We arrived at our penultimate location in slightly grey, but still rather warm, weather. Sanur on the east coast of Bali was just under an hour from Ubud and luckily we were able to check into our beach hotel on arrival, and be at the pool looking out to sea by lunchtime. Our home for the next week is a lovely beach hotel, funkier than I expected, with modern art and a grass roof. Our room has direct access onto a long lagoon pool running past several rooms, so the girls were quick to go in for a dip after lunch. A quick change and we were randomly off to meet some Hitchin friends! A chance spotting on Instagram had noted that family Hammond were also holidaying in Indonesia and after a short taxi journey we were soon having drinks and dinner under the stars in nearby Seminyak. It was so lovely to see friends, to exchange travel stories and for our girls to have some other girls to chat to – albeit with a slight age difference, lots of Hitchin Girls School chat!
The rest of our stay followed a pretty similar daily routine, with breakfast at local cafes (the coffee has been great!) often overlooking the sea; the rest of the day relaxing around the hotel pool or dipping into the sea. The beach is a lovely golden colour but unfortunately the sea is rather seaweedy so hasn’t leant itself to much swimming or snorkelling. The girls have enjoyed afternoon tea at the hotel, namely the slightly less traditional treats of popcorn and candy floss, whereas happy hour at the beach bar listening to live music each night followed by dinner at a local restaurant has kept the adults happy. Stu made it to the gym most days and we both benefitted from some me time at the hotel spa.
Sanur is a lovely beach town, with a great range of local restaurants offering both Indonesian and more international food. It’s not too built up and in places feels like things haven’t changed in twenty years with local warungs (traditional restaurants) serving nasi goreng and cold beers on the beach, alongside brand named resorts such as Hyatt and Mercure – thankfully low rise and tastefully planned. There is a pathway running alongside the beach which has provided me with early morning running opportunities, amazing how many other people are up at 7am, especially at the weekend with lots of local running groups out. As we have found in nearly every country there are a lot of dogs around! Most of them have collars, but there’s definitely a number of friendly strays spending their days snoozing on the beach – we spotted them being fed one morning with kibble presented on a palm leaf, a very natural type of dog bowl. Across Bali we have seen a lot of kite flying and on one afternoon beach stroll, we looked up to see the air full of giant kites shaped like mosquitos – very cool and turned out to be a competition in aid of an anti-malaria charity.
Our only day out was to Water Bom, a water park in Kuta on the west coast of the island. By all accounts the biggest and best waterpark in Indonesia. The girls absolutely loved this. It was a really well thought out park, lots of shade, easy to get between the towers and thankfully none of the slides were too terrifying – with the exception of a drop slide which appeared to do a 360 loop, none of us braved this, but we were all very proud to do a calmer drop slide where the floor opens out from under you! It was lots of fun and we all slept well that night – turns out high slides means lots of steps to the top! After a relaxing week doing not a lot it was time to board our penultimate flight, and our first flight in over a month, to head to Bangkok for I suspect a slightly less chilled end to the trip!
We have actually spent more time in Indonesia than any other country on this trip, almost 5 weeks, although each of the Islands we have visited have presented a very different experience. From the conservative Indonesian culture of Sumatra, a much more rustic experience where we were an absolute minority as westerners, through to Bali which is a much more touristy affair and almost hedonistic in how it presents itself. Given the scale of Indonesia, it is absolutely huge, and the fact we have only visited a handful of its 18,000 Islands, I am not sure we have experienced enough of it to be able to start writing a guidebook on the place. What I can say though, is apart from a few overly keen hawkers and taxi drivers, everyone has been incredibly welcoming, and warm spirited, and willing to help. There are parts of the country which are absolutely underinvested, and there appears to be a bit of a lack of pride from some of the locals in terms of keeping the place clean, certainly a general apathy towards littering, but we have really enjoyed our time here and suspect Indonesia is only going to go from strength to strength as a nation on the world stage. Feel very privileged to have experienced certain parts of it before they become too developed.
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- …and relax
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- Dinner with the Hammonds!
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- Our home for the week
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- Check out those braids
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- Afternoon tea time
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- Afternoon tea time
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- Nutritious lunch
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- Lazy river @ waterbom
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- Taken
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- Splashing around
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- Fun in the pool
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- Getting used to the pool menu
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- Keepy Uppies
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- Come on Lionesses
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- Sunrise Yoga
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- Happy mornings
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- Yummy
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- Lots of reading this week
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- Mosquitoes attacking!
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- Golden beach of Sanur
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- Pigeon enjoying the Balinese offering
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- Breakfast with a view
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- New Balinese headgear
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- 3 times a day without fail
Hi Katie, The islands sound absolutely idyllic and the beaches sublime. What a coincidence to meet up with the people from Hitchin, I imagine Lottie was gleaning all the information about her new school. I think you’ve done an amazing job with the girls and the family as a whole. It would be daunting for a lot of parents but you seem to have carried it out with aplomb! Needless to say I think a small bit of planning by your good selves might have helped! Enjoy Bangkok my sister stayed there for a while and she found it a bit hectic but eye opening. Take care of yourselves. Love Roger.