Amed, Bali 2020.

We stayed at La Bila Dive Resort in Amed. Our room was nice, and the staff were very friendly and welcoming. Amed is a small beach town, with plenty of things to do besides diving and snorkelling, for example hiking Mt. Agnung. As wonderful as this place is, we had no idea that within our first 2 days there we were going to face one of the toughest choices we made during our travels.

Our first 2 dives were at Jemeluk Bay and Jemeluk Wall. I was still new to diving, so our overall dive time and my buoyancy was not the greatest. On the Jemeluk Bay dive we saw pygmy seahorses holding on to a sea fan, and during our second dive at Jemeluk Wall we saw stingrays. The instructor, Ilhul, was amazing and very patient with me. This is also when we met Ruben for the first time.

Below Jemeluk Bay. Photo Credit: V.Gray

When we returned to the resort we met Josie, Ruben's girlfriend, Juan, Iluh's husband and Ari, a solo traveller from Quebec, Canada. Juan and Iluh ran the dive side of the business at La Bila, and Ketut, the owner of La Bila Resort, ran the resort and restaurant side. This was when we got the news; Ketut told us that the government had issued a statement saying all tourists either needed to leave Bali, or find somewhere to get comfortable and prepare for a lockdown. We had 2 days to decide.

Ryan and I had entered on free tourist VISA’s, so we had to find out if there would be any penalties for overstay. Thankfully, because it was a government statement we could stay with no penalties. The current flights home at the time (end of March/ beginning of April) were over $2,000 CAD /each and over 36 hours of travel time. That was if the flights did not get delayed or cancelled. In Canada, April weather is a bit all over the place; might snow, might rain, might be cold, might be warm , heck could be sunny one minute and snowing the next. Anyways, what this meant was it would be a headache to get home. At this point in time we figured the lockdown would last three weeks or maybe a month tops.

After going over the information we decided we were in no rush to go home, even if we went home Canada was also in lockdown anyways. Either way we were going into lockdown so might as well stay in the sunshine.The next morning we joined Ruben, Josie, and Ari for breakfast. We mentioned we had decided to stay and were going to try and find a place. Ruben, Josie, and Ari said they had decided the same thing. Once we had finished breakfast we all went our separate ways to try and find places. There were signs everywhere saying "room for rent" or "house for rent" so we had lots of options.

Ari originally planned to find somewhere with Ruben and Josie, however they couldn't find something that suited all their needs. Ruben and Josie ended up finding a place right on the beach, 5 minutes down the road from La Bila. Ari stayed at La Bila but left a couple of weeks later to return home. We found a place down the road with a pool and beach access. All of us hunkered down and got ready for the long haul.

We had started to become friends with Josie and Ruben. This was good because we spent a lot of time together. Never even crossed our minds that we would end up spending six months together in Bali.

Photo Credit: V.Gray

We stayed in Amed for 2 months before moving to Candadisa. Our place in Amed was nice. It had access to a pool, wifi (spotty), a/c, a kitchen, walk around porch, separate bedroom, and access to the ocean. It cost us $274 CAD/month.

Photo Credit: Ari

We also rented snorkelling gear $1.37 CAD/ day and a scooter with helmets for

$50/month. We ended up using the snorkelling gear daily (sometimes twice a day), and Josie and Ruben often joined us. The scooter made getting groceries easier, (it was a 10 minute ride into town) and Ketut from La Bila helped us get fresh meat (a bag with both chicken and pork was $14 CAD, which lasted 2 weeks) and beer ($42/case).

We were with Josie and Ruben, or as we soon referred to each other our Bros, almost every day. A small backstory here on "bro", since we started dating Ryan has called me his bro and it stuck, so we call each other bro. We found out Josie and Ruben call each other bro as well, next thing you know we are all the Bali Bro's.

The four of us snorkelled, rode scooters, and drank together. We became really close. Ruben found a fisherman to take him and Ryan out fishing.

Photo Credit: V.Gray

They tried going early in the morning, no mahi mahi. They tried going in the afternoon, no mahi mahi. They tried going mid afternoon and over super, still no mahi mahi. At this point it was safe to say it was not mahi mahi season.

Josie and I would go snorkelling or just hang out on those days. Then relentlessly made fun of them when they returned with no mahi mahi, because we were waiting for them to return with dinner. As a result we ate a lot of fried

Photo Credit: Ryan C. chicken or nasi campur (rice with veggies,

meat and other things).

Photo Credit: Josie C.

They returned one night with a catch! After 5 fishing trips they had finally returned with mackerel. We did not care, because it meant the boys were cooking dinner! Honestly I do not know if it was drinks, or that the boys caught and cooked dinner for us, but that was some of the best fish I have ever had.

We were coming up on 2 months in Amed. Ryan had been trying to do online courses, however our wifi was very spotty. We decided to start looking for other places closer to the city, in hope of better wifi. Through a Facebook group Ryan had found an awesome place in Candidasa; it was bigger, had a private pool, and much better wifi. When it came to moving day, Ruben and Josie came with us, taking one of our big bags and a little day bag on their scooter.

It was mid May when we moved from Amed to Candadasi. Bali was still in full lockdown. No tourist attractions were open, diving was still shut down, and there were no flights to Canada. Only a few restaurants had started to open up. We had gone on a scooter ride through an area when we were looking at places, and some people called us "Corona" - fear always seems to bring out the worst in people. There were very few tourists on the island.

We were moving to Candidasa! Cheers!

A map of Bali and places we have travelled.

**Please note that all opinions and views expressed in this post are my own, from my own experiences. If you would like to see more pictures follow me on Instagram vikki.gray

This post is edited by E.Gray Editing. (https://www.egrayediting.com )**