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Published: March 4th 2014
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Worst Boat Disembarkation Ever – more later……
Sanur, Day 1
We booked a oneway speedboat from Gili T to Sanur with Super Scoot – seemed to be the only company doing this route, which goes via Lembongan and takes 2 ½ hours. We asked around and paid 375,000IDR - prices ranges from this up to a million at our hotel (haha no, we said). Left luggage at the boat office and it was put on board for us – this was good, as it was a little bit of a climb up a ladder to get on, but only ankle-deep in the sea. You can sit outside at the back – a bit fumy from the engines and bumpy at times, but neither of us felt sick. Until we stopped at Lembongan. We hadn’t noticed that we hadn’t gone all the way to the shore – came in through a narrow gap in the reef with surfers to either side of us, and then dropped anchor. The passengers getting off and onto our boat had to do so from a little boat – again, the crew dealt with the bags. Then we had to wait for another little boat,
and by this time ours was bobbing up and down in the waves. Both felt very sick, but OK when we set off again.
The sky seemed to get rather dull – a shock after the blue skies of the Gilis, then a few spots of rain, and then a complete downpour, just as we were coming into Sanur. How freakin inconvenient! My mother wouldn’t have liked this, said Sam. Out came the attractive ponchos.over our rucksacks, and very practical we looked too – thanks, Claud for the one you put in my Christmas stocking – Sam looked very fetching in it! The other unfortunate aspect was that it was low tide. Very low tide. So the boat pulled up as near to the shore as it could, which was not very near at all. All passengers looked a bit shocked. The crew said that they would carry the bags to the shore – it was quite a trek, the rucksack people carried theirs themselves – so we stepped off into knee-deep filthy black water, waded for a while, then across equally dirty sand (Sam trod on a dead squid en route)and took refuge under the plastic overhang of
some snackbars. The boat office staff were organised in an Indonesian sort of way (everything is organised, but takes a while) and we got a free taxi transfer to our hotel, which was a very good thing. Sam was anxious as our bags showed no sign of coming off the boat, and we followed the office lady to the office and waited for ages, then along the flooded path they came on a trolley.
There was considerable faffing, getting us into the right taxi, but no problem getting us here – they knew the hotel, which was very near. We are at the Laghawa Beach Inn Hotel, the cheapest option on the beach (£22.50 a night for 2 with breakfast), and the tripadvisor reviews were not great (only 50% would recommend it, which is very low), but it is cheaper than the Swastika Bungalows, which would have been my first choice. Let’s save £10 a night said Sam. OK – then if the rooms are a bit scruffy at least it’s cheap! In fact it is super-duper – beautiful twin room, lots of wardrobe space, quite swanky, nice grounds (statues and water features everywhere), a pool and on the
beach! Result! The other choice would have been to go back to Kuta for 2 nights so as to be very near the airport for Wednesday, but we decided to go somewhere different, as the beach here is lovely, if it’s not raining!! If it is, we’ll shop and get our nails done.
In the evening we walked along the main strip parallel to the beach – very touristy here with lots of package holidaymakers (spot them a mile off) and less adventurous restaurants with some live music. We discovered a magical emporium called Hardy’s – practically a department store, cheap stuff but I was relieved to find a memory card for my camera, as I dropped mine in our hotel on Gili T and it did the equivalent of landing butter side down – disappeared forever down a gap in the floorboards in the bar. The staff, bless them, tried their best to locate it using a knife and fork (!) and the light from a mobile, but it had obviously gone forever.
Sanur, Day 2
Had a walk down to the beach – beach access would be a better description for the hotel rather than
beach front - and the tide was once again waaaaaay out towards the reef, and so it didn’t look like swimming was going to be possible anytime soon. To the pool after breakfast (OK – over-poached eggs and lemon juice which tasted like melted cheapo ice lollies), no-one else there, swim-up bar and various staff left in case we wanted anything. We didn’t , so they just hung around chatting. In the garden area we found no less than 3 cockerels in tiny cages (2 with girlfriends and one very noisy one without). The pool guys said they were pets and not for fighting. Then a Russian guest came with her small child, in the pool minus a nappy, so we went down to the beach – slightly more in the way of sea but it had been in and was quickly on its way out again. Many many dogs on the beach. They had collars but no visible owners and were a bloody nuisance – kept coming up to us and in the sea, and then one rolled and dried its horrible self on my sarong (Sam was screaming with laughter) and when I tried to pull it away
it grabbed into it and thought we were playing a game. Not very relaxed after that!
Now we need to book transport to the airport for tomorrow – flight to KL at 14.10 – really looking forward to visiting it again and hopefully go up the Petronas Towers this time.
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