We had a late start as I was supposed to have a meeting (which didn’t happen). We hung around Amed, had lunch, wrote and generally chilled. I was sorry to leave Amed. If we had longer in Bali, I’d have stayed longer, but time was moving on. At twelve, we set off. This would be the longest ride we’d done so far, a marathon of 75km. It does seem to take longer to get to places here. The narrow and windy roads make topping out the motorcycles impractical.

However, once we were out of Amed, the road straightened out, and we burned along at 60-70kph. We’re getting more used to this. We dodged slow cars and trucks on the wrong side of the road and didn’t flinch when faster local riders appeared suddenly at our elbow. I’m very impressed by Dalma. For someone who has had trouble getting on a bike, she is absolutely fearless here. No, not fearless—courageous. She still talks of her fears, but doesn’t let them show on the road.

Eventually, we turned off the coast road and headed up into the hills. Lake Batur isn’t an easy place to get to from the north. You have to go a fair way south east and then double back north.

The road was windy with switchbacks and occasional areas where it had eroded, and we found ourselves on gravel. On scooters. We kept going and didn’t fall off the bikes. And Lexi and WTF kept chugging away. Gradually, the temperature dropped, the palm trees gave way to more alpine vegetation, and we found ourselves in the mountains. Our first view of the lake from high up was exciting, and we wound our way down to the lakeside to where we’d booked. We had trouble finding the road to the hotel: it was a rough stone track. We bounced our way up the road and found our bungalows. To our delight (especially Dalma’s), we found they had a thermal pool. After a short walk for lunch, we jumped in and splashed around in the hot water.

So. That was our day. After an excellent fish dinner (with wonderful Balinese sambal), we retired to the room and fell asleep early.

Today’s video