After we left Sanur, we went up to the northeast coast of Bali to spend a week in Amed. It’s completely gorgeous up there, and also very relaxed. It’s very far away from the hustle and bustle of Denpasar, and the tourist trap of Legian/Kuta. It’s just a really cool, chill little town.
Amed is about a 3 hour drive from Sanur, but the scenery is amazing. Amed is quite near Mount Agung, and the drive takes you along the coast, and past some gorgeous rice fields. The coast where Amed is situated is great for snorkeling, there is a reef that stretches all along the shore. although some of the beaches are kind of rocky.
We also did our first shipwreck dive there (the USS Liberty) which was every Little Mermaid fantasy I’ve ever had come to life, but more on that later.
We didn’t have a place to stay, but there are tons of little cheap homestays in Amed, so we found a place no problem.
The best part was, because we were there in October and that’s coming up on the rainy season, it wasn’t very busy, so even though we were staying at a cheap homestay, we went to quite a few of the nicer resorts and hung out there for a few hours each day, and they didn’t mind at all.
We would always order food and drinks, but we couldn’t have afforded to stay there, so we ended up getting the best of both worlds. The Santai had a beautiful pool right on the beach, and delicious mango crumble for dessert.
Amed had lots of cute little restaurants, which were largely wasted on me since it was too hot to eat anything other than mango and iced coffee, a yoga studio where you could practice yoga every evening along the beach, and no fewer than five Bob Marley themed bars.
The best (but coldest) thing we did while staying in Amed was climbing to the top of the Mount Batur volcano for sunrise, but that definitely deserves its own post.
Amed was one of my favourite places in Bali, and is a great stop over for a few days before taking the boat across to the Gili Islands.
