Manado & Bunaken, North Sulawesi

Manado is more than just a stopover for visitors to Lembeh. Manado Bay, roughly 30 minutes from the airport, has a mix of wonderful muck and reef locations, with distinctive critters including mimic octopus and flamboyant cuttlefish, as well as a variety of seahorses, squids, nudibranchs, and frogfish. Bangka Island, which is close by, has stunning soft corals and an abundance of unspoilt reefs, with larger marine life such as reef sharks, rays, tunas, and barracudas, as well as lesser species like pygmy seahorses and different shrimps. Both of them are the best dive sites in Indonesia.

Then there's Bunaken National Park, a marine sanctuary with some of the best dive sites in Indonesia as well as the world's top wall dive sites, featuring reef sharks, schooling fish, sea snakes, a multitude of creatures, and the odd eagle rays and stingrays. From the boat, resident pods of dolphins and pilot whales can frequently be observed. The area's diving is primarily land-based, with a number of excellent businesses in town and around Bangka island.