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Indonesia, Manado, SCUBA

Here is a quick trip report of our (Lisa & I) trip to Indonesia in October 2007.

A huge dragonfly visited our outdoor shower room!	Indonesian Clown fish

Travel

We travelled on Singapore airlines from London Heathrow -> Singapore -> Manado. The Singapore airlines flight was superb.

We stopped for an evening in Singapore. What an amazing experience! Singapore city is simply spotless (no litter anywhere).

Singapore airport is an experience in itself and is just huge! It’s clean, not crowded and has cinemas, bars, pools, and a vast range of shops. The airport itself is worth a visit in my opinion!

Accommodation

We stayed at the Siladen Resort & Spa which is a boat ride of roughly 30 minutes from Manado mainland.

Night View of the Pool at Siladen Resort

It’s a small resort with just 15 bungalows. We found it to be a top notch resort with good service and high standards of cleanliness.

During weekdays, it is amazingly quiet on the resort. At weekend, it fills up a bit with people doing long weekend breaks.

Facilities

Siladen offers SCUBA and SPA facilities. Off Island Excursions can be arranged via the dive centre on the island.

During our stay, we used the dive centre, Spa and arranged a trip to Muhawu Volcano.

Dining

The quality of food is superb. There are 3 meals per day + afternoon snacks at around 5pm. Dining is in the main restaurant (next to the pool) except on Saturday evenings where the staff try to do something (we had a barbecue) on the beach (weather permitting).

The resort can arrange a private evening meal on request. We had one (it was my birthday!) on our “private beach” just outside our bungalow. The quality of the food and service was outstanding. One small point to note though:- the amount of food is HUGE! We had around 6 courses each followed by special birthday cake prepared by the resort.

Drinks

Tea, Coffee and water are inclusive. Alcoholic or fizzy drinks are charged extra. A large beer is around 4 US$, cocktails are around 10 US$.

Dive Centre

Staff are really friendly and helpful. This is a resort where everything gets done for you. You just get on the boat and you kit is assembled. At the end of the day, it’s rinsed and dried for you too. Fruit snacks, water and a towel are provided for you too. All you need to bring is yourself onto the boat!

Spa

I’m not really one for regular trips to Spas but we did many hours in the Spa on this holiday. The most memorable for me was the “Sunburn” (yes, I burned again as always) treatment which really helped releive some of the discomfort.

The Diving

We picked Indonesia to holiday this time as it is well known for “weird creatures”. It didn’t dissapoint! During our stay, we saw some things that we’d never seen anywhere else in the world.

Cuttlefish Off Manado Island

 

 

Most of our diving was around Bunaken marine park. This is a national conservation area and you can see why. The corals are pristine and the diversity of life is amazing. We saw weird crabs, shrimps (including a huge “Mantis Shrimp”), Turtles, sea snakes, sea slugs (huge and very weird) as well as the usual assortment of sharks, lion fish etc.

Venemous Sea Snake, Manado

 

We didn’t get to Lembeh (muck diving) unfortunately. This is a bit too far from Siladen.

Indonesia is all about taking your time and looking for the small stuff. The dive guides point stuff out that just look like litter but on closer inspection start to move:- it’s a fish after all!

Environment

One interesting thing for us was the large amount of pollution in the sea. Plastic (bags and bottles) seems to be the main problem and is particularly acute as you get closer to Manado itself.

Plastic Bags Are a Problem

One one dive, we fished out 4 plastic bags that were just drifting underwater. Plastic bags are particularly bad news for sea turtles who choke on them having mistaken them for jellyfish (one of their favourite snacks) but also are bad news for dolphins.

The Siladen Resort does daily beach clean-ups so pollution isn’t a problem on that small stretch of beach but the wider problem still exists.

Like and Dislikes

Overall, we had a wonderful time. To help other travellers to the region:-

Likes

• Top notch service at Siladen Resort.
• Climate. Tropical & Hot!
• Diving. Amazing diversity of life. Warm water (~30 degrees).

Dislikes

• Pollution. Plastic is a real problem with discarded bags & water bottles.
• Lack of clarity on Siladen Exchange Rate Policy. All prices on the resort are quoted in US$. However, when you come to pay the bill, each item is converted into local currency (Indonesian Rupiah) and then back into US$. We found this multiple conversion added a couple of hundred dollars onto the bill. We think it should be clearer up front that this will occur rather than hitting customers with it right at the end of the holiday. Our suggestion would be to take enough US$ (cash or travellers cheques) to settle the bill and refuse to accept the US$ -> Indonesian Rupiah -> US$ conversion.

Indonesia Manado SCUBA

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Rowland :: Oct.26.2007 :: SCUBA Diving :: No Comments »

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