BIRA, SULAWESI - BEACH AND SNORKEL - 3 TO 9 SEPTEMBER 2019

BIRA

COSTS

Makassar to Bira – car – 800 000R

Puri View Inn – great room 400 000R

Motorbike hire – 100 000R with a full tank of petrol

Boat snorkelling tour – 500 000R

Entry fee into Bira Beach area – a one off fee of 20 000r per person

THE ARRIVAL

It was a long drive from Makassar to Bira. Arus was a careful driver. The roads were good except for a section just after leaving Makassar.

We stopped in some town for lunch and coffee.

Ar Bira, we stopped at Riswan Homestay and met Riswan himself. The rooms were small, clean and basic. He also had another guesthouse ‘Puri View Inn’. We drove over to the other side of Bira to look at the rooms. It looked okay and finally he showed us one more room which was very large, tables and chairs, a good size balcony and a view over the ocean. The room itself was made entirely from varnished timber. It looked great so we took it and said our farewells to Arus.

On another day I checked out a couple of other4 hotels. They also had good rooms but they were twice the cost.

RISWAN

Riswan was the owner of the hotel. He had a dry sense of humour.

One day he told us that hundreds of his chickens just died. He also owned a chicken farm. The cause he feels was the stress from the latest weather extremes of cold nights and hot/dry days.

THE BEACHES

Bira Beach

I started most days with a stroll down to the beach and a swim. The water was a bit chilly and it was very quiet. I would stand on the beach watching the boats as the sun rose between the hills and buildings.

During the rest of the day, the beach could be quite crowded with Indonesian tourists from Makassar. They would swim fully clothed. I always use to think that later that would be so uncomfortable but they seemed to enjoy themselves so much.

Quite often people on the beach would ask if they could have a photo of you and them. The asking of the photo was amusing, It varied from very polite English and a prayer gesture with their hands to a grunt and a abrupt come here wave. So now I have so many ‘friends’.

The beach at Bira was white sand and very soft and fine. The waves were small and gently rolled towards the shore. There were many boats moored just off to beach which offered services to tourists.

We would walk along the beach and pick a quiet and secluded spot to sit. The beach at this end was lined with a 4 metre high limestone cliff. Jacinta would sit in the sun while I sat in the shade of the cliff. A nice spot, where it was good to wade through the water or sit and read.

Towards sunset, we would walk down to the beach. I would have a swim on the beach followed by a beer together while sitting on the sand watching the sun disappear below the horizon. Nice!

East Beach

This was a wide white sand beach. It was best at high tide. It was palm fringed with a few shaded spots but watch out for falling coconuts. We would either sit on the beach in the shade of the palms or on a  nice wooden platform when we ate food from Kaluku Cottages.

Bara Beach

This beach was on the other side of the bay visible from Bira Beach. Generally, I think it was a pretty beach though the road to the beach was very rough.

THE SNORKELING AT BIRA

It was an effort to get to the drop off of the reef from the beach as the water was fairly shallow during thee lowering tide. I maneuvered between coral outcrops and slight indentations in the rocks to get to deeper water. I was well rewarded once past the shallow waters with clear water, heaps of fish and coral, schools of fish and three turtles. I drifted along with the current then had a difficult time getting to shore as the water was even shallower. J

On another day, we had a snorkel off the beach. The tide was higher than previously so getting out to the drop off wasn’t as hard. We drifted with the current and saw heaps of fish and some pretty coral.

SNORKELING BOAT TOUR

We organised our gear for a snorkeling tour then set off for the beach to meet Oudin (the skipper of the boat) at 8am, He readied his boat and off we went. It was a hard trip to the uninhabited Goat Island. The wind was strong with a metre swell running against us. The boat bumped and heaved along for about ½ hour in the blustery conditions.

We moored on the sheltered side of the island. The water was crystal clear, calm with a slow drift current. Perfect. The corals were pristine and there was an enormous amount and variety of fish and no one else was there. It was one of the best snorkels I have had ever.

Oudin took us around to the wild, windy and wavy side of the island to show us a monument on the island.

Next, was Liuang Island, which is opposite Bira. He beached the boat and I walked up to the guesthouse on the edge of the beach to check it out. The rooms were good but it  a bit much at 500 000r plus 50 000r per person for meals and 300 000R for a boat drop off and pick up.

I had a snorkel while Jacinta warmed up and baked on the island beach. Once again the water was clear though there wasn’t as much coral or fish. Still, I saw a lot of clown fish.

We picked up Jaciinta from the beach and motored back to Bira Beach.

THE MOTORBIKE

I went looking for a motorbike to hire one morning but no luck. Everyone kept saying ‘tidak ada’, not have but try Warung Bamboo. Eventually, I got to Warung Bamboo but thee only bike they had looked very dodgy with bald tires and being dirty. I came back to the hotel empty handed. Haha!

We decided to walk to the Indomart just outside the main drag of Bira. Along the way, a friendly guy said hello so I asked him about hiring a bike. Yes he said with a choice of two. He hired his bike to us and we drove the rest of the way to the Indomart where we stocked up biscuits, fruit, etc. We were pretty lucky as I nearly didn’t ask him.

FOOD

The food at Bira is not good. Not that it is unclean, it is just that there is no where to eat. BUT there are heaps of warungs and restaurants all selling basically instant noodles. No fruit, no variety!

At first, we ate a lot at the Warung Bamboo. The food was okay but generally, it was a noisy place and the tables were always dirty.

There was another restaurant on stilts to the east of the beach. The cooking was done by a lady from Timor. The food was good and the servings were big. The place was clean and it had an excellent view. This was our favourite.

We also drove the motorbike to Kakulu Cottages at East Beach which had excellent meals and a great view over the beach.

There were a couple of larger hotels with restaurants but they always seemed to be closed as they were mainly dealing with packaged Indonesian tourist with a set buffet of dishes.

Why was the food so poor? Who knows?

We cooked our own breakfast at our hotel – weetbix, coffee and boiled eggs.

THE HIKE

I took the motor bike for a ride over to the start of a nature hike. It was a pleasant hike with lots of butterflies and calls from distant and well hidden birds. The lantana was thick along  the track edge making it difficult to walk. I got a number of scratches.  At one point,  there was a massive web across the track with a huge spider and a number of babies on it.