So it’s Xmas Day and we have to get a move on. Today we have to dash off across the strait to Sanur on the “Island of the Gods”, Bali, where we are booked to have our Xmas dinner.
Once we are back on the main island we are shuttled to our new hotel “The Aquarius Beach Hotel” and we have a very nice room (despite being on the 1st floor with our tired old knees). The Aquarius has pretty good wi-fi so we tried to call the kids over the internet. This was fun because when we caught up with Adrian he had Joy on his lap and she is so funny. It took me just a few minutes and I managed to coax her into sharing her biscuits with her Grandy. After 3 or 4 failed attempts to push the crackers through the monitor she gave up and decided it was best to eat them herself. She is a ball of fun.
Best of all the Aquarius is just 15 paces away directly across the road is an Aussie pub (“The White Sands”) which has the cricket on live. After settling in at the Aquarius we taxied off to the Sanur Paradise Plaza Hotel for Christmas Day Lunch we our great friends, Col & Helen Owers, Their daughter Karen & her husband Jamieson and Jamo’s brother Lachlan. The SPPH put on a great spread and we had much frivolity and food. I won’t mention the drink!
The next day, Boxing Day, Shane & I went exploring by walking along Sanur’s ‘famous’ walking/bike pathway along the beach. This place is just fantastic. Shane & I like walking and there are few spots better than this. The entire length of the beach the pathway which is several kilometers long is packed with souvenir and toy shops, jewellery and clothing shops, cafes and coffee shops, restaurants and hotels. You can get a massage or a meal or you can hire a beach lounge (free if you’re buying drinks/food) and just relax watching the surfers on the perfectly formed waves crashing on the reef just offshore. To top off the walk every night is fireworks night all along the beach. We have since had many meals on the beach and I anticipate a few more yet before we leave Sanur in late January.
Unfortunately the Aquarius could only accommodate us for 2 nights so we had to move on to digs for a longer stay. We are in Bali until the 10th of Feb (excluding a quick trip back up to Singapore for a few days) so we grabbed an AirBnB home called “Peaceful Garden”.
This home really did have a beautiful peaceful garden. However it was not what we could handle except in an emergency. This BnB would be fine for younger travellers staying a few days to a week but we needed a room for 4 weeks. We had a single room (about 3.5m x 3.5m) with a “private bathroom” that was so small you had to remove the dunny paper to shower or it would get wet. There was no hot water, no windows that opened, no hanging space and not a chair to sit on anywhere except for a plastic stool I found behind the tiny communal kitchen. to keep the insects out you had to close the door but with no windows and no aircon it became a sauna in minutes. The (outdoor) ‘dining room’ was a low table by the kitchen surrounded by cushions on the cement floor. To top it off it was in the middle of suburban Sanur in a lane too narrow for cars to drive to so it was a battle to cart ourselves and luggage from any road to the homestay. Fortunately the owner was extremely understanding and he gave us a 75% refund and let us out of our rental agreement. After a hasty search on hotels.com we found a suitable hotel where we are now comfortably camped until Australia day when we’ll move over to Kuta to join friends from Townsville.
Anyway, that’s it for now. It’s a few days into 2017 so I still have some blogging to catch up on. Adrian, Lin and Joy have now joined us at Sanur and we’ll have some good family photos to show in the next blog post.
Cheers
Garry & Shane