! Finally ! I met him! Today in Crystal Bay. I'm happy, happy, happy! My new friend is called mola-mola, or moon fish.

Four days already, I'm in Nusa Lembongan, a small island southeast of Bali. Atmosphere very peaceful, as I like, not too crowded with tourists ...

Oh dear ! Not yet had the time to tell all my dives in Amed, that already, I attack those of Nusa Lembongan. And no half measure: I take you directly to Manta Point !!!

My stay in Amed, in north-east Bali, ends (sigh). I like this place !!! Here are two souvenir images: a sunset over the Agung volcano and a toad fish photographed in Tulamben.

Let's go for a little motorcycle tour in the Amed region, in the north-east of Bali. On the program: rice fields, temples, markets and... cockfighting!

The Liberty wreck in Tulamben (about 15 km west of Amed) is Bali's most popular dive site in Indonesia. I returned with happiness ... Here are new pictures (photos and video).

Here I am in Amed, all east of Bali. The coast is hemmed in by a series of cute coves of sand and black pebbles, where the bright colors of the junkungs, the small fishing boats with pendulums of the corner, line up.

I remain under the spell of Pemuteran, in northwestern Bali. Between two dives, I even attended dance rehearsals and preparations for a wedding ceremony.

I have been in Pemuteran, a small village in western Bali, since Tuesday. I love it! Here, the entire population is focused on the conservation of the coral reef.

I arrived on Tuesday in Pemuteran, a village on the north coast, just west of Bali. In this area of arid mountains, bordered by black sand beaches, all the activity of the village is turned towards the protection of the coral reef.

This tiny sea horse is hidden in the branches of the sea fans. In Pemuteran (Bali), we see each dive! I do not get tired of photographing them.

I'm reconciled with Lovina Beach! Thanks to two very nice dives, a traditional ceremony facing the sea and a splendid sunset.

Lovina Beach ... The name is nice, but I'm a little mixed about the place. Here, the tourist pressure is certainly less than in Kuta-Legian-Seminyak. Yet I feel to have been more solicited than elsewhere by the indefatigable sellers of sarongs and other trinkets!

I had not been back in Bali for a few years. And here there are a lot of little details that I have great pleasure to find.

Kuta Beach, finally! First and short stage of my Balinese journey. But I run fast on a scooter a little further north, where it's quieter ...

At the moment when you discover this message, I will be in the clouds, towards Asia ... The trip will be a bit long, since I had to juggle the specials of air fares, connections , availability and companies, to fly to Bali at a lower cost.