"Each step forward has a sacred meaning of its own"   Sri Chinmoy

Benoa Bike Ride - Feb 2023 - Bali

Only a few days after my struggles on the ride to Garuda Wisnu Kencana, I felt fine to join Mridanga for another explore from the hotel in Nusa Dua. We agreed this one would be flat! That meant heading north along the Benoa Peninsula. The route choice on the map was either a busy road of shops and hotels or the beach strip - neither particularly enticing - but as Mridanga specialises in backroads, we opted to explore a load of left turns from the main drag and see where they led. Sure, there would be lots of dead ends and dubious roads but that was part of the fun.

Sure enough, the first few turns we took were dead ends and we had to retrace our route, but not before we'd had a glimpse of the other side of this area of Bali which is dominated by tourism. We got to see where people actually live - their houses with their household shrines, small fields with tiny but beautiful cows (some with features so delicate they are almost reminiscent of deer) and large areas of coconut palms and pockets of jungle.

At the end of one road, we came to the inland sea (or lagoon) that separates the Benoa Peninsula from the main island and I was surprised to see it was only waist deep. A group were walking through the water about 50 metres from the shore, dragging a small net - they cheered joyfully and held up a massive fish to show us what they had just caught. While this was going on, with Mridanga and I stood over our bikes at the end of the road where it met the water, two local guys were inexplicably throwing sticks at a pile of leaves near the wall. I was dimly aware of this but not sure what it signified as I was watching the fishing, but one of them called over to us, pointing at the pile of leaves and saying what sounded like "snek! snek!".

We looked more closely and it was indeed a really massive "snek" - biggest snake I've seen in the wild. Although coiled up no larger than deflated football, I could see it would uncoil to a pretty lengthy beast, as thick as my arm in places (and anything thicker than my skinny arms is a big snake in my book). Mridanga grabbed a photo or two, while I was content to keep my distance. Googling a few snake images I think it was a small python? Not sure though.

After that brief serpentine encounter we carried on roaming the back roads - coming to farmyards and back yards where we had to smile at the locals and U-turn (they smiled back, not in any way annoyed at any intrusion - but then if someone explored down my street or blunders into my garden I would't dream of being hostile - guess the propretorial thing in england has got so normal for me that anything more welcoming is a surprise!). In this way of stops and starts we came right to the top of the peninsula and rode around the temples before hammering it back down the main drag to Nusa Dua.

So this was a charming exploration of Tanjung Benoa, one that didn't over tax my legs or energy levels which were still not back to full power, and which was memorable as The One Where I Saw A Snake.

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