Bali Trip 2014: Day 7: Amed Snorkelling

What Really Happens In Bali?  Well if you believe TV and mainstream media it is nothing but drinking and crazy risk taking.  Well here is our version – stay tuned for our quick 2 week escape from Australia heading over to Bali and Kuala Lumpur.

Really interesting day today – not a lot happening – just hitting the road again on our beast motobikes!  Plus I got to meet a Balinese Doctor….what more could you ask for?

Today is all about relaxing:

• Snorkelling
• Food
• Snorkelling

Another glorious Amed sunrise – the sun was red this morning – which if you are a superstitious sailor means there is rain coming.  Weather is certainly hot and humid this morning – didn’t even mind the fact that the hot water wasn’t working very well (read: not at all).

Went downstairs for Breakfast – simple one this morning – Plain and Banana Pancakes with Juice and Coffee.

Today’s plan was to head back to Jemeluk and do some snorkelling  – so we jumped on the scooters and headed into town – with our snorkel gear which we had brought from Oz.  You can hire equipment in town, nearly every cafe and restaurant has gear available but we figured we would just prefer stuff that was our own and we knew who had been using it. 

We decided to base ourselves in front of the Sama Sama Cafe again; as I mentioned yesterday they have beach chairs (with umbrellas) available for about Rp50k each per day, and the food was pretty darn nice yesterday.

Our home for the next few hours – this is actually the first time ever in Bali that we have ever planned to just sit on the beach all day.

The weather was glorious and the water was so clear.  At this point I will apologise for the fact you wont actually see any pictures from in or under the water – someone forgot to bring a GoPro or underwater camera (me) so just picture it.

If you have never been before the Coral Reef in Amed is “LITERALLY” right at the beach, you walk in the water and you are virtually on the coral.  No need to travel by boat or anything.  Within 5 meters of the shore is a huge underwater world of sealife. 

It took me all of about 2 minutes to get in that water – on a hot day like today the water was amazing.  So clear I estimate it would have been at least 5-10 meters down and the visibility was crystal clear.  You can even see the folks from the various Scuba Schools down below you – which for a tiny microsecond has you thinking “there are no sharks here right?”.  If you squint into the above picture you may just see my snorkel and my white back!

After a couple of hours of snorkelling it was lunch time.  We headed up to the Sama Sama – as you can see from our colour coordinated towels on the chairs – it wasn’t a far walk!

Lunch was the same as yesterday (why fix what aint broke) Nasi Goreng, Garlic Grilled Prawns, a few huge bottles of water and some juice.  All up Rp179k.   Perfect to fuel us up for another couple of hours of snorkelling.

Back to our beachside basecamp for a great afternoon session – the water was actually much clearer in the afternoon – the swell had calmed down and visibility actually improved (if that was possible).

We stuck around for a little longer until the heat had totally zapped us – and so headed upstairs again to Sama Sama for a quick afternoon tea snack of Spring Rolls, Chips, Coke and Water – Rp41k.

Back to the hotel to rest and get some dinner…..

The Fun Part

…so I managed to get a little bit sunburnt whilst in the water – despite putting sunblock on every 2 hours I was nicely baked from neck to lower back.  Anyway after a quick sleep on the bed (surprising how much the sun zaps your energy and you need to sleep), we headed down to dinner with Ketut and Wayan again.  I must admit I was feeling quite cold tonight (shivering even) – how strange…

Dinner arrived (Nasi Goreng / Chicken Sate) and I felt a bit off so said to the lovely wife “I might go back to the room”.  I must have closed my eyes for a moment because the next thing I know I wake up with Ketut holding me up in the chair, every member of staff standing staring at me and I am soaked in water….

Turns out I passed out at the table and my wife screaming brought the staff over to see what the heck was wrong with her – they then couldn’t actually get me conscious again – my wife took this as free permission to belt the crap out of me to try and wake me up – that proving ineffectual poured a whole bottle of water over me.

Poor Ketut and Wayan were so worried – probably in part because they might have been worrying about the poor reviews they would get if a guest died in their Warung….Wayan said he would go grab the doctor and sped off on his bike.  Ketut brought be jugs and jugs of warm water with sugar in it.  Meanwhile the lovely wife (who now I guess gets permission to spend as much as she wants for the rest of the trip) ran to the room to get our Hydralite Tablets.

From my very well educated guess (being a First Aid Trainer and SES Member…) I think I had a combination of dehydration and heat stroke, plus in combination with the severe sunburn on my back – causing me to pass out.

Anyway after about 25 minutes Wayan returns with the Doctor and we head up to my room for him to examine me.  All good, he left me some drugs for the pain.  Now we were a little worried come time to pay him – given he had to come from the next village! All Up for the visit plus medication Rp300k – Bargain – I might come back to Amed to get sick more often – for some reason my wife didn’t get the humour in that this evening.

Alll good now – just needed to keep the fluids up for a couple of days and stay out of the sun (lucky we head to Sanur tomorrow so no snorkelling tomorrow).  I can’t thank Ketut and Wayan enough for the care they showed me – please if you are heading to Amed even if you stay somewhere else come have a meal at Titi Sedana Warung in Bunutan – they are so lovely and I won’t be able to repay them for their kindness.

As I mentioned yesterday it is really tough to spend any significant money in Amed (even with a doctor callout), our total for today Rp765k (would have been Rp465k had I not got sick).

Liked anything you heard from today’s blog?  Here is the summary of places we visited and their websites (where I could find them):

Food:

• Sama Sama Cafe & Bungalows
• Titi Sedana Warung & Homestay

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