Visit – Page 11 – Simply cycling around

Kediri, visiting artisanal market with Maria and Rza

Late this afternoon Maria suggested to go to artisanal market. Good I like this :-) We took a taxi and went through the city. When we arrived to the place I thought I was confused. This looked more like a supermarket to me than an artisanal one. I might miss understood what she said. So Maria didi some shopping and we came back in the taxi, the driver has waited for us! Finally we arrived later to the place on the picture, the real artisanal market :-) Maria’s friends joined us and then we get in their car. The car was small and we were 6 hahaa. Two on the front, four at the back, yes this is not France haha. Five minutes later we stopped in a warung to have dinner. The food was great. Obviouly, Maria and her friends know all the hidden warung in town :-) We finally hoped back in the car and came back home.

Kediri > Pigri (return, by car)

This morning Maria suggested to go to the beach. She asked me if I wanted to go with her family or stay here, haha. Why would I stay here alone? She trust me too much already :-) The thing I did not realised is the fact that Kediri is 80km away from the sea and considering the Indonesian traffic it’s far away. All together we went to the beach today. From right to left: Yon, Asri, Maria, Ethan, Irene, Yuni and me. Maria’s son, Abraham, stayed at home playing video games.

Kuta, visit around and meeting Cecile again

I’ve quit the hotel at midday and have 4 hours front of me to visit Kuta and around. My bike and all my stuff being at Cecile’s house I must walk! I don’t know what to visit really so I’m just discovering. Definitely one of the most predominant business is scooter. I’m pretty sure each single street has at least one shop that repair scooter. Then I’ve seen some other who were specialized on scooter washing. And you can find petrol every 500 metres. There is lots of workshops that build/create their stuff right on the spot. I’ve seen some guys who were making a sofa :-) They worked on the “footpath”. In fact, there is not always a footpath and when there is one there is scooter driving onto it haha :-) Let’s start the visit.

Candidasa > Kuta (68km by car)

Last day with my family visiting Bali. Max and I stayed a bit longer and wander around the peninsula for few hours. We had a drink at the beach then visited the Uluwatu temple which is on the west side of the peninsula. There was some more monkeys who were more aggressive than the one we have seen until now. One of them stole the glasses of an asian guy! He came too close to the fence to take a picture. This monkey did not like it and grab his glasses. I picked up a empty bottle, bring it to the monkey to make diversion and take the glasses back but it did not work, unfortunately. Glasses lost…

Candidasa > Candidasa (4km by walk)

Today we went to do some snorkeling at the “Blue Lagoon”, this is how they call it. My feeling is that this area is still in a recovery stage as there is a lot of broken coral but some of them look okay. We must bargain with the only boat driver who came to us this morning. Actually a guy is charging to find the tourists and bargain for a price and then he call the driver with who he shares the money :-) Like often he told us “shut, don’t tell this price to anyone because I did a special price for you”. Yeah, yes naturally. Thanks for that ;-) We know it a game and no matter which price he will still earn some money. Keep your breath, we dive now :-)

Amed > Candidasa (40km by car)

Today our goal was to go to Candidasa, find a garage to fix the car and stay quiet at the hotel. Apparently, there is the possibility to do some snorkeling in this area. Unfortunately, most of the coral has been destroyed when the coastline was developed for tourism. The silly thing is they used the coral to build hotels but did not realised that people would come here for the beaches and to SEE that same coral which doesn’t exist anymore. At the same time, the coral was protected the beaches from erosion so it had a double role. They stopped mining until the late 1980s. Now they hope that the coral will grow back like it was before. It will certainly take decades. What a silly system based on profit and destruction like too often…

Toya Bungkah > Amed (90km by car)

The main goal of today was to climb Mount Batur (Gunung Batur) which is 1717m high. The lake is situated around 700m. It’s approximately a 4 hours walk return. Our guide, Budi, was really kind. He is the one with the red hat and the blue/yellow shirt on the picture above. The landscape from the top was impressive as we could see at 360 degrees. We could sight the Danau lake, the Bali sea and the Batur’s crater. We had the breakfast cooked on site using the heat from active hot sources smoking out of the rock. Finally we walked down to the hotel and drove towards Amed where we will spend the night. Tough day! :-)