Week 34 Bali - Sanur

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Due to the daft rules of having to be at the airport 3 hours before an international flight we had a couple of hours to kill in the airport before we left for Bali, so we used the time to buy some duty free booze and grab a meal. The flight was less than 4 hours and went smoothly, as did getting a taxi to Sanur (go to the prepaid taxi window outside the arrivals hall). We arrived late and the hotel restaurant was closed so we went for a couple of drinks in the bar and met a couple of Geordie ladies who gave us a few tips on the local area.

The hotel was lovely, set in lush tropical gardens with a choice of 3 swimming pools. The beach was a bit rubbish, having gritty dark sand and quite a bit of black seaweed floating in the shallows, but the sea was calm, safe and warm which was ok for swimming or floating about, unlike Kuta where the waves were huge and filled with surfers.

At the main pool there were plenty of sunbeds and a good sized area where you could swim lengths, but on most days the water was as warm as a tepid bath and not overly refreshing. Our room was good with a balcony overlooking the gardens and a very cute open-air stage area - shame there was nothing on during our stay as it would have made a very atmospheric performance arena. We had a cool animal in our roof that made loud noises intermittently throughout the day and night, that sounded a bit like a kid’s squeezy toy - we conjured up all sorts of imaginary animals before deciding it was probably a troll. Actually it was almost certainly a bird as it trilled before these other noises, but trolls are more fun.

Were amazed not not wake until 9.30am on our second day but this turned out to be the pattern for the whole week, with loads of lazy mornings after long lie-ins and much needed recharging of our batteries with good sleep. We caught the hotel shuttle to a supermarket drop off point where we stocked up on water, snacks and tea/coffee to last us the whole week. It was a strange building with a supermarket on the ground floor and clothes shops on the top, which gave us a good and early insight into what types of clothes were available on the island and what the top prices were likely to be.

At the large pool we floated around for too long in the direct sun one day and got a bit pink, as we had found a couple of noodles (long thin sausage-shaped buoyancy floats) to use which meant that our faces and chests were out of the water. We tried a lunch at the hotel but it was very expensive so for dinner most nights we either went into the centre of Sanur town or 10 minutes around the corner from our hotel where there was a choice of bars and restaurants. On the second night we decided to walk towards the town to find a restaurant, but got so caught up in exploring and shopping that we had walked all the way to the main centre. Along the way Kim bought a lovely dress and we had an Italian dinner at Mossimo’s where I had a suckling pig dish. We caught a taxi back as we were knackered and very hot - its was very humid too and it took us a couple of days to get used to the heat.

We enjoyed relaxing by the pool and reading or floating about in the water for hours, but one day we collapsed with giggles after a very competitive noodle race. The plan was to do two lengths and at the half way mark we were meant to change the position of our noodles. Unfortunately my noodle float got caught under my legs and I ducked myself trying to get the blasted thing out from under my legs as I reached out for the turn. By the time I surfaced, coughing, spluttering and giggling, Kim was powering down the home straight with a big pink flesh-coloured noodle sticking out into the air from between her legs, swaying with each stroke and looking very rude and suggestive. I watched in helpless laughter, half choking from swallowed and inhaled pool water.

That night we went to the Trophy Bar for dinner where we both had the mixed grill with nice portions of three types of meat. Kim wisely chose to have mushroom sauce with hers but the gravy I opted for tasted like no gravy I have had before - it certainly wasn’t Bisto. Afterwards we went to the Cat and Fiddle pub to listen to the band who were entertaining with a cute lead singer and I tried the Bali cider which tastes good but is incredibly sweet.

Mothers Day dawned where I got a cup of coffee in bed from my lovely daughter and was handed a dry box of Frosties cereal to deliver the promised “breakfast in bed” . We caught a taxi to Kuta for a day of shopping and visited the infamous. Poppies Lanes, streets lined with small stalls all selling the same kind of stock. We managed to get most of the items we wanted for the kids and Kim, but found that even with hard bargaining the prices were not as low as we had been led to believe. The bargaining wears you down after a while, particularly when its hot and humid, and you get to a point where you wish the shopkeepers would just open the bidding at a reasonable price to save a bit of time. The nice thing was you could happily walk away if the price was not moving low enough, as you knew you would see the same item further down the street.

We had a quick lunch half way through the day to give me a chance to recharge, as I am sure that left to her own devices Kim would have gone on shopping all day without a break with as much energy as the Duracell Bunnie.
We worked our way along the main Beach road where we stopped for a few minutes to watch the chaos that is Kuta Beach and congratulate ourselves that we were not staying here. The beach was packed, there was nowhere nice to sit, you were hassled all the time by hawkers and the waves were rough and high The sand was rubbish too.

The late afternoon was filled with more shopping but thankfully inside the cooler Discovery Mall, housing three floors of shops. We stayed in Kuta for dinner and had Chinese for a change, followed by icecreams. After catching a taxi back we were knackered and spent the evening watching one of the many cheap DVD’s we had bought. On other nights we spent hours watching the Hollywood gossip channel E-Entertainment, that has become Kim’s new favourite thing.

A couple of times we wandered out in the sunshine to have a late breakfast or lunch at Gardenia, a little restaurant around the corner from our hotel that did nice food and played relaxing background music. There was a row of shops nearby including several massage places where the girls are friendly and you could bargain for a deal. Kim had a Fish Spa where you dangle your feet in a tank full of tiny fish that swarm over your flesh, latch on and eat all the dead skin - she said it tickled slightly rather like the bubbles in a jacuzzi, but it was not unpleasant. She topped that off with a pedicure while I had a massage and swears that her feet and legs have never felt so soft. I managed to wander out in public with my t-shirt on inside out that day and it was only when Kim noticed more than normal amounts of giggling when I passed some local girls that she pointed it out to me. Embarrassing.

There are regular power cuts which plunge certain blocks of the town into complete darkness, including most of the restaurants and if you have not got your food beforehand you have to sit for ages waiting for the kitchen to resume cooking. We have been lucky as one night we went out late and after a very dark and scary walk along the pitch black street, arrived at the restaurant area just as the power went back on and another night it went off just after our meal was delivered so we ate by candle-light. We found a lovely restaurant that did a mixture of types of food, including Japanese, so we ate there for our last two nights in Sanur. The first time I had a truly delicious beef teriyaki and Kim had surf and turf which was yummy, while we listened to a live band who mangled the lyrics but played well and all the French and Dutch tourists danced.

You do have to be very careful where you are stepping when you walk along either the road or the footpaths in Bali as there are often large holes where the paving has collapsed, often where the sewers or drains run underneath. We got used to calling out a warning to one another when we could see a hole ahead, but during the power cuts we were extra careful as many of the holes were large enough to put your foot down. That care paid off big-time when on our last night we came across an absolutely massive hole that had opened up in the footpath on one of our regular routes and the stinky sewer was flowing beneath. If we hadn’t been watching one of us could have fallen down. Scary.

On our last night we decided to treat ourselves to the Japanese Hibachi Grill where the chef entertains you with amazing feats of “swordplay” using knives and other kitchen implements and with quick and accurate displays of chopping skills, including slicing things in mid-air. Our chef had worked for 10 years in the USA and had been in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina, where he had ended up cooking for the Sheriff’s department in the days immediately after the tragedy. He was very skilled and very amusing. He did things like building a volcano out of layers of onion rings and making it flame and then steam. The secret is to pour in oil, let it heat then add some vodka, flame it and then when the flame dies slide the whole construction onto the hottest part of the grill where the pressure causes a strong steam jet to pour out of the top. He also flipped bits of food to all of the guests around the grill, making us duck and dive trying to catch the tidbits in our mouths. He kept up a running commentary which was funny and even caught whole eggs in his hat - very entertaining and we both loved it.

May 12 was a special day to celebrate the festival of Galungan when all of the shops were closed and the Hindu Balinese adorn the outside of their homes and businesses with a tall bamboo pole decorated with coconuts, leaves, flowers, cakes and fruit to bring prosperity. The main reason for the festival is to commemorate the victory of virtue (Dharma) over evil (Adharma). We watched several groups of people building these beautiful and delicate poles, spending hours cutting up dried leaves and colouring sections, before attaching them to the bamboos. They leave them all up for a couple of weeks until the celebration of Kuningan on 22nd May when the ancestral holy spirits return back to heaven after spending time with their descendants on earth during the Galungan festival. It was very nice to be able to share some of this during our visit.

Off to the centre of the island to the lush jungle town of Ubud next.

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