Lovina/Candidasa

Dolphin’s & Driving

We had to be up early as we were due to meet the guy for the dolphin trip at 6.00 outside our hotel, that was once we managed to break-out as all the entrances were locked.

Once we had managed to escape the hotel we waiting for a while in the darkness with our fingers crossed that the guy was going to turn up (it was a deal done on the roadside).  A few minutes late but then there were two people on scooters to pick us up, so Shell and I climbed on the back of them and we were driven down the road and deposited a bit further along the coast.

Whilst we waited for another couple sitting in the dark we wondered whether this was such a good idea seeing there was a storm further out to sea with bolts of lightning hitting the sea in the distance.

By the time we got in our small boat the storm had moved slightly but there was also loads of other boats going out so I guess you have to trust their local knowledge.  We did not have to go that far out in any case the boat driver just headed to where a large flotilla of small boats were gathered and we were soon spotting dolphins.

 

There were literally hundreds of them jumping out of the water in and around all the boats, but at times it did feel as though all the boats were crowding them and pursuing them.  However I guess if they were that distressed by it they would just swim off somewhere else.  Unfortunately because of our crap camera with a shutter speed of 5 seconds we did not get very many good photos.

 

After around 45 minutes the boat driver asked if we had had enough, we told we had so he started to head back to shore, it had been a great start to the day spotting hundreds of dolphins at day break and the driver even dropped us back on the boat to the little beach right next to our hotel.

 

We returned to our hotel to have a bit of breakfast before we checked out.  On check-out we were given a discount because the air-conditioning was not working and so were charged £ 6 for the night, so you can’t really complain.

Getting back in the car our next destination was Candidasa another beach resort on the east coast of Bali and it was going to be our longest leg at just over 100km.  The drive was pretty nice though as it followed the coastline on a single road all the way around about quarter of the island. Two or three hours later and again seeing stunning scenes along the way we arrived in Candidasa.

 

The hotel was a distinct upgrade from Lovina and slightly over budget (it evens itself out – hopefully), but we had a lovely large room with a four poster, outside seating area and an inside and outside showering area.

Again unpacked we headed for the pool/bar/restaurant area which was right on the waters edge with a view of the sea and islands a little further out,  so we sat there and had a couple of drinks and had some fish for lunch and admired the view.

 

During the afternoon we went for a swim in the pool and then I spent some time catching up with the blog, whilst some of us relaxed (Shell had a massage in an area next to the pool) and we had a couple more beers.  The only annoyance was some guy that kept pestering us about what was an expensive sounding snorkelling trip.

In the evening we thought we would check out the main strip which turned out to be pretty deserted (out of season), so after looking for a restaurant for a while we plumped for the one that actually had a few people in and sat down for our evening meal.  We opted for two 3 course set menu’s which although served very quickly were very nice and with a couple of drinks and less than £ 15 for both of us you could not complain.

As the town seemed pretty dead after dinner we just headed back to our room and watched a bit of TV before going to bed.