We left Tamu Seseh early on Sunday morning. We said a sad goodbye to Nitro who had become a good friend over the past few days. Every time dinner was delivered to our Villa he would come & sit next to our dining table and be extremely friendly. However, he never shirked his guard duties, each time we would return to the Villas from a trip out he would give us a bit of a stir up with a good loud threatening bark and a few growls just to keep it interesting. We drove down the small narrow roads marveling at the makeshift tents of the itinerant rice field workers. These tents seemed to have withstood all the wild weather we had encountered in the last few days. Did they really or did we just miss seeing these hardy people chasing those bits of tarp & canvas all over the rice fields in the middle of the night. It left us wondering, it left us counting our blessings.
There was quite a bit of traffic for a Sunday morning, I had been hoping there wouldn't be. We managed to find our way to Seminyak and then onto Sunset Rd, we stopped at the petrol Station to fill up and realised that we had a half flat tyre again, it had seemed to be okay up until now. The petrol station had no air but we thought we would be okay until we found another one. Next stop Macro to fill up with supplies for Amed. We made the turn at the huge intersection with all the statues and we gave ourselves a slap on the back for finding our way this far without incident. Kept watching for another petrol station, found one and again no air. Stopped at the next set of lights, a car ahead of me was turning left and I was stuck in the intersection until the light turned amber, was through the light before it turned red. A policeman came running out of nowhere and waved me over to the side of the road. He asks me what my job is in Bali, I say no job, he says holiday, I say yes, he tells me I didn't stop, huh, I tell him I did, he says no!, I say yes!, he says ' what do I do now, give you a ticket, I say no, he asks for my license, I pass him both our licenses, he looks through both, he tells me again I didn't stop, I tell him I did, This inane conversation continues for some minutes, you didn't, I did. Finally I think he realises we are getting nowhere with this conversation & he simply walks away, huh! I'm left feeling a little upset, I was determined not to pay him, I refuse to add to the whole corruption thing but I was afraid that he was going to insist. I think acting stupid and as if I didn't understand what he was asking for helped but I was afraid of this happening again. I felt very uncomfortable driving after that.
We stop at macro for our supplies, H decided to get a slab of bintang, we don't know if we are close to any shops in Amed. We get back to the car and the tyre looks worse. The guy at the last petrol station said we could get air at Sanur, he says 1 klm further on. We drive to Sanur it seems a lot further than one klm. We can't find another petrol station, then I see a pile of tyres just off to the side of the road and what looks like an air hose, it's a small business but it's placed close to the side of the road. The man that runs this business amazingly sees us and our flat tyre at the same time that we see his shop, he runs out at us telling me to stop. This man doesn't speak much english, neither does his wife but his two teenage children come out and do the interpereting and negotiating. It seems that H was right, the rim on this wheel was damaged when we hired the car, this man tells us we need a tube for the tyre. We are given a price of 175,000 rupiah for the tube, what do we know, is this the right price for a tube, we decide that we would accept that it was. The car is parked in the left-hand lane of the Sanur bypass road and husband and wife do their thing, moving in and out of the traffic, repairing the tyre and checking all the others. I see three or four police cars and bikes in the passing traffic as we sit in what must have been a very illegal position. I wait in anguish for one of them to pull over and ask me "what do I do now, write you a ticket" it doesn't happen. It's as if we are invisible when we do do wrong. We are relieved, we pay our husband and wife team what I think was a well deserved 200,000 rupiah, not caring if was too much.
Heaving a huge sigh of relief but wondering what will happen next, we head to Candi Dasa for lunch. The road is quite good for most of the way, my navigator is in excellent form and we only make one wrong turn. We had a nice Leisurely drive through the rice fields before we decided we had better retrace our steps and find the correct road. We stop at Vincents in Candi Dasa for lunch, I almost crawl into the toilet on all fours. I had needed a toilet since we left Sanur but no nice little roadside stops here in Bali, it's bushes, rice fields, tree's or hold it, no other choices, so I held it. Something to think about if you intend driving long distances in Bali. We have the best lunch at Vincent's, the food the lassie's and the bintang were really appreciated. The Lassies were for the driver who then went to the toilet again before leaving the premises.
We leave Candi Dasa and do the climb over the mountains on our way to Amed. This part of the trip is very hairy. There are a lot of large diesel belching trucks. You can't see past them, you can't overtake them, if you attempt to, you take your life in your hands, you can't stay behind them because you are gearing down to nothing and are close to stalling your car. Guess what, don't look now but you have another one right up your rear end. The sides of the road drop away to nothing and there are many hairpin bends. I am so glad when we see the turn off to Amed, we lose most of the trucks as they head in the direction of Tulamban.
After quite a long drive along the coast road we finally find Anda Amed. I am really glad to get out of the car, I tell myself not to think about doing the reverse in nine days time, just deal with it when it comes. We go to reception and check in, it looks beautiful here with its view across the ocean. One of the boys comes back down the 20 or so steps to the road to help with our luggage. He is only small, we tell him that one's heavy, he smiles and picks up the suitcase that holds the slab of beer and a dozen or so cans of tonic or soda etc; He grimaces, he spreads his legs, sucks in his breath and proceeds to climb the 60 steps to our room while we stand there cringing. We give him a 50,000 rupiah tip, we think it deserved a lot more. We cringe again a few days later when we see other guests checking in, the male guest say's "that one's heavy......"
Next Amed & Surrounds