Roads Less Travelled

I'd been smiling like a lunatic on day release for the last eighty or so kilometres of my trip, I'd finally found the serenity and release of a Bali I had suspected was long extinct.

ujung water palaceI was only passing through Amed but I already wanted to stay a month. Stopping for a mid flight Teh Bottle on the side of the road I soon had an irate goat and sunburnt dog for company. Fifteen minutes later I was giving an impromptu and entirely unrehearsed English lesson to a small army of hyperactively high-fiving, red-capped school kids on their way home from studies, a half-minute later the village Kepala Desa was making motions for me to join him in his home for the night, an offer that came too late in the trip and would turn out to be my biggest regret.

The idea was to track the circumference of the island on my trusty Honda bebek from Canggu all the way round to Sanur following only the coastal road via the Taman Nasional Bali Barat Park, Lovina and the bustle of the old Dutch trading capital of Singaraja onto the barren and remote north eastern provinces, Amed and round the corner to Candidasa and beyond. No deviations along the way, just trying to find a life away from the fifth gear madness of Denpasar, Kuta and all the tourist enclaves dotted along the beautiful, but overdeveloped southern coastline, living and eating like the locals do along the way.

Now, I'm more than a little fond of zero preparation when it comes to such undertakings, the best laid plans always leave no margin for spontaneity which tends to lend itself, in turn, to good travelling experiences. Why anyone would want to own a map of anywhere is quite beyond my comprehension. Figuring that so long as I managed to keep

the Indian Ocean over my left shoulder at all times I would eventually circle back round on myself into familiar territories I set off towards the west coast of Tabanan and onto Medewi. The minor problems of a 48 hours time constraint, one stop overnight along the way, and a budget of twenty US Dollars, would necessitate a diet of local food from the roadside vendors.

My big mistake was the utter negligence of Tumpek Landep day that fell slap bang on the Saturday and Sunday of my jaunt. I faintly remembered reading about this holy day where the Balinese give thanks to the Gods of all things metal, including motorised vehicles and Honda bebeks but had all too hastily resigned it to the 'potentially useful' memory bank for later contemplation. Pulling up to the first intersection in Tabanan I stalled at the lights, changed down into first a little too aggressively and parked my front wheel into the back of the exhaust pipe of the family of five in front. In hindsight a round of cheerful apologies should have been in order but the situation rapidly deteriorated into attempted daylight robbery with the father of the scraped exhaust claiming all manner of damages and physically insisting I accompany him to the nearest bengkel for financial compensation. Thinking that a two hundred-word article on being held to ransom in a grimy Tabanan mechanics pit would probably spell instant dismissal from future writing assignments I high-tailed it out of there at top speed glancing furtively into my rear view mirrors to make sure the Anthill Mob weren't giving chase. I think I made it about a five hundred metres before the Gods interjected and my back wheel blew out leaving me limping along the main thoroughfare like a sitting duck.

Evidently I had amassed enough favour with the Gods of retribution and my pursuers didn't catch up. After half an hour of passing the time of day with the local tire changing fraternity I was back on the road, albeit now with a large, colourful palm woven offering tied tightly to my handlebars.

Exiting Tabanan is akin to entering proper Bali - away from all the sunburnt masses on Kuta beach. I spent a happy two hours heading west to Gilimanuk without spotting a single white face until I stopped for a surf recon and a hefty portion of Nasi Campur near Balian. One thing that was very apparent in the cuisine of the west coast, is the heavy Javanese influence, a scoop bandit monkeys while speeding through the wilderness past Menjangan Island, through Gondol Beach and onto what I thought would be the tropical oasis of Lovina.

I was well ahead of time when I pulled into Lovina proper, or should I say, I was well ahead of time when I reached Singaraja and turned back to Lovina, after missing the place entirely on the first go. Lovina isn't without charm but you've got to work hard to find it. Basically a roadside town catering to tourists on dive missions and dolphin watching tours its tiny size and inactivity makes Sanur look like the Vegas strip. The beach hawkers here obviously take lessons from their Kuta counterparts and compounded the misery of a day in the saddle by making themselves a real pain in the ass.
Realising that it was unlikely I would be put up for the night by a local family I abandoned all hope of cultural foraging and settled for a night in a small hut by the beach which sounds on paper a lot nicer than it was in reality.

Dinner was a fairly lacklustre affair but I was thankful to be away from the halal rules and regulations of the Gilimanuk road and tucked into a wholly 'unMuslim' order of Babi Guling followed by an extremely fresh but ludicrously overpriced snapper.

tianyer blossomI was glad to be out of Lovina at five the next morning and made good time through Singaraja after a minor detour to see if any local breakfast fare could be procured. Indonesians are the world's best at breakfast and long ago I put my foot down at scoffing plates of Nasi Goreng to start the day. When breakfast did finally present itself two hours later in the tiny market town of Tianyer Barat, a stone's throw from the mighty northern shores of Mount Abang, I was ready and willing to eat anything put in front of me.

Satay is clearly the order of the day at nine am in this part of the world
and the choice was ridiculous. I liked this village immediately. Anyone prepared to fire up the coconut husks at this hour was my kind of breakfast chef. Parking up next to a family sate operation near the Banjar, I was an instant celebrity and duly found myself whisked from stall to stall sampling a preposterous variety of fish, pork, chicken and Allah only knows what. I finally settled on a bag of Sate Lilit (ground, spicy fish paste moulded onto flat satay sticks) and a risky round of sate pig intestines, simply because the 'Bourdain' moment had taken grip and what's adventurous eating anyhow unless you imbibe a few guts along the way?

The Lilit was good but the pig better. It seemed to have been marinated
in coconut milk, tumeric and red chillis leaving a milky aftertaste mmediately before the chillies kicked in to remove a thin layer from the roof of my mouth. The chillies up here take no prisoners and it was hero points all the way as the traffic ground to a halt to witness the spectacle of a wayward foreigner getting an early morning breakfast fix Tianyer style.

The road to Amed twists and pivots in and out of the foothills of Mounts Nampu, Bisbis and Seraya leading you to countless pristine fishing bays, a mattering of dive schools and retreats transporting you from tiny village to tinier enclave along a rollercoaster ride of epic beauty and incomparable experience. By the time I had wrapped up the English class, bid farewell to my goat and dog companions and found myself spat gloriously into Amlapura I must have smiled at a hundred friendly faces and my voice was a sore as my throttle wrist and brake foot.

The people on the east coast amazed me: here were the real Balinese that have been secluded in this inhospitable but nonetheless breathtaking part of the island. Here was the genuine acceptance, curiosity and friendliness in the culture of a people I had been looking for forever, since my first visit many years ago. It had taken me a whole island's worth of searching to
find it but it's here and I was glad that the trip had (finally) borne some fruit.

The infertile terrain of the Amed area finally gave way to the rampant jungly exuberance of the Ujung beach area with its water temples and alluring, untouched volcanic beaches cascading down to Candidasa. I stopped for a coconut and gawped at the view across to Nusa Penida and in the distance some fifty kilometres away my home goal, Sanur. The sky was as clear as you could wish for, the only clouds wisped across the peaks of the distant Mount Agung and the three storey high palms enveloped the bays like a tropical garrison guarding against the onslaught of tourist development.

Cruising through Padang Bai and skirting though Gianyer back home I played over and over in my mind the last quarter of my journey. I felt a mixture of regret and relief. Regret that it had taken me so long and far to find the best part of Bali and relief that I had done so. I could scarcely believe that there had been no disasters along the way; my glance fell onto the palm offering limply hanging onto the front of my bike. It had served me well, aught me a good lesson in respecting the Gods and I even entertained the thought it may have offered some protection along the way.