TANAH AMPO, BALI, INDONESIA

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The following day (Wed, 4 Jan) we were anchored off Tanah Ampo, Bali, Indonesia arriving about 10.00 ish and not leaving until midnight.

They put on a nice greeting for the ship with girls dressed in their finery greeting us at the Terminal Building, accompanied by a typical Balinese Band. However, as soon as you were outside of the Terminal you basically ran the gauntlet of being constantly pestered to buy things, kids begging, taxi guys pestering, women selling materials, etc. One woman was so persistent that she followed me up the entire road, pestering for “dollar, dollar” that eventually I said to her, I’ll give you a dollar if you’ll piss off. She understood that alright, as she did. (Cheap at the price but her plan worked).

Again it was really hot in Bali, and after all the pestering I was about to go back to the ship. I've hired motorbikes and drivers when holidaying in Bali before (I still love being on the back of a bike), so I thought I'd try it here. Walked up to a guy with a bike and said “Are you for hire? If so, I want to go to a restaurant with a good view and where I can get a beer”. Thought I’d better mention a drink as I noticed a lot of muslim women at this place. I don't usually drink beer but find it refreshing in humid heat.

For anyone who’s never been to Bali, you barter for everything there, so when I asked him how much, he asked me how much did I want to pay? Well, I thought I may as well start low, so I said how about $10, he said how about $20, and we settled on that.

I then took an hour’s wonderfully cool pillion ride (with no helmet and only flip flops and shorts on) through the mountains to Pendang Bay (the next Bay along to where we'd berthed), which turned out to be a tourist spot for diving tours. Had a brilliant lunch of crab mixed with coconut, chilli, lemongrass and garlic, wrapped around sticks and bar-b-qued, with salad and saffron rice, plus a large beer - and the entire thing cost me $9 and was one of the best meals I had.

My motorbike guy, who was a really nice fellow, spoke pretty good English and was a safe driver, rode me along the foreshore and then took me to a Temple that was built half-way down a cliff right on the sea. We finally had an hour’s ride back to the Terminal building, so tipped him an extra $10 and had a brilliant day for a total of $US40, which included lunch. Couldn't have booked a tour for that amount and I had a great ride, saw some great scenery on the way and even cooled off – what more can one ask for?

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Comments

[Leslie]

Bali
Beautiful...sigh...