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Today we'd booked online for a local bus to take us to the beach resort of Sanur, and paid an extra pound or so to be picked up from our homestay to take us to the bus stop. The whole trip cost about £7 and took about an hour. On the way, we passed a lot of the rice fields surrounding Ubud, and lots of shops selling stone sculptures - we wonder how many they sell as tourists surely can't carry them home in their suitcases!
When we arrived in Sanur we haggled with a taxi driver to take us to our hotel for about £1.50. On the way he tried to sell us a tour, which is how taxi drivers make most of their money - they drive you around some of the sites of the island all day, and wait around for you while you explore. We're quite tempted to go and see the sunset at Uluwatu - a clifftop temple, perhaps on our last night which also happens o be Valentine's day…
Our hotel in Sanur is a lot different to the homestay in Ubud - it's owned by an ex-pat Aussie, shows sport on the big screen in the bar, and seems to be full of Aussie holidaymakers. On the plus side, our room has air-con (hurray!), a huge bed (plus a single bed for our stuff!) and a TV! Not bad for about £16 a night! Oh, and we also have a mini fridge so can keep our water cold. We dumped our bags, had a quick drink in the bar, then went to find the beach!
Sanur has a 4km 'boardwalk' that stretches the length of the beach. It was far too hot to walk the entire length, but we walked up it for about 20 minutes before stoping for a drink and then hiring some sunbeds for the afternoon, on a very picturesque stretch of beach. The first of many beaches in Asia!
The walk back to the hotel left us very hot and bothered but we had our fridge-like room to greet us - Dave had set the air-con to 16° before we left (standard temperatures are 21 or 22!). After a few hours to cool off, we got ready to go and find somewhere cheap to eat. We got chatting to an Aussie lady in the bar who told us where to go to find some good bars and restaurants, so we followed her directions, ruling out a few overpriced places, until we found Ari Putri hotel and restaurant. I ruled it out straight away as I thought it looked too posh, but Dave stopped to look at the menu and found that it was actually quite cheap, and the beer was also cheap!
We had a lovely meal of Balinese food (what else?), but at the end of the meal, once the place had filled up, Dave was wondering when the bingo was starting, since we were the only people there under about 60! Sanur seems to be the preferred resort for 'more mature' people, whereas Kuta, further along the coast, is the famous party town which we decided to avoid - we've seen enough Aussies in Australia!
After the meal, we visited a couple of bars for some cold Bintangs, and listened to some live music. We wanted to go to a bar with an Irish band, but the drinks were too expensive for us (even though everything is cheap, our daily budget is also very low!), but we walked past again later on a sand saw that the bad, called 'The Leprechauns' were all Balinese! It would have been interesting to hear their Irish accents!
When we got back to the hotel, we were glad our room is on the 2nd floor, far away from the noisy old Aussie men in the bar! Sanur is a lot different from Ubud but we like it!
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