Our original plan was to visit Lovina, on the northern coast of Bali; but as I mentioned in a previous posts, we had to renew our Visa, in person, at the immigration office in the capital of Bali, Denpasar. So, we booked a hotel for a couple nights in Sanur, on the recommendation of our new friend, Rudana, who we had met at his museum a few days earlier, and awaited our appointment.
Unfortunately, our second to last day in Bali, I got food poisoning (some call it the “Bali belly”) from some bad rice, and learned that rice left out for a while can attract bacteria that can lead to some bad times ahead. I was not in a good way, and didn’t leave the homestay in Ubud for 36 hours, until our hour long taxi ride to Sanur. We could only stay in the hotel in Sanur for two days, as they were booked after that, and we still did not have our immigration appointment, so we booked another hotel in Sanur and cancelled our plans to visit Lovina.
I stayed in bed in Sanur for two more days, while Jessica did some exploring of the surrounding neighborhood, and found a Mexican restaurant that made a bland (tasty, but ok on my stomach), chicken torta sandwich I ate a couple times while recovering. I only left at 8am on our second morning to head to the Denpasar immigration office, where we had to wait with the multitude of other foreign nationals also looking to extend their Visas. I was not in a good way, and we wound up having to wait an extra hour and half while the computer system was down and no one could be helped. It finally came back online, and in another hour we had our pictures taken by immigration and were on our way back to the hotel.
It was worth paying the Visa company, as they helped us get the appointment, and once we finished at the office, they emailed us later that day with our approved Visas. As there were so, so many places that assisted with Visa applications in Bali, combined with the unhelpfulness of the government agency for Visas, that it felt like a bit of a scam, but it all worked out.
We didn’t realize it when booking, but the hotel we had chosen to stay was a resort hotel near Sanur Beach, and it was a full on resort, and felt almost like a cruise ship. There were many Europeans, Russians, and Chinese tourists; a huge buffet breakfast with many choices, a few restaurants, a big pool, and lots of pool loungers. It was a good place for me to finally recover, and here are a few pictures at the resort.
We stayed for five days, and by the fourth day I was well enough to venture out. We decided to visit the Bajra Sandhi Monument, which is actually next door to the immigration office we had visited a few days earlier. It is at the center of 34 acres of green grass and paths and is devoted to the independence of Indonesia from the Dutch and Japanese (and Dutch again).
From when we exited the taxi it was grand to see, and as we reached it, became more impressive. It is 147 feet (45 meters) tall.
Here is looking back out from the steps at Jessica being silly:
The gates in front of us when we arrived were closed, so we walked around the structure, until we found the entrance gate. We paid the reasonable entrance fee to a young man who called to us as we prepared to enter the open gates; it seemed a bit odd as he and a couple friends were just hanging around, smoking cigarettes, outside what we assumed was the entrance booth, and he didn’t give us tickets. We talked to them for a bit about Bali and the best places to visit, and we figured, it was a donation to the local youth at worst.
Once inside, there were many flowering bougainvillea in pots with the flag of Indonesia waving:
We went inside the monument,
where there is a spiral staircase up to an observation deck,
that we could see all of Bali for miles in every direction.
On the first level, there are 40 dioramas that detail the history of Indonesia (and Indonesians like their dioramas, as we saw two other diorama displays during our time in Bali and Java).
We were able to walk around outside for a different view of the monument.
There were, of course, some cool looking Bonsai trees as well.
Only a few blocks away was the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, a huge Catholic Church that was uniquely Balinese.
We were given sarongs to wear, then entered through the fairly standard looking doors, into an ornate cathedral.
The angel statues took on the most Balinese flavor:
As did the stained glass:
Our last day in Sanur we visited Sanur beach, which was very busy by the port, and there were many shops and restaurants to sit and take in the view, before or after a boat ride. We walked past all of it to the beach front, where there were some sun loungers available for rent, and we set up shop. We did a little swimming, though the water was rough and we didn’t stay in long.
With that, we ended our time in Sanur, and reached out to Dwi who drove us, the next day, to our final spot on Bali, Kuta. Sanur was definitely the most city-like place on Bali we visited, with the nicest roads, sidewalks and most Western food choices. It certainly suited our laid back attitude best of the places on Bali we visited (the other islands notwithstanding, as Gili Meno was our favorite island). One final Bali post to go!
Phil's WayPastCool 