Westward on North coast, Bali

On or about 8^th of January I headed westward from Lovina on the north shore by hired motorbike to Pemuteran. Pemuteran stretches along the highway for about three kilometres lined on both sides with Homestays (for some reason all accommodation is called a homestay rather than hotel or guesthouse), dive shops and small farm lots with one or two cows or pigs and chickens. It is really a village dedicated to tourist diving mixed with traditional Balinese subsistance farming. There is no commercial infrastructure, not even ATMs, service stations or convenience stores.  Most homestays have restaurants and there are local eating places called warangs.  Prices at the homestays (for tourists) tends to be higher than many other places on Bali.

My homestay, Juawa had very nice building structures and gardens, a big pool, and good restaurant and internet that didn't work and no Wi Fi ; BUT...It was very uncomfortable sitting in the restaurant or outside my room because of the odors from the above mentioned farm animal enclosures and the commensurate presence of house/barn flies. Curiously (to me) the room had no chairs or tables and no mirror in the bathroom – all of which I find a bit strange for an establishment catering to foreign tourists and charging over twice (even with discount which I wasn't to tell other guests about !)what I paid in Lovina.

In front of my homestay unit and next door to a cow pen on the left.  Too many flies to sit out on my porch.

 Juawa did have a nice pool and internet in shelter at far end which didn't work during my stay and no Wi Fi - thus this blog is posted after leaving 

The beach here in Pemuteran was actually nicer than at Lovina and stretches all along the coast.  The bay shelters from the storms - we had very high winds two nights in a row.  Maybe a monsoon off shore?

The Bay

On a laneway between the highway and the beach

A recently departed

        

and 

               

                    The last homestay

At Pemuteran we are leaving the Balinese Hinduism behind and getting into predominately Muslim territory

There are trails and paths leading from the highway back toward the mountains that form the backdrop to Pemuteran.  Below are some photos from my wonderings on some of these paths.

 I had my camera out taking a pic of a farm house when a group of kids kicking around a soccer ball on the path saw me and came running.  Of course when they got close too have their picture taken they broke into typical kid behavior.  One of the boys spoke English and asked where I was going. I think they and the farmers I met along the way, probably don't see too many old white men with hairy arms in their neighbourhood very often

And the cows were also wondering
'who is that guy ? "


I wanted to get a picture of the cultivating implement, which was made of wood, but by the time I got my camera out the farmer had reached the end of this row and didn't come back.

Cultivating Corn

Farm House

I stayed two nights at Juawa but had to move on to ensure being in Jakarta on 14^th of January for my flight to Sabah, Malaysia. I was fretting getting from Pemuteran to Gilimanuk for the ferry from Bali to Java and had to allow for unanticipated delays in getting to Yogyakarta.

 There is no scheduled bus service and there was not the obvious abundance of motorbike drivers offering transport as had been the case heretofore in Bali. The only option (short of a car hire) was to flag down a Bemo ( pronounced 'beemow' by some or 'baymow' by others)  and hope for the best. My homestay hostess wasn't too helpful in how or where to do that. I talked to a woman at a nearby “store” where I had bought drinks and she told me to look for an Isuzu that was red, stand by the road and flag it down.  At first I didn't understand what she was saying and then it dawned on me she was saying "Isuzu" , the vehicle.