Our current hotel, the Sunari Villas & Spa Resort, is located directly on the Bali Sea along the road from Bueleng to Seririt. Our room is about 70 meters from the beach. Unfortunately, it's not really suitable for swimming, as there are only boats anchored or lying on the dark sand. However, we do have a wonderfully beautiful pool area.
Snorkeling off the coast of Bali
After a hearty breakfast, we spent the morning snorkeling on an offshore reef. A local man took us out to sea in his dugout canoe in about 15 minutes. Beneath the water's surface, we discovered a beautiful reef landscape. Countless fish of all sizes and colors swam around us. We saw blue-striped surgeonfish, moorhenfish, butterflyfish, and parrotfish, among others. To attract even more fish, we fed them small pieces of bread. Brave fish even took food directly from our hands. At times like these, I always fret that I don't have an underwater housing for my camera.
Bali – Pura Meduwe Karang
In the afternoon, we drove to the Pura Meduwe Karang Hindu temple in Kubutambahan, 30 minutes away. At the entrance, there are 34 stone figures depicting various motifs, from gods to pigs.
Here, we once again learned the hard way how the Balinese have learned to rip off tourists. First, we had to rent a sarong—a type of skirt—only to then be forced to donate our actual change. The sarong certainly has a religious connotation (temples may only be entered with covered knees), but when we see locals in the temple also wearing shorts, we don't see any point in paying for it.
Then a kind of guide told us historical things about the temple the whole time – without us having asked. At the end we would come to the usual "lament" like "I have to buy food" or "I have 20 children at home" etc. This kind of thing always ruins the experience of "visiting the temple" for us. And as if that weren't enough, just as we were about to leave, a woman stood in the car door. We were also supposed to pay the parking fee... Of course, these aren't large amounts of money, but I think that if we went along with it and paid everything, there would soon be people on every corner wanting to collect money. At times we also had the feeling that the rip-off artists weren't operating under government supervision or a license.
