In Manado, we stayed at NAD Lembeh on Lembeh Island.
It’s a small resort — ten rooms and two cottages, so the maximum occupancy will only be twenty-four. The kind of size travel brochures would refer to as “cosy”, or if it were of more pretentious ilk (which it is not), “boutique”.
The rooms are clean, you can opt for air-conditioned or rooms with just a fan. All rooms are ensuite, and there is hot water in every shower. Really lovely hot water. (More than once we hopped off the boat, cold, wet and shivering from the dive and windy boat ride back, and made a beeline for our room to take our wetsuits off under the glorious hot shower to rinse off.) It’s a gas heater, and you feel a certain satisfaction hearing the flame go fwoosh! when you turn the tap.
The food at the resort was mostly simple but good, the sort that makes mutters of “I think I ate too much…” ad nauseam. Cooked by the locals, there’s also some dishes that would appeal to the European palate.
The resort has five dive guides, and the maximum size of a group is five divers. Mandarinfish dives are US$5 extra, presumably because it’s in the evening so it’s overtime for the crew. Night dives are also US$5 extra. Additional dives to your package are, we felt, reasonably priced at US$30.
Nitrox is available (but I think you have to pay sliiightly more, which is normal for Nitrox).
You can expect warm hospitality from the crew of locals, as well as the friendly Spanish couple, Jo and Sandra, who run the place are almost local. Jo is an avid photographer and his camera equipment has two strobe lights (two will counter the shadows created by one another, I think).
NAD Lembeh
info@nad-lembeh.com
www.nad-lembeh.com
Tags: accomodation, diving, lembeh, travel
