View from my hotel in Candidasa, East Bali. Gorgeous.
Bali wasn’t a place I dreamed of visiting. Not even on my radar. I’m not a reader of silly books or consumer of sappy movies, so I can’t even claim ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ inspired me to travel there.
With less than two months to go before a planned trip to Thailand in 2013, I was encouraged to detour to Bali after a scuba diver I met at the Browning Pass Hideaway, a 90 minute boat ride north of Port Hardy B.C., recommended it.
She told me Bali was an amazing place to dive. So I went. Pretty easy to do since everything is close-ish to everything else in Asia.
I found a terrific dive company, AquaMarine, which arranged for my dives, lunches on dive days, transfers to dive sites, airport (from-to) transportation and accommodation. All for about $1100 (CDN) for six days. The airfare on Air Asia was about $300 from Don Muang Airport in Bangkok. The flight could have been cheaper, but I added meals, VIP arrival and departure airport packages and seat selection.
The hotel, the D’tunjung Resort in Candidasa, East Bali was spectacular. Breakfast was included. My room was a very comfortable cottage with an outdoor bathroom, with very high walls. I slept under my first ever mosquito net there! Excellent food too. Lovely staff.
I could merrily drone on, but no need. Have a look at the photo gallery. Paradise.
tankstravels.com 
Oh, been to Bali many times and always enjoy the island. I like the diving in Bali but for diving, I may Indonesia offers too many nice dive sites like in Komodo, North Sulawesi or Raja Ampat.. 🙂 Anyway, enjoy your dive, and don’t forget to look for harlequin shrimp!
Thanks for comment. Hoping to return in 2015 to visit some of the terrific dive sites you noted. A magical place.
Never been to Bali but a colleague (also a diver) recently vacationed there too. He loved it. Now I’m really inspired to consider it.
The photography opportunity is amazing!
It’s a long way to travel but worth a visit.
I’m delighted you enjoyed your time in Bali, and with AquaMarine Diving – Bali 🙂 We look forward to welcoming you back again before too long!
Thank you so much Annabel. I had my best diving day with your crew last year and I look forward to seeing you all again. I’m also grateful to you for collecting my ‘lost’ hat at the Pedangbai restaurant. I will be back. You can count on it.
Great to hear you’ll be back – any idea when? 🙂
I wish you and your hat many happy travels together!
Annabel
Will be next year during Mola Mola season. Will get back in touch then. Maybe add a live aboard this time.
That sounds like a very good plan, Karen!