Eastern Bali

First orientation

About Eastern Bali

Eastern Bali — governed largely by the Karangasem regency — is defined by one overwhelming geographic fact: Mount Agung, the island's highest volcano at 3,031 meters and most sacred peak. The entire landscape radiates from Agung's flanks, with black sand beaches at the coast, village terraces climbing into the mid-slopes, and dense jungle giving way to bare volcanic rock near the summit. This is the most spiritually charged corner of Bali. Pura Besakih — the 'Mother Temple' and largest temple complex in Bali, consisting of 86 separate temples — clings to Agung's southwestern slope at 1,000 meters, its tiered meru towers visible against the volcano above. The coast road from Padangbai northward through Candidasa and Amed to Tulamben passes through a completely different Bali to the tourist south. Villages are smaller, roads are quieter, the pace is slower. Amed is a string of fishing hamlets with traditional jukung outrigger fishing canoes on the black sand beach, their painted prows pointing out to sea each morning. The local economy still runs partly on salt production — pans filled from the sea and evaporated by the sun, just as they have been for centuries. Tulamben, 30km north of Amed, is globally famous in diving circles for a single shipwreck: the USAT Liberty, an American cargo ship torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in 1942 and finally pushed into the sea by the 1963 eruption of Agung. The wreck lies at 5-30 meters depth, accessible directly from the beach, colonized by over 400 species of fish and dense coral growth. Sidemen Valley, inland from Candidasa, is often called 'the old Ubud' — a slow, green valley of rice terraces and weaving villages with Mount Agung filling the northern horizon.