Our next excursion with my parents was to the Eastern coast of Bali. We planned an overnight trip to Amed which is a town comprised of a group of coastal villages. On the way there, we hit some noteworthy sites. My dad wrote an email blog about this trip, so rather than reinvent the wheel, I’m cutting and pasting his words here:
“Today we left Ubud at 9 am to go to Amed, an small town on the ocean in east. We decided to vacate our both rooms. The management told us to put all our stuff in one of the two rooms and go away. They will not charge even for one room!
Mr. Ketut, our driver came to pick us up. We hire him as needed. Today he was with us till 5 pm and took us to a few wonderful places on way to Amed. His bill was $45 for his car, gas and driving services!
Our first stop was a palace Kartha Gosa. It had a great amount of painting on the ceilings, beautiful courtyard and a small museum.
Next we stoped to see an small village Tenganan of 225 people population. No cars are allowed in this village. People live here with their ancient tradition and ceremonies. Their commerce is weaving, make baskets, do painting, carving, etc.
It rained now and then for a few minutes at each time. The warm weather made it feel nice. It reminded me of my birth place Indore where we used to play happily in the rain.
We then headed for lunch at another small village Candidasa. The restaurant here was very very beautiful, surrounded by beautiful flowers, trees, statues and a nice pool. It was a five star classy place. We enjoyed the lunch very much.
The most amazing place was next. The Water palace of Tirta Gangga. Tirta means water. It was a park and palace with water fountains and a huge pond with many stepping stones in it. In the pond were all sizes of gorgeous koi fish. The water comes from a natural spring. It was just beautiful.
We reached our destination Amed at 5 pm. The hotel is on the beach. Our room is facing the ocean. There.Is a nice pond in front of our room and a great amount of greenery. The sand is black from the volcanic rock. You can see Mt. Agung clearly from here – Bali’s tallest mountain/volcano. We went for dinner in a restaurant next door. While we were eating it rained heavily and then stopped.
Because of the rain, couple of frogs came out and settled near the pond and started making loud noise. The hotel manger happen to pass by and sent his man who came and removed the frogs.!! Rest of the night it was the soothing sound of ocean waves.”
Back to my words:
On our way back home, we asked our driver to take the scenic route. This involved driving on a curvy road along the eastern coastline from Amed to Candidasa before heading inland. The route was breathtaking. It added an hour and a half to our journey, but hey, “Pelan, pelan” (Balinese for “Slowly, slowly”). Why rush back to Ubud when we could take our time going home while admiring the Balinese coastline?
This “pelan pelan” thing is sinking it’s teeth into my system. I’m liking the going slowly mentality (who’d ever thought I’d say that?). I really want to maintain that upon my return to the US and to work.
Bali at Four 