Day 68 – Going to Amed – Back to Bali (10/10/2015)
“You gotta try to keep your cool when dealing with idiots.” – Caleb’s wise words of the day
Because we didn’t have A/C we slept pretty terrible so we were quite in a bad mood when we had to get up. Not even breakfast made us feel better. We went to the harbor, where we had to wait for about 1.5 hours. During those 1.5 hours about one million people tried to sell us sarongs, bracelets, loudspeakers that look like Bintang cans, wooden sculptures and some more sarongs. Right before I was about to loose it, we could finally go on the boat. I would say it’s a miracle that I didn’t throw up on the boat because it was quite wavy.
As soon as we got off the boat in Padangbai we got attacked from guys that wanted to drive us somewhere. I was still not in a very good mood and I lost my temper. Their prices were insane and obviously a complete rip off, I couldn’t hold myself back anymore and I yelled at them. I read so many times that you shouldn’t do that with Asians but I just lost control over myself. The anger was building up inside of me for days and at that time I just exploded. We decided to go have lunch first and calm down before we try it again. The restaurant was called The Colonial and the food was amazing! That was probably the most fancy and high quality food that we’ve had so far. Chicken breast in a wanton crust, filled with spinach with delicious vegetables and a pyramid of yellow rice. All of that for CHF 4.00! Our mood finally got better. 🙂
After being very lucky with our lunch we were also kind of successful with finding a ride to Amed. We paid IDR 250’000, doesn’t sound too good for 1.5 hours but there was a guy who wanted 400’000. You just never know. We already had a reservation at Bali Sari Homestay. Our room is nice and clean, we have hot water and A/C. A place like this is exactly what we needed to get new energy again. We will stay for four nights, which means no packing and unpacking for a while. Awesome!
After making ourselves comfortable in our new home, we went down to the beach, which is only about two minutes away from our homestay. Because of the volcano here, the sand is black, it looks really cool. We just went up and down the beach and went back to our room. We have such good internet here so I wanted to call my family. I was on the phone with Dad forever and it was so great to talk to him. Last time I heard his voice was in Georgetown, in Malaysia. I’m feeling better and better and I think I’m starting to get ready for travelling again. 🙂
It got pretty late when we finally went for dinner. We had good and cheap food at a nice little warung before we fell into bed and slept like babies.
Day 69 – Tirta Gangga (11/10/2015)
“Never shake hands with a yellow-handed man.” – Caleb’s wise words of the day
I have to say again how exciting it is to have a nice and clean room. It can really change your mood completely. Even though, I have to admit that I didn’t sleep very well and the reason for that is nothing new…the chickens. I just realized that I’ve never written about the chickens and their cock-a-doodle-do. All day. All night. Every day. Everywhere. It is horrible and it cost us a lot of sleep since we’re on our trip. Another thing that stole some hours of sleep are the mosques with their loudspeakers at 4 in the morning. That’s not the case in Bali though but I just realized that I’ve never mentioned that either. It’s funny how some things got so normal that I don’t even think about writing them down.
We got a nice breakfast and then we rented a scooter. Caleb isn’t very happy about the fact that it’s pink. 🙂 On our today’s schedule was Tirta Gangga, a water garden near a natural spring. The name comes from “Tirta” (blessed water) and “Gangga” (“Ganges”, the holy river in India). We got there after about a 30 minute drive. We really liked it, it’s a beautiful place. We took lots and lots of pictures, lost a lot of sweat there and went back to Amed beach for lunch. The food was great and cheap, like pretty much always. Already yesterday we were trying to find a bottle of wine but we weren’t successful. Today we found a place online, so that’s where we went. The place is called Adi Shop and the wine prices are amazing! Cheaper than anywhere. Caleb got his first bottle of whisky, which was pretty exciting for him and I got a bottle of local Rosé. On the way to Adi Shop we pretty much drove through all of Amed and we really like it here. We were never planning on coming here because I’ve never read anything about it but we’re glad that the Belgium couple in Senggigi told us about it.
I don’t know if it’s actually hotter since we’re up here or if it just feels like that but it’s hard to bear it. That’s why we went back to our air-conditioned room.
For sunset we went on a hill and Caleb Smith Travel Photographer was in his element again. The view was amazing. Right in front of us was Gunung Agung and below us was the endless sea.
Before dinner I could finally talk to Mom again after not talking to her for 52 days, which is crazy because back home I almost talked to her every day. It was great to talk to her again after such a long time. For dinner we went to Osin Warung, where I had the best curry ever. And if I say that it has to be good because I’m a curry expert by now.
Back in the room we had an appointment on skype with Suzi and Leo, our dearest friends. It was so great to talk to them, it was almost a bit like sitting at a table together. The power of technology, awesome! 🙂
Day 70 – Lazy day in Amed (12/10/2015)
“Finish your meal before posting a review.” – Caleb’s wise words of the day
After breakfast we were lazy and just sat around until we finally decided to get our lazy butts up and go for lunch. We went to a cute little warung and because of our past experiences with small portions, we got a plate of onion rings, a plate of calamari rings, spaghetti carbonara for me and a burger with fries for Caleb. When we got the calamari rings we couldn’t believe how packed the plate was. Same thing with the onion rings and my pasta was about a whole pack of spaghetti. It was hilarious how much food we got. While we were eating I was scared to melt because it was so hot. By the time we were done with our loads of food, all we wanted was to go back into our air-conditioned room. The laziness got us back and we gave up fighting against it. We just enjoyed laying around even if, whenever we do nothing, I have the feeling that I’m doing something wrong. I always feel kind of guilty to be in Asia and just stay in the room but it’s impossible to always be on the road, to always go places and it’s especially impossible to be in that heat all the time.
For dinner we went to a warung called Carpe Diem, where we had a table on the beach, in the sand, looking at the waves. It was really nice and I had another great curry.
Back in the room we watched funny videos on YouTube. It’s already weeks ago since we found a really funny guy on YouTube called Joe Santagato. It’s kind of a detail but I just have to finally write that down and you will probably be happy about it when you look him up. He’s hilarious and he’s kind of traveling with us because whenever we miss having a TV, we watch his videos.
Day 71 – Pura Lempuyang (13/10/2015)
“Sometimes you just gotta open Google Maps and zoom around.” – Caleb’s wise words of the day
Today we got a scooter again. We had to do it the complicated way though. Because Caleb didn’t wanna have the pink scooter again, we had to get it somewhere else. We already made an arrangement for it yesterday, so it was ready for us at 10 in the morning today.
We drove for about 30 minutes until we got to our destination . The ride was pretty cool/scary, from time to time it was almost 90 degrees uphill. We arrived at the entrance of Pura Lempuyang, a trail with seven temples. Penataran lempuyang temple, the first one was easily accessible and it was amazing. By far the most impressive temple, we’ve seen so far. We took so many pictures, we couldn’t get enough of it. Then we went back to the entrance where we took our scooter to drive to the second one. Unfortunately it was nothing like the first temple, it was actually pretty much the opposite, it was disappointing. We started walking through the forest and got to the third temple, which was not special either but the view on Gunung Agung was pretty cool. Because it was super hot and because we were hungry and we knew that it will not get better than the first one, we decided to go back.
We went for lunch to a nice cafe in the middle of the rice terraces. That’s where I had the shock of my life. I don’t even know how to write about it because there is no way that I can describe it as dramatic as it was. I was on the way to the bathroom when I suddenly felt something warm on my foot. I looked down and what I saw made me die a little bit. There was a snake on my foot. A snake! On my foot! I was in shock. I didn’t scream, I didn’t batt an eye. I kept walking to the bathroom, looked inside and that’s when I actually realized what just happened. I couldn’t go pee, I had to go back. As soon as I got back to the table I told Caleb what happened. My hands were shivering and my heart was racing. I was in that condition for at least 15 minutes. Never in my whole life had something like that happened to me before. Now that I think about it, I’m kind of wondering if it really happened because it seems so unreal. But I know it did, there was a freakin’ green snake slithering over my right foot. As much as I wish that it didn’t happen, it did happen. And you wanna know the most ridiculous thing about it? Caleb is jealous that it happened to me. He told me to be happy about it! Yeah…I could have done without it. However, we enjoyed a great lunch, French baguette pizza and drove back home.
We relaxed in the room for a while before we went for dinner. We took our scooter and decided to just stop at a nice looking warung. We ended up at Warung Enak, probably one of the nicest ones in Amed. Caleb had Baracuda for the first time and he loved it. I told myself to not get curry for once and try something new, which made me get Babi Kecap. It was amazing. When we read on the menu that they use mineral water for all the food preparation, we had to order milkshakes. I mean if you have certainty like that it would just be stupid to not get any, right? If you stay in Amed it is a must to eat at Warung Enak.
The Travelling Smiths 