Tulamben is famous among divers for its US Liberty ship wreck. Some even say that it's one of the best wreck in the world. Me and husband have dived here several times, but we used to stay at Amed. Due to our short period for staying at Bali, this time we chose to stay at Tulamben. People do shore dive at Tulamben, and there are so many hotels that offer sea-view-rooms that are only few steps away from the sea. It's actually a perfect place to dive for parents who don't like to leave their child too long. :)
As parents, we always plan our dive trip to places that are baby or toddler friendly. The place should be easy to reach for our two years old son. Places that need to be reached by speed boat or little boat for hours are not on the list. And, as parents who are both love to dive, we need to bring our maid for babysitting our child while we dive, so places that can be reached with cheaper transport would be our preference. Tulamben is one of the lists, for sure! And, since we're doing shore dive here, so we only need to leave our son just when we're diving. We can even play with the child during our surface interval!
The real plan actually was to dive at Gili Trawangan, and husband will take some days off. But since he suddenly needs to go for some meeting at Jakarta on the dates that we have reserved at Gili Terawangan, so we had to cancel and change the plan. Husband got a training at Kuta for four days, so he took two days off on Friday and Monday and we make time for some dives at Tulamben.
the hotel rooms
We stayed at Ocean View Hotel. The hotel is right in front of the wreck. We used to pass the hotel when we wanted to dive at the wreck at our previous trip, and it seems really nice. It's actually a very new hotel which operates for about a year. They only have nine rooms, all are facing to the sea. The place is very calm and private. They also have kiddy pool, and satellite TV. But too bad that they don't have channel for children. We stayed four nights at room number one, this is the closest to the sea and to the pool and also the most private, so I think it can be their best room. The room is big comfortable and clean with flat screen TV, king sized bed, AC and fan, little sofas and table, and the bathroom is very spacious. The bathroom is very big with both a shower and a huge bathtub. The hot water was hot and plentiful too. It's a very nice place to leave our son during our dives, if he can't swim at the pool then he can just bathing in the huge tub. If just they have some channel for kids, then it will be perfect! Every room has a terrace with two comfortable chairs and a lounger.
the kiddy pool is under this pool actually, too bad that we didn't take any picture of it
room number one : our room
nice terrace
They have a PADI dive center which I think is excellent. They also have their own filling station. I also spot that they have an emergency oxygen so they must be quite professional. And the dive guide.... is excellent! I don't know if all their dive guides are also good, but our guide is perfect! His name is Komang, very agile at the surface. So when they say on their web "Our
dive masters are well familiar with the water and current around this
area, having logged countless dives guiding divers. You are in safe hand
and a knowledgeable patient guide diving with us, a safe dive with fond
memory always.", it's actually true with Komang! There was one time when the wave is pretty big, Komang really know how to enter and exit the water and help us to do so, and also take care of all our gears. He's very nimble. And in the water, Komang finally made us met a pigmy seahorse. We were happy divers! Both me and husband enjoy for a very relax dive, slowly observing the marine life from one spot to another, and our guide can deal with it. I once had a dive guide which was very hasty in the water, and we have to catch him behind otherwise we got lost, we don't have such problem with Komang. In short, I hope we have tipped him good enough! :)
dawn dive in a hope to see mola, but we didn't
big wawe!
The best part is you can plan your dive anytime you want, and the guide will set all your gears for you. You only need to put on your wetsuit and boots, carry your fins and mask and walk to the beach from your room which only need less than two minutes. You will have all your gears set up at the beach. Like this, you can do five dives a day, if you like. :)
The most unpleasant thing about the hotel was the food. It was hard for us to have halal food there. I wear hijab, and the waitress has several times offered me babi (pork) frankly. It might because she doesn't understand, but it already loosen my appetite. Well, next time if we want to come back to Tulamben again, then we surely will stay at the same hotel again, but we will bring our own meals to be safe.
Husband took PPB specialty course during our stay at Tulamben with our friend mbak Unieng, our instructor for many PADI courses. PPB is a short course without book, so why not taking it on our short dive trip.
Our other problem during our stay at Tulamben is that my son suddenly got chicken pox. He must be already infected two weeks before, but view pox came out just when we arrived. We didn't know that it was chicken pox on our first day there, our son didn't have any fever until at night, and we let him swim in the kiddy pool. Uhm... we hope we didn't make other guests infected. If we did, then we are terribly sorry.
Here are some under water life we succeeded in taking pictures, we also have met orang utan crab, but unfortunately none of the pictures was good enough to be shared. :(
