On the road again

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We made it to Bali! It was a long, uneventful transfer, 28 hours from the Chicago's Logan Square subway stop on the Blue Line to Life in Amed, our hotel in Indonesia on the island of Bali. Our flight left at 10:35 am for the 13 hour trip to Narita just outside of Tokyo. I was a little worried because we only had an hour between our arrival and our departure to Denpasar, Bali. I relied on the stereotypical Japanese efficiency to get us to our flight in time. My faith was well placed. We arrived late to Narita with only 30 minutes till our next flight departed. A very pleasant young man met us and escorted us through the airport to our flight with time to spare. The plane arrived in Denpasar at 10:30 pm. We were really glad we had acquired our visa at the Indonesian Consulate in Chicago ahead of time. The lines for “visa on arrival” were really long. There were only 4 people in front of us at the immigration line for visa holders. From the airport it was a 2 ½ hour drive to Lean, on the east coast of Bali. Notwithstanding the name of the hotel, Life in Amed, it is about 5 km from Amed and our dive shop. We finally arrived at our hotel at 1:00 am.

Life in Amed is a pretty swell little place. It has 6 small Balinese style cottages and 2 villas. The cottages are very well appointed with carved wooden doors and shutters. It has a king bed below and 2 twins in the loft above. Obviously we don't need the extra beds, but it is really nice to have the space to spread out and store our packs and suitcases. It also has a nice outdoor shower. At $55 per night it is a little more than we would like to spend, but I decided it was worth it to have a nice place to stay during the jet lag acclimation period. The time difference is 14 hours, and of course we are on the other side of the date line.

Speaking of lines, we are south of the equator for the first time since our South America sojourn in 2006.

We managed to sleep 'till 8:30, had breakfast and headed down to the dive shop, Eco-dive. Unfortunately, we just missed Sonrisa, a friend of ours from Chicago and her new husband Pierre. They are dive instructors at the shop. We arranged diving for the next day and headed off in search of a new chip for our cell phone. It was still early, but the sun and the heat were punishing. By the time we had walked along the main road for an hour we were exhausted. It turned out to be providential because a guy we met who drove us back to our hotel (50,000 rp - $6 at 9,000 rp/$1) offered us the best rate we could find on a moped.

We tried everything short of Ambien to nap but were unsuccessful, but we had fun trying. We invited Sonrisa and Pierre over for cocktails at 5. It was really nice catching up with our former Lakeshore Athletic Club trainer after about 3 years and meeting her new husband. They just moved here from Thailand where they met. They took off and we had dinner at the hotel, which was pretty good. We collapsed in bed at 9:30.

Eco-Dive picked us up at 8:15 and we were off for our first day of diving. We got our gear organized and drove over to Tulamben which is about 20 minutes away. Our objective was a sunken US Liberty ship from WW-II. It was torpedoed by the Japanese in 1942 and disabled, so they towed to the beach to keep it from sinking. It sat on the beach until 1963 when Gunung Agung volcano blew it's top. The earthquakes toppled it into deeper water. It is one of the most popular dive sites on the island and they have a very well organized dive park there. There is a good sized building with showers and changing rooms and what looked like rooms for rent. On the beach they had built little raised platforms to store the gear. There were porters, mostly women, who carried the dive gear down to the beach. The porters were amazing. I saw one petite woman carrying three tanks on her head and shoulders with a dive bag slung over each shoulder. When we finished our dive one woman carried all the wet equipment, except for the tanks, for Karen and I and our dive master in a box on her head. We've been told that they can carry up to 45 kg. The dive was very good. As might be expected the ship itself was pretty broken up after 40 plus years in the water, but it makes a great artificial reef. We saw two ghost pipefish, a banded pipefish, mantis shrimp, huge groupers, leaf fish, barracuda, giant clam, stone fish and lots of the usual suspects, moorish idols, wrasses, butterfly fish, blennys, trigger fish, parrot fish, lion fish......The water was a balmy 28 C.

After the dive we had a snack nearby and did our second dive about 300 m up the beach at at site called Tulamben Wall. Another shore dive of course. It's kind of fun diving from the car (or little SUV in this case). Tulamben Wall was a nice little wall, ok coral, lots of fish. The end of the dive was in the shallows and was really pretty.

We got back to the dive shop at about 2 and headed off to a little warung (restaurant) for lunch. We split the chicken satay, it was quite good. Our next task was renting a motorcycle which we embarked upon with much trepidation. I have never driven a motorcycle in my life. It looks fairly easy, but in our travels we have seen so many busted up travelers from motorcycle accidents that we have never attempted it before. The problem here is that there is no public transport. From my read of the guide book I thought there would be “bemos” plying the road. A bemo is a little private minivan that runs back and forth on a route. A couple thousand rupiah gets you a ride a couple km down the road. They are over loaded and dirty, but for a short run they are fine. Whether they are called collectivos, jeepneys, or whatever, we have relied on them the world over to get around. The problem for us is that the people here are doing well enough that everyone has bought a motorcycle. No one needs the bemo here anymore. We called our driver from the day before and he and another guy picked us up on their motorcycles and took us to the office. I knew I could work out the bike, an automatic, but I had to drive away confidently from the office with Karen on the back of the bike with no practice. I got on the bike, had to be shown how to start it (!!!???) and drove off to give it a little test and get the feel for the brakes etc. I thought I was doing ok until another motorcycle came down the road on the same side as I was on. I switched side and carried on. I had forgotten they drive on the left here. Karen said they all laughed as I drove away from the shop on the wrong side. I got comfortable enough and 5 minutes later picked Karen up and motored away. We made it back to the hotel in one piece, but I needed a drink. The roads on the end of the coast we are staying on are narrow and windy with some nice little hills thrown in. There are a couple of uphill blind hairpin turns. If we had encountered a truck on one I would have had difficulty.

We had that drink, lounged in the pool to cool off and had dinner again at the hotel. We made ourselves stay up till ten before crashing.

We decided we liked the place well enough to stay on past the week we had reserved at Life in Amed. Our plan was to find a little villa. In the morning we did a little internet search. We didn't turn anything up so we called Sonrisa to see if she could help. She had told us about a couple little houses near her that looked nice. She had also just rented a house, so she knew who to talk to. She met us after lunch and we stopped at a few places to no avail. We headed over to her place to check on the houses near her's, but no one was there. We went to another really palatial villa and called on it only to find out that the woman who handled it also owned one of the little “villas” we had been standing in front of a few minutes earlier. We toured the little “villa” built in the Balinese style. It has two bedrooms, each with private half-outdoor bathroom. At the back of the house was a smallish kitchen with an open covered eating area next to it. Behind this is the plunge pool with two lounge chairs and a big umbrella. It is just over a year old so the landscaping is still rather small. The bedrooms have A/C. It is kind of strange that there is no lounging/living room area. It has a bale in the front yard, which is a raised platform 10 feet square with a grass roof. I think this functions as the lounging area. There are bales all over the place with people hanging out in them. In the back corner is a little raised home temple. The caretaker makes daily offerings there. Putu started at 2,000,000 per day, the high season rate and came down to 500,000/day for a month of low season including the mid season week between Christmas and New Years. We offered 350,000. Putu, the owner said she would get back to us after she spoke with her husband, who is an engineer in Norway. The price includes breakfast which we offered to cook for ourselves if she supplied the fixings. Check out the pictures.

We had dinner that night, Thursday, at Sonrisa's and Pierre's. They live near the house, but on the beach, about ½ km away. They have a nice little 2 bedroom house owned by a woman from California. Whereas our place is very Balinese in style, theirs would not be terribly out of place in California. They cooked us a typical Indonesian dish, Nasi Campur, which was very good. We hung for a while then took off for my first night ride on the bike with a few glasses of wine in me. It was fine.

On Friday we dove again. This time in Jemeluk, the village the dive shop is located in. These were boat dives. The shop uses Jukungs, the local boats like those the fishermen use. These are about 20 feet long with outriggers. They can only accommodate 2 divers, a dive guide and the boatman. The first dive was Bunutan, about a 20 minute trip off the next village to the east. It was a nice dive in 2 parts. The first part was a slope. As the dive progressed the current picked up until we were really finning hard. I hate finning! You are kicking hard and breathing through a regulator which is like breathing through a straw. We finned for about ten minutes before we got to a wall and left the current behind us. It took a while to get my heart rate and breathing down. We finished the dive in a very pretty coral garden above 5 meters. We saw 2 spotted rays, cuttle fish, huge coral heads, nudibranchs...

Between dives we had heard back from Putu,, and we had negotiated our final deal, 400,000 per week. We arranged to meet her back at the house that afternoon at 4.

Our second dive was call pyramid. It takes its name from the artificial reef structures put in place about 20 years ago. It is right off the beach across the road from the dive shop. It was very nice. The “pyramids” were alive with fish and soft coral. It was a nice easy dive. We saw a turtle, leaf fish, octopus, bat fish...

After the dive we had lunch, hung at the dive shop a bit and then it was time to go meet Putu. We met at the house and finalized the details of our deal. She invited us to go with her to a coffee shop that was “very close” to try some durian, an interesting fruit found throughout SE Asia. “Close” turned out to be 4-5 km away. It was my first excursion onto the main road. The traffic was worrisome, but I was mostly concerned about the police since I did not have an international driving license, much less a motorcycle license. Karen rode with Putu, at her insistence, and she pointed out sights along the way. It was brutally hot at the house when we left. The pool and sitting areas face west and there is little shade. As soon as we hit the main road and got a little altitude it cooled off and was really pleasant. The coffee shop looked out over verdant farm fields in a little valley that led down to the coast.

Durian is a fruit that we had seen before and heard about often. It's smell is said to be similar to a pungent goat or blue cheese, or something rotting. But the fruit is supposed to be delicious if you can get past the smell. It is a little smaller than a soccer ball and covered in hard spikes. Putu cracked it open and dug out the pale fruit, which is the consistency of putty surrounding a stone the size of a chestnut. I tried not to breath through my nose. We tasted it and it was.....interesting. The cheesy analogy held out, kind of a sour, fermented taste. Not something I would seek out, but Karen liked it. We chatted with Putu for a while. She really wanted to rent to someone who loved her house. She offered to take Karen shopping at the local markets and cook some local dishes at the house. She told us she would come by once or twice a week to shower in the other bedroom (????). She is very nice and we are looking forward to having a local contact to help us sort things out. She works at a local hotel in the restaurant, and offered to order hard to get items like prawns, beef or squid for us from her vendors. All very cool stuff. We took our leave and drove back to the hotel getting back just as it was beginning to get dark

Being thoroughly tired of the hotel food we decided to walk about 15 minutes to the only other place for dinner near our hotel. A place called Sails, presumably named for the hundred or so Jukungs, the outrigger sailing fishing boats that fill the beach in our village of Lean. As we left our room it started to thunder and by the time we got to reception the wind was up and it was sprinkling. We grabbed a couple of umbrellas and hustled down the road toward Sails. We got there just as it started to let loose. Sails is a completely open building sitting on a bluff overlooking the little bay. It has only one wall, at the back where the kitchen is. They had lowered rattan blinds on the windward side and had pushed all of the tables to the center of the room. Even so, spray blew through the blinds with the big gusts. It was ok, with the other tables so close we chatted up the other diners around us. Weather always has a way of bringing people together and this was no exception. The locals are waiting for the rains which are a month late now. It is a big problem for them, waiting to plant. The coastal area is extremely arid. It is difficult for them as they have to buy fodder for their livestock at time when they would normally have something growing for them. We had a very good meal, better than our hotel, and it had stopped raining by the time we went home.

Sunday was a day of rest. No diving, no running around making arrangements. We sat around and read and swam in the morning. We went out to lunch at the Amed Cafe (overpriced) and did a little interneting. After lunch it was back to the hotel for more chill time and a nap. We went back to Sails for dinner and ran into our new friends from the night before.

Monday was a dive day. They picked us up at the hotel and we headed east to Lipah Beach, about 5 km away. We took a fishing boat to Gili Selang (Gili means island). There was supposed to be strong currrent that we were going to ride for part of the dive but it was not there so it was a nice leisurely dive. We saw nice soft coral, eels, interesting nudis and a couple of huge bumphead parrotfish.

It was 30 minutes back to shore where we had fruit shakes between dives at a rasta cafe on the beach. The second dive was a shore dive, first to a nice little wall then up to the shallows to a Japanese wreck. There was a big cuttle fish posing for pictures behind a fan coral. We also saw lots of giant clams, garden eels, leaf fish, mantis shrimp and spade fish, among other things.

They dropped us back at the hotel and we chilled for the afternoon and then went to Sails one last time for dinner. Their pork spare ribs are wickedly good and I wanted them one last time before we moved.

Putu's brother picked us up at 9:30 and we moved to the new place. Putu greeted us with a couple iced teas and showed us around the kitchen. I had not noticed before but there is a little grill and a clay pot for grilling. I'm looking forward to making satay! By about 11 Komang, our caretaker, and Putu had left and we hung at the place for the rest of the day. We started exploring the warungs at this end of the Amed coast and went to a place called Bobo for dinner. It was good. At the touristic places, like Bobo, entrees run from $2.50 for a rice or noodle dish up to $6 for a nice piece of fish. There is a local Balinese wine, Hatten Vineyards that produces a very respectable white wine for $16 at most restaurants. Imported wines and liquors are way too expensive. The local spirit is called Arak. It is distilled from rice or palm wine and, when mixed, is fine. We like Arak with lemon juice and honey. A bottle at the supermarket is $8. Putu says the stuff at the supermarket is no good. She can get the local stuff which she says is better and stronger. Looking forward to that!

It's kind of weird having “staff”. Komang comes at about 7:30 and waters the plants, cleans the house, makes the bed and does our dishes if we leave them. He takes off at about 10. For the first few days he came back at 2 and hung around for the rest of the day till about 6. After a few days of this we asked him if he could come back at 5 instead so we could have some privacy. As it turns out, this is supposed to be his schedule. They probably think we are weird for wanting to be alone. The local people live very communally with several generations living in one large compound. Putu said she would have us over to her family's house sometime, it will be interesting to check out.

That was our first week, kind of busy but we got a lot done and did some great diving. Our next big task is to go to Denpasar to get a driving permit. We are also looking forward to exploring the markets to see what foods are available for us to cook with.

Be sure to check out all of the pics further below and on page two.

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Photos

Lean beach
Every beach on the coast is lined cheek to cheek with Jukung. The mostly catch mackerel

Lipah beach
Gearing up to dive the Japanese wreck. That's our dive guide Kadek

DSC00247
Karen and a big barrel sponge

Comments

[Art and Kathy]

It is such a pleasure for us to see the two of you traveling, traveling, traveling. We will be spending our Christmas at Tahoe in the snow with the whole family. Merry Christmas wherever you will be.