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Published: August 9th 2011
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After making a few small purchases at Ubud market (wanting to make many more - a good place for pressies - but not enough room in our bags) we said a sad farewell to Ubud and journeyed to the west coast to a little town called Amed.
This really was a little fishing village. We soon discovered that their primary source of income, aside from the odd incredibly lavish hotel (we stayed in a cosy bungalow homestay next door to one and managed to persuade them to let us use their pool!), is sea salt.
Within minutes we were accosted by a gang of kids; "Hey sis what is your name?" and "Mister you wan buy salt?" - and those who hadn't learnt to say that in English had a paragraph written about how our purchase would fund their school/pay for new books. The trouble was that there was about 20 of them all hassling us at once...which one to buy from!? (bearing in mind to buy one home made weaved box with a little bag of sea salt inside was 30,000 rupiah. the equivalent of a good meal...). We told them we would be back a few hours
later so we could hear ourselves think for a second.
Anyway, Amed. A beautiful black sand beach town with very few people and even less noise (apart from the animals, but we'll get to that later.). The guy who ran 'Jos Homestay' was very helpful and we had 'Jaffles' (toasties) and loads of fresh fruit for breakfast both days (10 pounds per night for the both of us including breakfast!).
Upon wandering round the corner for dinner we were met by 3 hangers on. The kids. And decided to give them more than one baskets worth to split between them. The concept of sharing didn't go down so well at first... We sat at a beach-side table and ate dinner whilst watching some Balinese dancing and instrumentals. It turns out neither of which are our most favourite, but interesting all the same!
On our second day we attempted to go snorkelling, and did manage to see a few fish and some coral but with the waves and the shallowness of the water - even at high tide - and Emily losing a fight with the coral meant that it was short lived. We have high hopes for
Gili though. A day of cheap food to help our budget recover a little and some more extreme uno on the beach was a pleasant breather after the previous weeks' activities. Our evening meal felt like we had just gone to somebody's house and they were cooking for us. Lovely food though and very cheap and cheerful. Luckily we were just finishing off our sweet and sour chicken and chicken sate as we heard animal noises erupt from out back. Pigs squealing, chickens losing their heads and even dogs going crazy (a little worrying) as we thought that they would be the next backpackers feast. Yum.
This morning we caught a lift from our guy running the homestay (landlord?) and thankfully he didnt mind us paying for the room, snorkelling equipment, and the taxi fare until our destination as we had run out of money! And the nearest ATM was over half an hours drive away...
So, he drove us to 'Tirtta Gangga' which is a water palace that some royal built in honour of his wife (little hazy on the details). It was very pretty and you could even swim there, with many water features, HUGE karp, and
even - to Emily's delight - a water snake.
The next stop was lunch up in the mountains with amazing views of Mount and Lake Batur.
(The buffet wasn't particularly cheap so we had to make sure we ate our money's worth, of course!) The views were definitely well worth it. ...I may have lost my sunglasses at one of today's stops (you can tell from the photo) Sorry Mum! But I have bought a new pair for about 2 quid. hopefully they'll last at least a week.
Oh also on the way a lot of traffic built up as there were about 20 groups of school girls marching along the road. This has been going on for the last week now and apparently is a build up to Indonesian Independence day on the 17th. The day we arrive back from Thailand!
We are writing to you now from back in Kuta where we've had a chilled one on the beach and PIZZA! at a laid back restaurant with free pool, lounging seats and extreme sports on the telly. looooovely.
Tomorrow we're catching a flight to Thailand! Where we're meeting a few friends after stopping at
Koh Phi Phi to take in the sites from the film 'The Beach' which are supposed to be bliss.
That's it for now, hope you enjoyed the latest!
Ciao xx
P.s. - check the last blog, we sorted out the photos and video!
p.p.s We tried replying directly to messages through this site and it doesn't seem to work. So we'll email those lucky few!
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Peter
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Grub!
I think you guys should seriously plan to recoup your expenses by writing a backpackers foodie guide: where to get the best/ cheapest/freshest food. you seem to be doing the research; cash in!!