Amed

The taxi driver dropped us off in an area with the cheapest accommodation and from here I went looking for somewhere to stay whilst Ian waited with the bags. There is a lot of accommodation in Amed and the town was practically deserted giving me leeway to haggle on the prices.

 

After looking at a few rooms (all started from 100,000IR) I came to a place called ‘Villa Mimpi’ which from the outside looked like all the other places I had seen. I was met by one of the workers and asked them if i could view a room. I was then led directly into a spacious living room with a large sofa, flat screen TV and a pool table. Immediately I knew this was going to be way out of our usual budget but as I was already there I decided to view the room anyway. 

Leading off from the living room there were four separate double rooms, all with en-suites, hot shower and AC. The room I viewed was huge, it was triple the size of my room back home and had a four post bed with crisp white sheets and big fluffy pillows. The decor was simple with beautifully carved furniture made from limed wood, a walk in wardrobe and a lovely bathroom that had potted plants surrounding the shower area. Thinking I could not be wowed anymore, I was then taken to the garden area that had a bar with a 12 seated dining table and an enclosed private pool that overlooked the beach.

I then asked the question i had been dreading to ask, the cost. I already felt obliged to after this friendly balinese man had taken his time to show me around. He quoted me a price of 350,000IR per night. Usually its £85 per night but as its low season and hardly anyone was here I guess they had to dramatically slash their prices. I then found myself haggling with him and he came down to 300,000 per night, including breakfast. I told him I would think about and then went and found Ian to tell him our options. 

Usually I would have declined the expensive room straight away, in fact this is why I always go in search of accommodation because if I left it to Ian he would only source out these kind of expensive places and tell me he couldn’t find anything cheaper! Ian was eager to see this ‘absolutely amazing’ place that i had told him all about and whilst walking there when he turned to me and asked, ‘has it really got a pool table?’ I knew there was no way he was going to stay in our usual £5 room now.

During our stay here the weather had been really overcast and rainy, so our beach days went out the window and most of the time we spent riding around on the moped. We would dash out in between times when the rain had stopped. At one point we ended up driving for a couple of hours towards what we thought was the volcano, ‘Gunung Agung’. We soon realised we were mistaken and it was an entirely different mountain altogether. All along our journey we were waved at enthusiastically by all the friendly, local school children. We also noticed that the air was a lot cooler once we had reached the peak of the mountain and had the weather been clearer then the views from the there would have been exceptional.

Tip:

Another nice drive is right along the coast of Amed. Not only is it nice to drive through the little villages but the dramatic mountain and coastal views are incredible.