The second day in amed I drove around the peninsula, there are some great views…sometimes the road is great, sometimes not so much…lots of people on the streets said hello as I drove past, it was fun…I kept stopping to take photos, it’s all so beautiful…most of those stops were after nearly driving off the road after being distracted by the views…whoops…the map shows one road that goes around the peninsula, it seemed pretty easy, but of course there were plenty of places to make turns, and sometimes I had to guess where I should go…
I was aiming for a place called taman ujung…the water palace…it was labeled on the big road map I had of Bali, and labeled on the map in the guidebook, though there was no description given in the guidebook…I hate it when they put things on a map then don’t describe them…at some point I saw a postcard with this palace, and figured I might as well see what it was…
I think it says it was built by one of the final kings of the kingdom of karangasem…I think it was built just after his coronation in 1919…his name and title is ridiculously long, how does anyone remember? Ida Anak Agung Anglurah Agung Ketut Karangasem. I wonder what he was called on a daily basis…if I had to use that entire name for someone I probably wouldn’t speak to them unless absolutely necessary!
I spent the afternoon on the beach…shocking, I know…
The next day I drove to padangbai…it’s not a place most people spend any time…there are two or three beaches, all quite small…and the waves are crazy…they’re not swimming beaches, and if the tide is up, there is little to no space to catch some rays…I laid out for a little while, watching the waves the whole time…normally I like to get in the water while I’m laying out, but the waves were big enough that I didn’t think that would be a good idea…not surprisingly, I also went to check out the temples in town…my favourite was a small one built into the side of a cliff…I was more fascinated to look out at the waves crashing into the cliff than I was to see the temple itself…sometimes the waves crashed into each other, which made for nice sprays of water…soooo pretty…I probably stood there for 30 minutes, just watching the water…awesome…
Padangbai is mainly the port for ferries going between Lombok and Bali, which go hourly, round the clock…these ferries take four hours or so, and go to a town called lembar…you can also catch fast boats which go directly to the gili islands, which are probably the most popular parts of Lombok to visit…howeva, those fast boats are a whole lot more expensive…and on the gilis, you’re not allowed to have motorbikes…I wanted to see more of Lombok than just the gilis, so I opted for the slower ferry, with my motorbike…as I was pulling into the ferry terminal the police officer waved me over and asked to see my license…In Indonesia you’re not supposed to drive unless you have an international license…they’re not difficult to get in your home town, but I haven’t been in my hometown in over a year…and even if I’d gotten one before I left the states, it would’ve been expired by now, as they’re only good for a year…I knew this when I rented the motorbike, but it’s not an unusual situation…the people renting motorbikes don’t really care if you have the international license or not…the officer said that when Indonesians don’t have their license while driving, the bike is kept until they can produce the license…I said that would be a problem because my license was with my friend…(I wasn’t about to admit that I didn’t have the license, although I’m sure he figured that out)…then I asked what needed to be done, knowing full well the answer I was going to get…
My first official bribe!! I knew that’s what was coming, and I was asked for less than I expected…only 50,000 rupiah, about $6. Not bad, eh?? I was expecting three times that, so I was pretty happy…he let me go and I went on to get my ferry ticket…I was happy to see that he was checking licenses of locals as well, though I was obviously the only one who didn’t have what I was supposed to have…whoops…Getting on the ferry was easy…I parked and took my stuff up to an upper deck…about 45 minutes later the ferry left…the ride was smooth, I was thankful…I’m sure at times there must be crazy waves, and since I get seasick pretty easily I was thankful the waves weren’t really around…at least, not this time…almost 5 hours later everyone disembarked in lembar…I had been worried about driving through town, and being able to find the main road out of town…but that wasn’t a problem either, there was plenty of signage…
I drove straight to the town of senggigi…along the way I passed a bunch of mosques…when you’re in Bali it’s easy to forget that Indonesia is the world’s most populated Islamic country, as Bali has remained Hindu…Lombok is definitely Muslim…I love the way mosques have so much variety…
there are a couple beaches in senggigi, though I arrived too late in the day for any sun worshipping…I checked email, since I hadn’t done so in padangbai, and found a job offer…yippee!!! To get the visa I need to send them scans of all the pages in my passport with stamps…hmmm…that’s a fair number of pages…it’s really really nice to have the job search stress over with…(not that I’m going to say where the job is until I get there and start working)
I also checked out a temple…it’s quite small, but offers great views of the sunset…when I got there, a lot of locals were there, worshipping…I didn’t get very close to the altar because that would’ve involved stepping over a lot of people, and I’m not so comfortable doing that…plus, I doubt the altar was much different from anything I’ve already seen in Indonesia… the temple is on a cliff, right next to a beach…after looking at the temple, I watched local kids playing soccer on the beach…so cute…especially when one kid tried to kick the ball and ended up rolling over it, if that makes any sense…
Again, I woke up early, so I could be ready for the 0500 pickup…ugh…
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