Sanur & around.

After returning from the Gili’s we spent the remainder of the week back in Sanur at our original hotel. We slept very well that first night back!
Jl. Danau Tamblingan is the main road in front of our hotel and we didn’t get much of a chance to explore it before Gili so made a conscious effort to spent some time in the evenings working our way up and down the street. Faye had her hair braided, we brought more tourist tat and we ate in lots of nice restaurants, Massimo’s being our favourite – ideally need to make a reservation here. After dinner they have a huge gelato counter out the front so we visited that a lot!
Whilst in Sanur we booked another trip out, luckily no boats involved in this one, just a driver arranged by the hotel. We paid around £35 for a driver for 9 hours which was dead cheap! Now ‘tours’ here aren’t really what I’d say is a tour. It’s just a driver who drops you at each destination and speaks a little English.

So this time we did a tour of places southern to us in Sanur. This started by going to Nusa Dua, a quiet beach which some very fancy (expensive) hotels. Lots of parts of this beach are private to individual hotels but there are some public parts you can visit. So we spent a few hours on the beach, swimming in the sea and had a lovely lunch before moving on.

Next up was Uluwatu. Uluwatu is right down the very bottom of Bali, the most southern point. Here there is a gorgeous temple right on the cliff and is a perfect spot to watch the sunset. You have to watch out for monkeys here though, they are known to steal anything and everything! At 6pm daily they do a Kecak fire dance show which tells an abbreviated story about Rama and Sita. Faye was learning all about Hinduism at school recently so knew everything that was going on – more than I did which was fab. They give you a handout which explains what is going on as well. This show at sunset at the temple is SO popular, a huge tourist attraction and they cram people in but you need to be seated a good 45 minutes before it starts meaning the sun is beaming on you so it’s very hot. The show was very good, gorgeous costumes, very funny at times and completely appealed to all ages. Once it was over hundreds of people were fleeing out to find their tour guides so once we got back in the car it was an hours journey to our last stop, Jimbaran. We were here for a seafood dinner on the beach. Jimbaran is back on the west coast of Bali where the sea is quite wild and huge great waves were crashing down just below us. Here there are loads of restaurants round the bay with tables on the beach, you select your seafood fresh off the ice and it’s served with rice, vegetables and fruit. Whilst you eat there are fireworks and dancers going around.
Overall we really loved our time in Sanur. There’s not a lot going on but we loved having a chill out time between the beach and the pools and finding nice food. Many people go to Gili for the white sand/blue sea beaches but the Sanur/Nusa Dua ones are equally as nice in my opinion. We were also recommended to go across the water to Lembongan to do snorkelling but we ran out of time/couldn’t face another boat trips. It’s seems apparent here with all the boat trips to expect delays and the Balinese don’t bat an eyelid to it but the tourists go ballistic! We finished up our time in Sanur on the beach at a fire party which a neighbouring hotel was hosting, cocktails and tapas during sunset and a whole host of evening entertainment and dancing – we had a blast!