Trying Freedom

We’ll get back to the title shortly… starting the day by getting back onto a fast boat first, this time armed with a travel sickness tablet and sat on the top of the deck with a beer in hand, I had a moment while looking around that this is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing, it was a good morning.

Only tainted slightly by the experience of having to use the toilet on the boat which I don’t want to stress highly enough should only be done in emergencies, it’s just a bad idea for many reasons.

Enough of that anyway, I made it back to the harbour and picked my bike up from the way overpriced car park I’d been offered to use by the ticketing company, which was as far as I can tell, just a random man’s garden he was using to make some money for his daughter, but it was only around £3 and there’s definitely worse I could do with that.

It’s worth mentioning I was only actually back on the mainland for that reason, I couldn’t get the bike I had rented picked up from where I was in Padangbai as it was to far away so I had to come back and collect it instead of going over to the next island I wanted to visit, Lombok, but hopefully that’ll be for another day in the trip but either way, it must be meant to be.

I checked into my next hotel in Karangasem and met a lovely couple called Dalton and Nat who suggested that I visit a local Chocolate Factory before I head off which was obviously not something I could pass up on.

The place was incredible and the owner, Charly, had an amazing story to tell around how he first made it here 20 years ago with no plan but started helping people earn money making soak with coconut oil, now he uses the same oil to make chocolate, he also lives at the top of this structure which he built with some help along with all the other buildings in the area. The chocolate is pretty incredible too, highly recommend the Goji berry one.

I finished the day with a visit to Amed beach in the far east of Bali but to be honest there wasn’t a whole lot to see and the beaches aren’t the white sand I’d just had on Gili Air, so I headed a bit further along the coast to do some snorkelling at the Japanese Ship Wreck Point which I’d highly recommend.

Then, back to Ubud for the night.