The day things went wrong. That’s what I should call this entry. No internet. No navigation. No bank withdrawals. No hotel booked. But it was still a hell of a lot of fun.

We breakfasted at our lovely lakeside cabins, wrote a bit, looked at the mountains and chatted idly with our host Bennie. We decided to check out the lakeside temple and the Geopark Museum. The internet had been off and on during the night, but usually, a restart of the phone had fixed it. We typed the address into the Beeline and set off for the temple.

Could we find the temple? No. The Beeline led us down a dirt road that the boy at the front insisted was the wrong road. We went in circles three times. We were pulled over by the police for our first time in Bali, and I’d assumed we would have to pull out our International Driving Permits, but they just wanted a photo with us. We needed to turn around, and Dalma pulled a wrist doing so. We decided to come back to the temple and head to the museum, but now, of all times, the 4G internet decided to take the day off. As the beeline relies on an internet connection, it was useless. So we boldly set off without navigation. I sort of knew where it was, and we found it eventually.

It was amazing. I’d been sort of looking for Mount Agung, not realising the various mountains I’d been peering at were actually in the caldera of Mount Agung. It’s enormous. Lake Batur is also in the caldera. The scientists and staff at the museum were kind and helpful. An English speaker offered to show us around, but we declined, preferring to poke around on our own.

It was afternoon, so we stopped at a hillside cafe for lunch before returning to the hotel. Here’s where the difficulties started.

The internet at the hotel was also slow, but we managed to put in Tejakula, the coastal town we’d planned to get to before heading on to Lovina. We packed the bikes and set off. Passing a telecommunications store, with my internet not working, we tried to get a local sim for Dalma’s phone. Unfortunately, the young woman in the stall couldn’t get it working. So we went on hoping for the best. We filled up with petrol, leaving us with maybe Rs 80,000 (about $8). No worries. We’d pick up cash at a bank. Great idea, but no ATM we stopped at would let us take money out. (We tried six). So we had no money, no booking, and no internet to make a booking with. To top it off, Dalma’s Cardo hadn’t charged, so we had to give it a little juice before we could complain to each other. Eh. We’re tough adventure riders. This is an adventure. The beeline was still connected, so we went on.

There were many slow trucks, dangerous or insane drivers (possibly both) and windy roads. Unfortunately, about 5km before a vital turnoff, the beeline went to “rerouting” (with no internet to reroute with). Fortunately, I had Maps.Me, is a fantastic app that uses downloaded maps rather than a connection to the internet. But I had no way of mounting it on the bike. The trouble was by this time, we were perhaps 10km past the turnoff for Tejakula. I ascertained that the road we were on would still bring us to the coast, so we continued on as best we could. We still had no cash, though. Eventually, it brought us down into the busy and ugly town of Boengkoelan. (Sorry to any Boenghoelanians out there, but your town needs a facelift!) We tried again to withdraw cash and on the second go, it worked at the shining light that is a BRI ATM! Yay! A kindly local guided us to a hotel, and we headed there, but it was on the dirtiest beach we’ve seen this trip, with knee-high garbage piled on both sides of the road.

(On a side note, It’s weird, but the garbage issue here is real. You’d think they’d get this aspect right on an island as beautiful as Bali. Though I believe they are making a concerted effort.)

Anyway, we hightailed it out of there (though we found later that the hotel was both very nice and very cheap, two things of great import to me). We checked Maps.Me and found a hotel called “Lovina Beach Villas” down the road. (We’d made it to Lovina). We drove there. It was now getting towards 5 pm. We found the road but couldn’t find the Lovina Beach Villas, but we found another called “1000 Dreams”. We parked, and I went off a little wild-eyed to see if they had a room. They did. (Hurrah). They came out, helped us with our bags and took us to a little oasis of calm. Beachfront, pool, the outdoor toilet Dalma had hoped for (there are plenty of pubs in Australia that have one, so this Hunyak desire to poop in the open air puzzles me a little), a restaurant, two cold Bintang in the fridge. It was heaven.

So these two tough, rugged, dusty adventure motorcyclists checked into the luxury villa, drank the beers, went and sat on the sea wall and watched the light vanish accompanied by food, more Bintangs and gin and tonics. (I know this seems like the world’s most motorcycle pub crawl, but we are doing amazing things too, and not just drinking). We had a satisfying dinner and went to bed early, tired from the day.

And the next morning, the 4G was on.

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