Drive to coastal diving resort Amed
After a long, full and eventful drive along the coast with several interesting stops we finally arrived at a very nice resort on the beach in area known for its diving and snorkeling coral reefs. After settling into our rooms, mine on second story of smaller building on beach and David and Katrinka across the road installed on third or fourth tier of main hotel with very steep winding stairs up the side of mountain, each level with its own beautiful pool and incredible views of expansive ocean and beach, we have just finished dinner on deck of beach cafe just below my room and full moon 🌕 glowing on water - quite lovely! Tomorrow we meet up for breakfast and stream the Democratic debate live at 8am to see what they all have to stay. Been marginally following news cycle but effects are taking back seat to the new myriad experiences I’m having every day in this culture, taking as much in as my nervous system allows, much to digest......
Along road to Amed, D&K had our favorite wonderful, great driver Komang (sp) make several stops of points of interest. First stop was at beach resort, with incredible crashing surf, multiple raised thatched bungalows run by expat women they knew and stayed with several times and I thought we were at our destination but we were only halfway at that point. We had a very nice visit and just so happened her charming, lovely parents had come down from their jungle mountain home about an hour away and fascinating conversation. Rosemary, German and eighty years young and Otto, Dutch and celebrating his ninetieth birthday regaled us with a synopsis of their stories - she growing up in war years under Hitlers horrible reign, how her dad married a Swiss women who was smart enough to hide their business assets in Switzerland to guard against whatever was to be the unknown outcome of war and Otto, whose parents raised him in Dutch Indonesia and when the Japanese invaded and occupied the region in WWll, he was separated for a time from his parents and imprisoned but better off then most by being a servant to the prison camp commandant. I so liked these people and wanted to spend more time with them but alas, we said our goodbyes and hit the road.
Our next stop was the famous 11th century garden retreat of the Balinese King of that time, forget the name but will try to find link and include later. Needless to say, beautiful! We wandered around for a bit and of course it was very photogenic and shot many pics which I will include a few now, maybe more later.
From there we started a steady climb through rising jungle terrain with incredible vistas of farms and terraced rice paddies below. We stopped at a small fruit stand on very narrow pullout next to steep drop off to picturesque valley below and David insisted I have a piece of Jack Fruit. Very interesting large, hard short spiked fruit twice the size of largest coconut with very unusual innards which the women cleaned a chunk of for us and showed us how to extract largish seeds, peel off petal like strands and eat - wonderful! Tasted a bit like combination of papaya, mango and pleasurable firm texture, hard to put your finger on. Very delicious and glad we brought some extra pieces for later and will definitely want more while in Bali!
I have so much more to impart but alas, I am flagging and retiring soon but will include a few pictures of day but untitled until I learn how to do. I leave up to your imagination to put images to my narrative - good luck, enjoy!
Cheers
G
PS - my apologies, for some reason after multiple tries couldn’t upload pics 🤷♂️. Will try tomorrow- stay tuned
PPSS, next day- well, pictures didn’t get loaded as planned in order of narrative nor all the one I wanted but at least some got in for you to get the idea. 🤷♂️ , vagaries of not knowing and or sporadic internet.....but here you go, enjoy.
Along road to Amed, D&K had our favorite wonderful, great driver Komang (sp) make several stops of points of interest. First stop was at beach resort, with incredible crashing surf, multiple raised thatched bungalows run by expat women they knew and stayed with several times and I thought we were at our destination but we were only halfway at that point. We had a very nice visit and just so happened her charming, lovely parents had come down from their jungle mountain home about an hour away and fascinating conversation. Rosemary, German and eighty years young and Otto, Dutch and celebrating his ninetieth birthday regaled us with a synopsis of their stories - she growing up in war years under Hitlers horrible reign, how her dad married a Swiss women who was smart enough to hide their business assets in Switzerland to guard against whatever was to be the unknown outcome of war and Otto, whose parents raised him in Dutch Indonesia and when the Japanese invaded and occupied the region in WWll, he was separated for a time from his parents and imprisoned but better off then most by being a servant to the prison camp commandant. I so liked these people and wanted to spend more time with them but alas, we said our goodbyes and hit the road.
Our next stop was the famous 11th century garden retreat of the Balinese King of that time, forget the name but will try to find link and include later. Needless to say, beautiful! We wandered around for a bit and of course it was very photogenic and shot many pics which I will include a few now, maybe more later.
From there we started a steady climb through rising jungle terrain with incredible vistas of farms and terraced rice paddies below. We stopped at a small fruit stand on very narrow pullout next to steep drop off to picturesque valley below and David insisted I have a piece of Jack Fruit. Very interesting large, hard short spiked fruit twice the size of largest coconut with very unusual innards which the women cleaned a chunk of for us and showed us how to extract largish seeds, peel off petal like strands and eat - wonderful! Tasted a bit like combination of papaya, mango and pleasurable firm texture, hard to put your finger on. Very delicious and glad we brought some extra pieces for later and will definitely want more while in Bali!
I have so much more to impart but alas, I am flagging and retiring soon but will include a few pictures of day but untitled until I learn how to do. I leave up to your imagination to put images to my narrative - good luck, enjoy!
Cheers
G
PS - my apologies, for some reason after multiple tries couldn’t upload pics 🤷♂️. Will try tomorrow- stay tuned
PPSS, next day- well, pictures didn’t get loaded as planned in order of narrative nor all the one I wanted but at least some got in for you to get the idea. 🤷♂️ , vagaries of not knowing and or sporadic internet.....but here you go, enjoy.
Just locating yesterday's chronicles today(tomorrow?) but have already commented on today's this morning🤷♂️. Have to get blog notifications to pop up somewhere more prominently lest I get out of sequence (or miss entirely).
ReplyDeleteChronicles and pictures are great fun. Some of the countryside are shades of the Vale. Would love a few higher res(maybe sent one or two at a time on Wapp) of some of the intricacies of the temples.
Incredible country. What an adventure.
I've seen a Jack fruit at Trader Joe's or WF and was totally intimidated but your wonderful description was inspirational.