Bikes, Buses, Boats, Beaches and Beer, on a Budget - Noddy's (mis)Adventures in Asia

WINDING DOWN AT GADING BEACH

Gading Beach Hotel was a fair distance from town, maybe 20 – 30 minutes, but the driver and lady from the hotel were so nice they even took me back through town to visit a fishing tackle store. More a ‘bit of everything store’ really, but I grabbed some gear (where was this stuff 3 weeks ago!) and we headed off to our new slice of paradise.

It really was too, the rooms were nice and the whole place was set right on the beach, with a great ‘restaurant' and upstairs bar overlooking the ocean.

I think we paid 250k for the room, which included breakfast, and spent our last 2 nights on Flores there, the perfect place to wind down from all the rushing around it felt like we had been doing since we arrived. More so for me, as I hadn’t really stopped with the constant moving since arriving on Lombok.

The food was so good and fresh that it really felt like we were just eating all day! We would just keep ordering and washing it down with a cold beer, the ocean and sunset our front lawn.

We borrowed a bike from one of the staff at the hotel (so nice and friendly) and went cruising even further afield, through tiny little fishing villages and winding roads that hugged the beautiful coastline, never seeing a tourist.

There are some islands offshore which you can see that you can do boat trips to, but we were really just enjoying chilling out in our piece of paradise. There was nothing wrong with Maumere, but why would you stay in town when you could be here. The staff were great, helpful, friendly, the food was amazing and so was the view, highly recommended from us.

Gading Beach Hotel even provides free transport to the airport and early the next morning we were on our way after 2 glorious nights out here on the beach. We were flying into Bali for 1 night, Patty would continue on back to Jakarta and I was heading to Thailand to catch up with a mate I hadn’t seen in almost 3 years.

He had left town before I started my journey, to pursue a career further north and it had been a huge success, but he was now ready for a holiday.

We checked into my new regular, for the odd occasions I stop over in Bali, The Grand Bimasena, right in the heart of Legian Street, but just down a quiet lane. Also has a pool and comes with breakfast, hard to find better value in the center of town at under $30 a night.

I was really starting to hate goodbyes, but with Patty having a very free schedule and a love of travelling, we planned to meet again and continue our adventures.

We went to the airport together the next day as my flight was only a couple of hours behind Patty’s and watching her go was like de javu and really had me thinking about how hard it is to get so close to really great people, only to have to leave again…. It really is the only downside to travelling like this.