A growing number are taking a good long look at Karangasem on Bali’s east coast. The Aman Group's Amankila has been here for some years, and have been joined by ALila hotels more recently.
Large new projects are underway. Just north of Padang Bai, at the seaside village of Amuk, five kilometres to the south of Candi Dasa, plans are well advanced for the construction of a an internationaI cruise ship terminal comprising two 150 metre piers and terminaI complex. Construction is expected to be compteted in 2009 and to cost atmost US$10 million. Ultimately it is hoped the facility will attract as many as 200 ships a year. Larger yet, Korean investors are developing 124 hectares at Bugbug and Perasi, nort of Candi Dasa. The project is said to be US$153 million and includes an 18 hole golf course from one of the wor[d's elite designers as well as an integrated resort with villas and condotel.
Perhaps the most important incentive for the potentiaI purchaser is that by the end of this year, the provinciaI government is expected to change the zoning of much of the coast so that it can be devetoped from a tourism devetopment point of view.
Bali Tours : What's the attraction and why has it taken so long for people to acknowledge it?
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The reason is simple - beachfront property, or property with panoramic coastaI and mountain views, is stiI abundant and still at very affordabLe prices. The topography is somewhat similar to the Bukit. From Padang Bai right the way through to the northern borders of the regency, the foothills rise quickly from the coast. And this type of landscape allows homes to be designed constructed to take advantage of stunning views.
So why has it taken so long for the east coast to be "discovered"? Up until a couple of years ago, few but the most independent of visitors made it to Karangasem. For one thing it was agony getting there.
Sure, you could climb on the Perama Shuttle with enthusiastic German backpackers, or for the truly hardy, the Batu Butan-Amtapura public bus, along with the chickens, pigs and sacks of rice and sugar. This was a bit of an adventure, but the novelty palled somewhat after the first six or seven hours, as the bus stops at every wide spot on the road. Or you could hire a car or motorbike and hack your way east through Sukawati, BLahbatuh, Celuk, Gianyar and Klungkung and countless villages. in a fog of diesel fumes pumped out by an endless succession of huge inter island trucks, heading to, or coming from the Lombok ferry crossing at Padang Bai.
It was a four or five hour ordeaI to make it Candi Dasa, let along points further afield. But with the opening of the new LB, Mantra Sanur Kusamba Bypass, all that has changed. The new four lane (in most places) highway has cut the journey to 90 minutes or so.
The rationaIe behind the new highway was to take all the heavy inter-island traffic way from the narrow roads and highly built up areas it previousty had to transit. It’s certainly done that, but it's a[so opened up a beautiful stretch of coast to tourists expatriate residents and investors a Like.
Bali Tours : One of Bali's best kept secrets
Karangasem, the regency which makes up most of the east of the island, is one of Bali's best kept secrets. Because it has had relatively Little tourist deveLopment. Large parts of the regency are stitl "the urali Ba.' used to be."
It contains some real treasures. For example there's a village inhabited by Bali Aga. the originaI people of Bali, whose culture and traditions are unique. There's world class diving on the wreck of a 10,000 tonne ship. There are two fabulous water palaces, there's an astoundingly attractive temple on the side of the island's biggest voLcano.
There are stunning rice fie[ds and snake-fruit plantations, white-water rafting, a temple in a cave with a troop of monkeys, there is w'onderfuI snorkelling at bay after bay along the Amed Cemeluk coast. Unspoited friendly people, great accommodation to suit all budgets, fresh sea food.
The LocaI government seems to be highly efficient and visitor-friendly. The roads and other infrastructure in Karangasem are some of the best on the island.
The list goes on.
What the regency does not have, is the noise and crowds of the tourist centres of the south. Karangasem is peacefut, laidback and relaxed.
Back in the 1980s, there were high hopes that the seaside village of Candi Dasa would become the Kuta of the East Coast. This expectation was doomed from the start because it was based on a fundamentaI misunderstanding. It happened l"ike this... Intrepid travellers passing through Candi Dasa liked what they saw - a white sand beach with a beautiful unspoiLed lagoon full of coral and tropical fish, simpLe bamboo huts on the water's edge, cheap local food - so they stopped and stayed. And when they returned to the south they told their friends who came too, and stayed and stayed.
The Candi Dasa locals, a bit bemused by this influx. popped down to Kuta to check it out and decided (without asking what people wanted) that they woutd build in Candi Dasa something to rival the success of Kuta, and this was the misunderstanding, for the flood of visitors to Candi Dasa were motivated as much by a desire to escape Kuta's commercialism as to enjoy Candi Dasa's unspoiled ambience. The result? The more Candi Dasa developed, the fewer the travellers who stayed. Word-of-mouth did the rest.
It wasn't untiI almost a decade later that the area started to realise its true potentiaL. Fast forward to the mid 90s, and the very canny Aman Group, creative hoteliers par excellence. High above the Lombok Strait, they built the truly outstanding Amankila. Stand-alone villas cascading down the ctiff- face to the sea below. More recently, Alila HoteLs, as creatjve and unique their own way as the Aman people, put the vllage of Manggis well and truly on the map.
Bali Tours : So what's the Karangasem coast all about and what opportunities does it offer?
Coming from the south on the new highway , cross into Karangasem Regency a littte to the north east of Kusamba, at Goa Lawah, famous "Bat Cave" temple. It's at this point that the foothills of the mountains in the interior come tumbling down to the coast, and this is where the fabulous views across the Lombok Strait begin.
Bali Tours : Padang Bai
This is the ferry terminal for road traffic to and from Lombok and the islands of Nusa Tenggara Timur. A successjon of rusty roll- on rotl-0ff ferries make the crossing round the clock. The trip usualy takes about four hours but the Lombok Strait is notorious for its currents and sometimes the crossing can take up to 20 hours in adverse conditions. (At 250 m, it's one of the deepest straits in area and carries vast voLumes of water as it's one of the main passages for the Indonesian throughftow that exchanges water between the Indian 0cean and the Pacific 0cean.)
Despite its roLe as a ferry port, Padang Bai has more than a Little charm. The land overlooking the bay has great views north, east and back down the coast.
Bali Tours : Labuanamuk Bay
From Padang Bai north east to Manggis, the road runs a Littte inland from the coast, but minor roads lead through coconut groves down to the shore. It's along this stretch that the national oiI company Pertamina has its oiL-tanker terminal. There are also plans to build a cruise ship terminaL nearby.
Bali Tours : Manggis
Home to both the Amankila and the Alila, Manggis is one of the most attractive parts of the coast. An elevated promontory, the Patih Hill at 227 m and the 136 m Indrakila Hil, juts into the strait. From its clifftops there are wonderfull, views across the strait to the east, and back to the voLcanic peaks to the north and northwest. 0n clear days the 3726m peak 'Lombok's Mount Rinjani, Indonesia's second highest mountain can be plainly seen. At sea level, along the black sand beach are acres of coconut plantations. It's aLong this stretch of coast that the internationaI cruise ship terminal is being built.
Bali Tours : Balina
Now the road hugs the coast. Inland there are rolling foothills giving good views up and down the shore. Balina is moderately developed with guest accommodation, and there's a marine reserve. The beach is bLack and rocky in parts, but it's pretty and largely unspoiled.
Bali Tours : Tenganan
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This community, living in a valley between the 340m Pudak and 315m Kangin Hill, inland from the main road is home to the Bali Aga people whose forebears were the originaL Balinese who came to the island before the Hindu Majapahit era. their villages are built in a style totally recent to a typical Balinese community. Although particularly conservative, the Bali Aga have parlayed their uniqueness into becoming a major tourist attraction. The Land to both the east and the west of the valley is particularly attractive and offers fantastic views.
Bali Tours : Candi Dasa
The village of Candi Dasa proper is of little interest to the prospective landownet beyond the facilities it offers. It has money changers and severaI reasonably well-stocked mini markets. But it's mostly under-occupied mid- range hotels, guest houses and restaurants. The beach no longer has the appeaI it did 20 years ago. Much of the reef was dynamited to provide building-foundatjon materials. The currents swept away the white powder sand and upset the ecology to the point where nothing much lives in the lagoon any more. Ugly groynes were constructed from concrete drainage pipes to halt the erosion, but their effectiveness is questionable.
However the land to the east of the village, after the ro
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ad to Amlapura has disappeared inland, is particularly interesting. The 299m Gumang Hill lies a Littte inland and slopes to the coast providing a bit of elevation over a largeLy unspoiLed stretch of coast. this is where the Koreans are building their US$153 million 18-hole go[f course and integrated resort. A quick Look at the map shows that that even with this deveLopment, there is still plenty more beach and hillside land available along this stretch of coast.
Bali Tours : Amlapura
The regency's capitaL and the largest city in East Bali. Amlapura has Untitle to recommend itself beyond being the seat of Local government. As has been already mentioned, it seems that the civiI service is particularly competent here, since the infrastructure throughout the regency is the envy of the occupants of the rest of the island. The roads are particularly good, for example, and it's said that the bureaucracy is very investor-friendly in terms of permits and smoothing the way for deveLopment.
Bali Tours : Mount Seraya coast
The north of Amlapura is dominated by Mount Seraya, 1238m. The main road on its way to Amed, TuLamben, and points further afield, runs inland to the west to skirt it. But the coast, because of its historic in accessibility, is largely untouched and offers spectacular views.
Bali Tours : Amed
The road from Amlapura to Amed winds up the western slopes of the mount Seraya massif, passing the Tirtagangga water palace, before crossing the pass at Abang.
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This is an area that has seen an explosion of tourist-oriented development n the last two or three years. Here are spectacular rice terrace views that many contend are second only to the views at Tegallalang north of Ubud. Here the views stretch all the way to the coast, and on a clear day, right to Lombok. Amed more properly refers to the first of a series of fishing villages that run southeast back down the coast towards Candi Dasa, but to westerners the whole stretch of coast is known as Amed. Previously Amed has its hardy fans – those prepared to drive for hours and to put up with indifferent restaurants and funky accommodation - but now it is well and truly on the map.
For reasons that are unclear, it has become incredib[y poputar with the French, and this is the foreign language of choice during the season . As a result Boutique hotels and beachside bungalows abound and there are quite a number of more than adequate restaurants, many of them specialising in fresh seafood, (this is, after all, a major fishing community and the barbecued mackerel is to die for.) There's a small but surprisingly well-stockec mini-market, moneychangers, and ever internet. Live bands perform at venues sucl as Wawawewe twice a week. Villas, both beachfront and those perched on the steep hillsides, are appearing like mushrooms after a shower of rain. So what's the appeal of Amed? Apart from its reatly interesting topography (the road hugs the sea, swooping from headland to white sand beaches back to headland like the Adriatic coast), the swimming is good and safe, the snorkelling and diving is excellent. the people are simple, friendly and honest, the air is clean, and there's no traffic.
Bali Tours : Tulamben
Half an hour further to the north is Tulamben, fast becoming one of the major underwater photography sites in Asia. The road meanders through rice fields and crops and then breasts a ridge in the foothills before dropping into the Tulamben area. It's markedly different terrain from Amed. It perches on the edge of the lava flow from Gunung Agung's last major eruption in 1963 and is a rocky and wild environment.
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What brings westerners to Tulamben is the diving. It's long been known for the wreck of the 10,000 tonne USAT Liberty, a cargo ship run ashore after it was attacked by Japanese planes towards the end of World War Two. The cargo and all items of value were stripped from the ship and it sat on the shore quietly rusting away untiI Gunung Agung blew its top on 17 March 1963. The seismic activity was so strong that the ship was distodged from the shore and quietly slipped into the sea.
0ver the years it has been colonised by hundreds of different species of fish, corals and marine life and has deservedly become known as Bali's premier diving site. More recently, adventurous divers started to explore other areas nearby and to their surprise found some of the world's rarest sea creatures living in the votcanic sand. Now Tulamben has become a Mecca for underwater photography enthusiasts and is regularly featured in internationaI dive magazines. There's a feeling thatTulamben, in the not too distant future. will experience a blossoming in eco-tourism related development. Already some substantiaI parcels of beachfront Land have come on the market.
It's Bali Tours 'view that Karangasem is an area that is certainly well worth considering by the purchaser who is either Looking for build for him or herself, or for the investor who prefers to take the longer view. While the tried and true areas of south Bali such as 0beroi, the Bukit, Batu Belig, and Canggu offer more immediate benefits. The opportunity for early and consistent rental revenue streams for example Karangasem has its pluses, not the least of which is the relative affordability of the land itself. Enjoy bali tours and travels .
