We’ve decided to stick around south Bali for the last few days. But that didn’t mean we were going to sit idly, have massages, drink Bintang, and do all the things that make touristic Bali touristic Bali. As it turns out, we did sit idly, drink Bintang and have massages. But we went and saw stuff first.

Dalma planned a day in South Bali. No, not Kuta (see beforementioned drinking/massage comments). We were heading further south. But first, we had to get there. We caffeinated, warmed up the bikes, and took off.

Firstly, we headed towards Uluwatu temple. The trip was slow. Lots of cars and trucks thought they should get to wherever they were going before we got where we were going. I just closed my eyes and ears to the sights and sounds and remembered the number one objective of motorcycling is to get to your destination, not to get to your destination first. So we trundled along. It took us maybe an hour and a half to get to Uluwatu.

Uluwatu is one of the nine directional temples in Bali. Perched on a cliff seventy metres above the crashing surf with disturbingly large rocks that have seemingly fallen from the cliff face; it presents an impressive sight. There were relatively few sightseers, though. Mind, Bali is still recovering from Covid-19, so it is, perhaps, understandable. We watched some monkeys carefully, as they’re known to steal things and demand food for their return. (Indeed, someone’s earring was pilfered by the small and canny thieves while we were there).

Monkey with a soft drink can.

However, it was midday and hot, hot, hot, even without jackets. So, we headed back to the bikes, geared up, and headed off. Predictably, we got lost; but that’s mototravel, hey?

We were headed for the southernmost point of Bali, Melasti Beach. The Beeline logically decided to take us the quickest way, which meant going down a series of increasingly smaller and rougher roads; but we kept going. Eventually, we were faced with a road that had a steep descent, with the road mostly washed away. It was the kind of road that I’d have hesitated to do in Billie, the Himalayan. We took one look at it and noped the heck out of there. It didn’t really matter. The beeline took over when we started going back and led us around the offending road.

We rode down slightly larger roads, finding ourselves on the “other” entrance to Melasti Beach. We paid for parking and rode down the most beautiful cliff cutting. Even the fact that it went to gravel halfway down couldn’t wipe the smile from our faces. Who says you can’t ride scooters on gravel?!

We took some videos and then went into a more upmarket beach club. The kind of place where they charge you to enter and then charges you western prices for everything while you lie on their private beach. It was very different from what we were used to. Even different from what we liked. Though clearly, we were in the minority, with hordes of tourists developing melanomas while drinking overpriced alcoholic beverages and listening to duff-duff music. We ate, watched the tourists for a while, felt our brain cells disappearing from the music, and quickly headed back to the bikes. We had a bridge to cross.

We headed for the Mandala Bali bridge. You might remember this from our first Bali post. It’s 12.7 km of road across the Gulf of Benoa. We’d thought to get on it on our first day, but repeated visits to Indomarets and Alfamarts had yet to avail us of an e-toll card. We’d tried at the bank responsible earlier in the day, but after informing us that they had none, they told us we could buy it at the bridge. Ah! So, we headed onto the on-ramp. We wound up in the car lane (as opposed to the narrow motorcycle lane to the amusement of local motorcyclists), but we crossed into it at the toll booth. A very pleasant security officer sold us a toll card for Rp. 50,000, and we were away.

We zoomed along at 80kph enjoying the wind and the views of Denpasar far enough away to look pretty across the water. There were surprisingly few people on it, others preferring presumably to sit in traffic. We got to the other end and considered for a moment about going back so we could do it again. But it was getting late, so we headed into the traffic maelstrom that is late afternoon Denpasar.

And that’s it really. An awesome day with awesome sights. Probably our last in Bali. We leave the day after tomorrow. But I’m sure we’ll have more to tell you.

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