Amed

10th Oct 2022

Amed

Traveling solo is easy. Decisions are made over a cup of coffee and its easy to roll. Ubud has seen ‘El Nino’ type rain and with the damp thronging hippy dippy tourists, it just isn’t what I’m looking for (hippy dippy is fine but not in the rain). A friend of mine, Iggy, is an Ubud fixer and offered to drive me to Amed on his scooter. Amed, I was told, always has better weather than Ubud and the internet talked of snorkeling. There is a cool jungle temple on the way too, so if Amed was a bust, I reasoned, the famous winged gates of Lempuyang temple would have been seen.

With a tiny bag (its amazing how little you need), I jumped on the back of Iggy’s trusty yellow Scoopy and we set off in drizzle for a famed temple and sunnier climes.

Getting out of Ubud felt like a good decision just after the city limits. The space around opened up and I could see Bali - rural and village life. One of the things about Bali that is interesting is that dogs are really confident and have a whole attitude thing going on which I’ve never seen before. These dogs are clearly bred to be part of the family and there is nothing needy or cowering about them. The own their space and without any aggression whatsoever seem King or Queen of wherever they are. They are pure mixed and any hints of specific breed has been lost over the generations.

Iggy and I chatted away and I was amazed to find out that he loves English 80’s music - not Wham and Spandau Ballet type 80’s music, but the Two-Tone sound, punk and some of the more experimental sounds of my teenage years. He told me about sitting in a bar in Jakarta with a bunch of friends listening to the London sounds wearing Doc Martins and wearing parka’s despite it being 34 degrees. He was fascinated to hear about Polly being a skinhead, and we improbably drove through Bali’s rice paddies remembering stray lyrics - ‘F.I.R.E.I.N.C.A.I.R.O.’ - made us laugh. The temple is on a mountain top and much as we tried, the Scoopy just couldn’t make it up the steep incline. I walked a bit - embarrassed to see the moped shoot off without my weight, but it just wasn’t going to happen. With mists on the summit starting to head lower, and totally abandoned jungle roads, it seemed silly to carry on. We were hungry too - and within half an hour of that decision to bail on the temple, we were sitting in a black and white two tone-like cafe on the beach in Amed; The Specials would have been proud.

I love Gado-Gado - a staple vegetarian dish here and it was really good - Iggy said the best he had ever had. For the price of a Starbucks coffee, we were both full again, and Iggy set off back to Ubud, while I went to find my hotel.

Meditasi sounded cool - the reviews glowed about peace and tranquillity. However, 10km out of town and the only guest in the place is a bit too much peace for me. The owner was a bit aggressive when I complained the ‘sea view’ room only had a ‘sea sound’ but no view. I moved and it caused more stress, annoying. The room was like a wicker basket which sounds authentic and cool, but again, as a solo traveler, not very reassuring. I slept surprisingly well - maybe it was the comforting sound and smell of the sea less than 10m from my room. I felt much better when I woke up but I had already booked a new place. I spoke to the nasty mans wife at breakfast and she was so incredibly kind and sweet I felt a bit bad about bailing on the place. The deal was done, however, and a moped from the new place picked me up after breakfast.

I think its me not where I am, but I felt immediately at home when I arrived at Classic Villas. It’s like a scrapyard of wooden doors through the ages. All the huts are cobbled together with doors. It’s not smart or anything other than totally basic (no loo paper, no shampoo basic) but I love it here. So simple and right on the beach. I wandered down to the beach and met two very happy looking divers just back from a dive. They pointed out some good spots and said it was much better than the internet reviews had made out.

I rented a mask and fins and wandered up the beach to a spot called Pyramids. I saw a turtle in minutes, a huge Hawksbill, a whole collection of Pygmy seahorses pretending to be pink and white spotted coral, and a vast array of colors, species, sizes of coral and marine life. Some of our regulars at Kuruwitu were there but also a load of more exotic South East Asia underwater denizen’s. Bright yellow fan coral, pink soft corals - so much and so many. The volume of fish is just overwhelming nibbling away at the coral and busily going about fish life. A large eel, blue spotted sting ray, more turtles, a huge Trigger fish - on and on - amazing underwater life.

Snorkeling / beach / sea (as well as SE Asia) has kept me gently busy in Amed. I’ve been reading a lot (great book - ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ - highly recommend), lots of vegetarian curries - not mad about them - there is a flavor I don’t like which they use here in Amed - meditation, yoga, and chilling are the elements of my days here. It may not be a total surprise after reading this, but my feelings of happiness and well-being have soared. I’ve been seeing Mum in everything around me - ‘Look at the views!’ - she said to me as we drove through the hilly rice paddies and through the lush jungle on our abortive temple quest. ‘God Almighty!’ - she says at the plethora of underwater life, and the soft butterflies and pretty flowers, ‘It’s beautiful Tilda, ravishing.’ I like the idea that Mum has scattered into everything she would have loved around me and her friends and family. I can’t unhear what I think her passionate responses to the world around me would be, and nor would I want to. I knew (and still know) Mum pretty well and its wonderful to have her on this journey with me.

I’m off to a new spot - further north up the coast - to dive at Liberty wreck. I’ve heard its good and I want to check it out and perhaps visit again next week when Des comes over.

The plan is to head back to Ubud tomorrow, meet up with a friend there and then head to Denpasar to meet Des at the weekend. The plans are a sketch and who really knows what will happen. I may even get to see that temple, or not. Maybe the sun will come out in Ubud and I’ll stay on there for a few days - dunno. S’allgood. It’s wonderful to feel, after a particularly rough year, that I’ve got ‘there.’ The ‘there’ is an inner place that I take with me. The rest of my trip can be spend just breathing it in and letting it go - ahh.