Amed: a region of seven beautiful fishing villages along the east coast of Bali.
Amed is known for its magical coral and historical shipwrecks. It’s easy to get there, especially by bike. It takes around 4 hours to get there from the south of Bali. We left at 9 am on Saturday from Sanur. After two hours of driving, you leave the main road for the real Bali-experience. We drove through the mountains, alongside the coast, through valleys, rice fields, and the best: the small villages where all the kids are smiling and waving at you. It is hard keeping your eyes on the winding mountain roads with views like this. After two hours of driving there is a perfect beach to stop for lunch and cool down by taking a quick dip into the sea, called Pantai Bias Putih. After the stop, the views are only getting better and better.
Diving and Snorkeling
When we arrived at the destination at 3 in the afternoon, we directly went to the beach to go snorkeling until the sun went down. There are several beautiful snorkel spots along the coastline. You can rent a snorkel on sight for only 50.000 IDR (3.35 US Dollars), this price is almost too low for everything you get to see. When you walk on the beach, you never expect there to be such a paradise at the bottom of the sea. From luminous coral to fish in all colors and sizes, it feels like you’re in real life version of Finding Nemo. Highly recommended places for diving and snorkeling are Jemeluk and Tulamben. You can dive here at the USS Liberty shipwreck. This American ship was sunk by the Japanese during the Second World War. There are several good diving spots around Amed, but this shipwreck is one of the places you have to visit.
Where we stayed
We stayed at Anugerah Villas in Benutan, one of Ameds small coastline villages. A calm and safe place with ocean views, swimming pools, a tropical garden, and friendly staff. The villa has the perfect location, only three minutes walking from a quiet snorkel and dive beach. On Sunday morning, we woke up early to snorkel at the old shipwreck. We rented Jukungs at the beach near to our villa that brought us to the shipwreck in twenty minutes. The boat trip alone was quite an experience, snorkeling around the shipwreck was even better.
Tukad Cepung Waterfall
After snorkeling at the shipwreck, we had lunch at a local beach bar. After lunch, we drove 2,5 hours to Tukad Cepung Waterfall. The drive through the jungle, mountains and rice fields was longer than we expected, but definitely worth it. Tukad Cepung waterfall is known for the magical view of sunrays reflecting on the water, but when we arrived the sun was already gone. I recommend you to go there between 12 and 3 pm. Besides the missing sunrays, the big waterfall was not very touristic and still overwhelmingly beautiful. After visiting Tukad Cepung we drove back 2 hours to Sanur, tired but satisfied we finished our beautiful weekend.
