9/23: Reflections & Photos on Last Day in Sanur, Bali

Got back from our bike tour around Sanur to the guesthouse in time for another yummy breakfast although really it seemed like our first as we hadn't eaten much of the breakfast we were given by the cycle tour company.

We chatted for the first time with a Russian couple visiting from near Lake Baikal in Siberia where we’d spent a few days while on the Trans Siberian train trip through Russia, etc in 2013. Ilya, Tatiana and their almost 4 year old daughter, Elena, were staying in Bali for a week. We were so impressed that in school they had had to memorize all 50 US states as well as the 80 (I think) ‘states’ in Russia.

I was showing Ilya and Elena our photos from our visit to the Siberian cities of Irkutsk and Ulan Ude back in August, 2013.

I wonder which post I was working on here?

After Ilya had taken a shot of all of us with his camera on the timer function, Steven figured out how to use it on ours and took this shot.

We had some great chats with Dave, the owner of Sindu Guesthouse; he was originally from England, then moved to Alice Springs in Australia’s Red Centre and 4 years ago moved again, this time to Bali. He mentioned that the 5 rooms in his guesthouse are generally 90% booked year round now. Dave said he had also bought and totally refurbished a villa that he rents out located near the guesthouse.

Looking wide awake after drinking his Bintang beer in the early afternoon -
wonder how long that will last?

Guess that early morning bike tour AND the beer did Steven in! Not sure if you can tell but this peanut butter was the palest p.b. I have ever seen.

Ilya and Tatiana had seen me making peanut butter sandwiches and asked if they could try some. They had only heard about p.b. from TV shows but never actually seen it. They seemed to like it and were looking forward to buying some in Singapore, their next stop. Steven and I bought a jar for them in the large grocery store in Sanur and left it by their door as a good bye gift the next morning before we left.

Time to get off our derrieres AND for a Mickey D ice cream cone break (isn't it always!) not far from Sindu Guesthouse. Our cones were only .25 each. We didn't use the Drive Thru but noticed it had 3 windows: 1 to order, 1 to pay and then 1 for pickup.

Do US McDonald's have the Mega Mac?

No such thing as clearing your own tables after eating fast food in Indonesia as they have busboys (bussers?) here to do that for you.

Photos from our final walk to beach:

You have to be REAL careful walking on the sidewalks in
Sanur or in Ubud, Bali, we learned right away!

Not a lot of room on the sidewalks sometimes.

 I believe I mentioned in a prior Sanur post about the crazy traffic in the town. See all the motorcycles above? They're not at a showroom but parked by the beach. Imagine scads of them being driven in the left lane and in the right lane as well as coming toward you too in both lanes. Nope, I'm not making that up!

Add in the ‘bemos,’ the dark green, open doored public mini van-sized buses. There are no such things as bus stops – the bemo drivers just honk anytime they see people who they think ‘might’ be interested in climbing in the minute shuttle. I always wondered how non Balinese-speaking tourists would know how to communicate where they wanted to go as there were no discernible ‘routes’ the drivers took.

Oh – did I mention the fact there are no stop signs in the downtown core and, of course, no traffic lights either?  Plus, you always need to contend with a continuous stream of stray dogs sauntering into the street with wild abandon. Trying to cross the street as a pedestrian is akin, you think, of taking your life in your hands each time. We saw so many hair raising drivers that you’d think that the law of averages would dictate many accidents but surprisingly the system works really well.

A common way for Balinese women to carry merchandise.

 Walking along the Esplanade, shopkeepers kept asking us to 'Come to my shop'; it got to be quite difficult always saying no. One man even asked me in French how I was. As I mentioned previously in one of the Australian posts, there are SO many French-speaking tourists.

Said a final goodbye to the beach and walked along road/alley that had a VERY high wall; I remember feeling quite hemmed in.

Some photos from Hardy supermarket/department store. There were more salesclerks/associates than you could shake a stick at. Could only think how high their labor costs must be. I loved the bright colors of the sarongs above. The ones on the table were only

about $1.30 each! But I didn't fancy wearing a leopard print one.

These signs were everywhere in the store!

Leaving with some crackers and a bottle of beer for Steven and peanut butter for Ilya and Tatiana.

Ate at Jimmy's Sports Bar after checking menus at oodles of places before this.  All restaurant servers in Sanur must have been trained to repeat the customers' orders to ensure that nothing got lost in translation. 

Steven ordered Nusa Goreng Sate aka fried rice and vegetables. I felt like a Margherita pizza but we ended up switching dishes as Steven was allergic to something in the rice and I didn't care for the pizza. Didn't that work out perfectly!



Posted on 10/3 from Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia.