Unexpected bike trail - Bali Part 1

My degree at NTU,Singapore was first instance in my life,when i was kinda away from my home. Though i was supposed to stay at my sister's place saving money on room rents, i found a more cheaper & fun way to spend my uni days by simply hanging out all night with friends & crashing in different friends room in the mornings. It reached to the level i got spare keys from couple of rooms so that i dont disturb them knocking their doors early in the mornings. My visit to my sisters place was limited to laundry & monthly expense :P. As my degree whizzed past my eyes my itchy feet remained dutifully itchy with regular parties,weekend trips & midnight hangouts within the city (country), But i hadn't stepped out of the country, let alone the one trek organised my the uni's activity club to "Gunung belamut - malaysia" second successful stamp on passport. First ever challenging trek climbing 90 degrees pulling up holding tree roots in rain & best part was by the time the trek was done (16km up & down) i lost both my thumb nails & i had learnt robot walking. Not to forget the cheers & claps with sheepish looks from fellow travellers that i received for being the last to complete the trek.

Later that year, after finding a job which made me travel every 2nd or 3rd day to indonesia (best part - travel by sea, worst part - only1hr ferry with a time difference of 1hr) here i was getting stamped on my passport every 3rd day. Finally (Dec 2011) after i was considered permanently one among my colleagues after 3 months of getting work done out from me while they go out on holidays. I still remember the buzz of heading to bali, First ever proper holiday leaving behind the familiar as the plane took off the runway. But most of all i remember the complete despair i felt leaving the shores of bali at the end of holiday & heading back the daily routine. It was always a happy/ sad emotions  felt at the airport as soon as my flight lands but for me best part was i was hooked & i knew i had many more like this to come & that was only motivating point.

So yeah after jaunting out an rough itinerary after browsing through the internet & booking a couple of cheap resorts for students with 5 other good friends, we land in bali determined to cover the north east (Amed) & central region of bali island (Ubud) on the evening 2 days ahead of christmas. We had arranged for a ride via WAWA WEWE cottages which was our stay in amed.A cab driver named Nanga who took us to an extremely awesome sea food restaurant for dinner. Can never forget the extremely tasty coconut drink & the squid, first & last time for me trying sea food.  After the continuous flight & road travel for 4 hours we reached the cottage at 1.30am. The driver passes our keys, kaboom whatte a welcome - 3 super huge  beautiful wooden cottages for 6 people right next to the sea with a small but cute infinity pool overlooking the sea (all for 20$ per cottage). I hardly slept that night wondering where on earth have i landed. Some how after catching sleep for couple of hours i wake up to my friend explaining me that their was no complimentary breakfast as mentioned in our booking. Thanks to my prior training in Inglish (Indonesian english - basically no prepositions & forget grammer) i knew immediately what could have possibly went wrong, i walk up to the cafeteria right next to pool which looks much more beautiful during the day & as i spelt out the golden "Inglish words - free breakfast/food, need, now " our breakfast got served in one of most beautiful cafeteria ever (on a cliff overlooking the sea).

Over breakfast, We decided we will head to the nearest snorkelling site which had a 2nd world war japanese ship wreck. First ever time snorkelling with 3 people in the group who dont know swimming & 1 life jacket (GULP). After an hour or so taking turns to snorkel along with people who didn know swimming we decide to go for one last tour of the allowed snorkel area & leave. we split in two groups & started exploring towards rocky cliff side where currents started to build slowly.  I realized the currents only after reaching the farmost point away from shore. Here i was panting all tired & trying to relax before i swim back to the shore &  i see other group of my friends force drowning the only guy who knew swimming caught in the currents. I gather all my energy & rush towards them & with in seconds before even i could realise the swap happens, there i was being drowned by the same guys while i could see the guy who was being drowned before swim to safety towards the rocky shore. Thanks to Nanga who took a dive as soon as he heard my scream, 3 lives saved with some bruises on everyone except the 2 who tried drowning people in panic attack. After all this we quenched our hunger in an extremely delicious vegan restaurant (Ok atleast the desserts were delicious) run by a german, just that it took him only around 45 mins to put our starters on the table.

 Later we head back to return our snorkelling equipments when we found anyone can hire a motor bike without a need for license & the shop was right next to the snorkel shop. It only cost 8$ for a bike for a whole day & not to forget less than 1$ for 1 litre of petrol. So we rented out 3 & we started exploring on our own. We reached a nearby water palace by evening, a beautiful garden of fountains right next to a temple built by the kings a few centuries ago. I vaguely remember a image of me sitting on a high rise corner  with a view of entire garden through shades of smokes from the cigarette i was smoking as my need to travel  just grew bigger by a huge leap. It was christmas eve & we finished the day by dipping ourself into the pool under clear night sky, stories of the german wall from my friend & few beers & a cigar. The bike trail would continue on next day in  my next blog.