For six days, Amed was our destination of choice, far from the crowds of Sanur and Seminyak. As it's a three hour drive from Denpasar on busy, winding roads, less tourists make their way up here. It's more for divers and free divers, a veritable playground of a coast with wrecks and great snorkelling spots and coral reefs.

We stayed close to Jemeluk Bay, in the main town of Amed. It's a quiet cove of fishing boats, a few warungs up one end, and beautiful quiet waters for snorkelling. You can hire a deck chair under an umbrella for about $2 a day but if you buy lunch from them it's free. We only did this once though as 2 year old find it hard to settle for any length of time.

In 2018 we'd come here free diving as the volcano went off - Mt Agung does that every now and then, and it's quite spectacular. From one end of Amed the volcano is visible from the beach and also the street, a spectacular vision if you love a volcano.

The place we stayed, Bamboo Bali, was budget, but still really nice with a lovely pool that was good in the afternoon shade, and you could see the ocean from our rooms. It was noisy until about 10 am, and the call to prayer and roosters woke you up at 6 am.

The best part of the day were very early morning to see the sunrise. I'd often go down for a quick swim before breakfast.

Breakfast, like a lot of places in Bali, was a choice of pancake or eggs how you like it on toast. No nasi goreng, which I do like for a bali brekky. I am a big fan of pineapple pancakes so ate that most mornings, along with bali coffee and a serve of fruit.

I don't normally have a lot of fruit but it's so refreshing in tropical countries. Most mornings it was watermelon (which I fought the grandson for), papaya, banana and pineapple. So good. I have to say I felt pretty healthy afterwards and as soon as I got home I bought a pineapple!

In retrospect I would have spent a bit more money and stayed somewhere beach side, but still it was convenient to stay close to shops and even the medical clinic as both my son and I got an earache, and needed antibiotics. Even so it would have been better up the volcano end of town where there is more black sand than rocks - better for the grandson than the rocks of Jemuluk Bay.

It was a little busier up that end though, with the popular Warung Bobo where you can have a bintang and watch the sun set near Mount Agung. I didn't like Bobo as much as 'our' little restaurant (which deserves it's own post) as it was more expensive - couldn't believe we didn't get an egg and prawn crackers with our nasi goreng and they still charged us 59 IDR which is a little expensive. When we asked for the egg they charged us 10. It's funny the things you start to gripe about. It's also important to check your privilege.

Still, we loved walking up the beach in the cooler evening, where people were bringing in the boats, playing music, and generally living Bali life. The water was deliciously warm and we spent a lot of time moving between the pool and the sea, eating good food, having massages, and relaxing.

I'm not sure I'd recommend going up there with young kids though - the taxi ride is a killer. It's about 70 - 100 bucks and the traffic is insane. The grandson threw up from the winding roads on the way back and it took us about 30 mins to move 10 km at one point.

I was really gutted not to snorkel as much as I wanted to. I did have two days before my ear got too bad and I snorkelled on the last day so I suppose I can't complain too much.

Highly recommend you bring Swimmer's Ear or similiar if you're going to spend a lot of time in the water up here. Prevention is ideal. However, I was impressed with the medical clinic who gave us great care, antibiotics and ear drops, and it didn't cost us too much.

With Love,

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