Indonesia - Bali's Eastern Tip

Back to Amed, Bali — 8 years later: diving the USS Liberty wreck, charcoal-grilled fish in the hills, and quiet starlit nights on the eastern coast.

I landed in Bali on a rainy afternoon.

The kind where the sky hangs low, the roads are shiny from the rain, and everything seems to move at half speed.

After clearing the airport, I jumped into a car and started the long drive east to Amed — about four hours of winding roads, foggy windows, and plenty of time alone with my thoughts.

That was after an extended staring contest with the baggage carousel while waiting for my dive gear to show up. Nothing raises your heart rate faster than watching everyone else's luggage arrive while yours remains a mystery. Thankfully, the gear eventually won the race against my anxiety.

It had been eight years since I last visited Amed.

Eight years is a funny amount of time. Long enough for a place to change, but short enough for your memory to keep insisting, "Wait... wasn't this different?"

I remembered Amed as a sleepy coastal town. Dusty roads, very little happening after dark, and mostly divers and fishermen going about their day.

Coming back, I noticed the changes almost immediately.

More villas. More cafés. More dive shops. More travellers.

Amed has definitely grown up a little.

But somehow, it still feels like Amed.

The next day, I headed to Tulamben to dive the USS Liberty wreck.

There's something special about diving a wreck with a story behind it. The ship has been sitting underwater for decades, but it's far from lifeless. Coral has completely taken over, schools of fish weave through the structure, and the whole wreck feels like it has quietly become part of the ocean.

It felt familiar.

But not exactly the same.

Maybe the wreck had changed.

Maybe I had.

One of the best memories from the trip, though, didn't happen underwater.

It started with a random comment.

Ever since arriving in Bali, every fish meal I ordered came neatly filleted. Nothing wrong with that, but I kept joking that I hadn't had a proper whole fish meal yet.

Apparently, I said it one too many times.

The locals told me they had caught some fish that very morning and invited me up to their village in the hills.

Next thing I knew, I was on my way there.

No fancy tourist experience.

No staged cultural performance.

Just an afternoon hanging out with locals who welcomed me into their space.

Lunch was cooked over charcoal.

Whole fish. Smoky. Simple.

The kind of meal that reminds you food doesn't need much when it's fresh and cooked over fire.

Honestly, it was better than a lot of meals that try way too hard.

Somewhere during the day, I also noticed something else.

Roosters.

Lots of roosters.

Everywhere.

For the longest time, I genuinely thought they were being raised for food. I even found myself wondering why there seemed to be so many roosters and not many hens.

Eventually, curiosity got the better of me.

I asked.

They laughed.

Then explained the roosters weren't for eating.

They were for fighting.

And that's how I somehow ended up being invited to watch a rooster fight.

Now, it's not something I personally support, and I'm definitely not encouraging it.

But I also didn't feel it was my place to stand there and judge.

For many of the locals, it's part of their lifestyle and traditions, tied to community, culture, and practices that have existed for generations.

Travel puts you in situations like that sometimes.

You don't have to agree with everything you see.

But you can still choose to observe, listen, and understand where people are coming from.

That evening, I returned to my villa.

And Amed gave me exactly what I remembered.

Quiet.

Dark.

Still.

Despite all the development over the years, there still isn't much light pollution here.

The sky was packed with stars.

The kind of sky that makes you stop scrolling, stop thinking, and just look up for a while.

No city glow.

No traffic noise.

No agenda.

Just the sound of the night and the feeling that you've made it somewhere far enough away.

Amed has changed.

There's no denying that.

It's more developed, more comfortable, and definitely more discovered than the version I remembered from eight years ago.

But the soul of it is still here.

In the hills.

In the charcoal smoke.

In the wreck beneath the water.

In the quiet roads after sunset.

And in that sky full of stars that reminded me exactly why I wanted to come back.