Ambon hotel one night?

[highdesert]

No. That would have been expected, and fine if it wasn't too loud and didn't go on too long (my opinion). It was the corporate kind of music you hear in a plane after it lands. Drove me bonkers!

YMMV

- Bill

Last trip to Indo, I was awakened before dawn by a combination of elevator music, roosters crowing, and pigs grunting. What was I gonna do? I laughed to myself and thought "Yup, we're in Indo!" So I put in my earplugs (Note: You ALWAYS carry earplugs in Indo) and went back to sleep. The music, the chickens, the pigs ... you need to decide if you're there just to be fed a comfortable Western type experience, or if you want to take advantage of your time to really immerse yourself in an amazing country. Personally, I would go back to the same resort knowing up front that I should expect that experience! And to have a year to do it? Can you say paradise? Look at the upside ... you didn't have the 4:00AM recorded call to prayer broadcast through the village, and I mean THROUGH THE VILLAGE ... that's when you REALLY want those earplugs.

 

[billt4sf]

H

Hey Bill,

I'm planning a trip to Ambon/Banda in April next year, in lieu of any recent forum reports, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts & experiences?

Cheers

Hey Webster:

I'm not one for really long and detailed trip reports, but my buddy and I are in Banda now. The internet here is pretty good for text and some images, sometimes even for streaming video, but somehow FaceTime does not seem to have enough bandwidth.

But anyway...

Banda is nice. Good diving. Blue Motion good op. Very flexible to meet your needs, for me that's gearing up close to the jump point so I don't have to walk with the gear on, and taking my gear off in the water. They take care of our gear all week, there are no more than four divers plus dive guide with a group, good briefings, they take you deep if you want to look for big stuff but then end each dive with a long time on a shallow (and very nice) reef, air only at this time, food is decent / good but not more than that. Two hour surface intervals - it's a LONG way from anywhere if you get bent. Nice place to sit out after the dive and have a snack (provided) with your dive buddies. A great combination of really relaxed, yet very competent dive operation. Glad I went with them. There is another dive op, but Im not sure if they are ready for prime time.

Nice mix of reefs and big stuff -- tuna underneath us, bumphead parrotfish, giant trevaly (sp?), some saw hammerheads but I have not -- yet! Seems to me that some of the reefs are highly impacted by bleaching but I am not an expert, definitely there was a fair amount of dead coral. Water temps are 30 - 32. Mostly walls, some with like caves..

Far more people (divers) than I expected! I thought it was a small out-of-the-way place -- but it is on the tourist circuit now. There were 20 - 30 divers each day with Blue Motion. Two boats, we did not find the reefs too crowded but some might. We passed other groups from our dive boat most dives, but I never experienced anything remotely resembling a clusterf**k. We did two dives / day, you could do a third night dive, too.

We stayed at Bintu Ceilang (sp?) which is the "best" place in Banda, I think we paid abut 350K/night. Includes 24-hr electricity, aircon, decent (not great) food, Rafa at Blue Motion can fix you up with the accommodation choices.

The ride over from Ambon is a PITA but what are you going to do. Some would like it I guess. You might want to "splurge" for the VIP section in the ferry -- seats are more comfortable, aircon more functional, but they do play movies (we saw an American "get the radical terrorists" thing) and Indo music videos. They were WAAAAYY loud at first, we asked them to turn it down and they did. Bring some snacks for the long ride.

Banda over and out!

- Bill & Mark

 

[billt4sf]

Last trip to Indo, I was awakened before dawn by a combination of elevator music, roosters crowing, and pigs grunting. What was I gonna do? I laughed to myself and thought "Yup, we're in Indo!" So I put in my earplugs (Note: You ALWAYS carry earplugs in Indo) and went back to sleep. The music, the chickens, the pigs ... you need to decide if you're there just to be fed a comfortable Western type experience, or if you want to take advantage of your time to really immerse yourself in an amazing country. Personally, I would go back to the same resort knowing up front that I should expect that experience! And to have a year to do it? Can you say paradise? Look at the upside ... you didn't have the 4:00AM recorded call to prayer broadcast through the village, and I mean THROUGH THE VILLAGE ... that's when you REALLY want those earplugs.

Hi Desert,

I am not going to disagree with you. For better or for worse, my tastes ave changed quite dramatically in the last few years as I have gotten older. I used to love to travel to developing countries, so all around, stay anywhere, go where tourists have not gone before, etc. No longer. Now I want to stay on the tourist circuit, be as comfortable as I can, I highly value cleanliness and quiet in my environment.

It's just the way it is for me. Call me an old fogey.

- Bill