April 2024
My favorite part of Sanur wasn’t an activity or an excursion.
It was waking up early and walking out to the beach to watch the sunrise.
With the tide out, fishing boats sat stranded on the sand like shipwrecks waiting for the water to return. The beach was quiet, the air was cooler than it had been in Ubud, and for a little while it felt as though the town belonged only to the handful of people already awake.
A few hours later, the tide would return and those same boats would be floating effortlessly in the bay as if nothing had changed.
Watching the shoreline transform throughout the day became part of the rhythm of Sanur.
After several days of temples, waterfalls, canyoning, and cycling through the countryside, arriving in Sanur felt like shifting into a lower gear.
Located on Bali’s southeastern coast, Sanur has a different atmosphere than Ubud. While Ubud feels deeply connected to Bali’s history and traditions, Sanur felt more familiar and more international. Australian accents were everywhere, restaurants offered a wider variety of cuisines, and many of the comforts of home were easier to find.
After several days of eating variations of chicken and rice, I was more than ready for a little culinary diversity.
Our home for the next few days was the Puri Santrian Resort, a sprawling beachfront property with tropical gardens, walking paths, and direct access to the beach. Unlike the dramatic surf beaches often featured in photos of Bali, Sanur’s shoreline was calm and protected by an offshore reef.
One evening the group had the option of joining a street food tour that involved riding through town on the back of motorcycles. I took a hard pass. The idea of weaving through Bali traffic as a passenger on a motorcycle sounded considerably less appealing than a long foot massage, ice cream, and a relaxing evening with Terry.
We chose a massage. In fact, massages became a recurring theme during our stay in Sanur. Between a foot massage in town and full-body massages back at the resort, I fully embraced the slower pace of this part of the trip.
One morning we headed out for stand-up paddleboarding. The activity technically involved standing. In practice, I spent much of the time sitting on the paddleboard and enjoying the view from the water.
The calm conditions made it easy to drift offshore and look back toward the beach, fishing boats, and coastline. It was less about exercise and more about appreciating the scenery from a different perspective.
As the trip neared its end, our group gathered for a farewell dinner at a beautiful beachfront resort. The food was excellent, the setting was memorable, and the evening would have been nearly perfect had the power not gone out during dinner. Just another travel story to add to the collection.
Sanur also marked the end of the group portion of the trip.
A week earlier, most of us had arrived as complete strangers. Over the course of seven days we had explored temples, rappelled down waterfalls, cycled through the countryside, waited out tropical storms, shared meals, and accumulated our own collection of stories.
By the time we gathered for our farewell dinner, we were no longer a group of strangers traveling together.
We were friends.
The next morning everyone would head in different directions. Some were returning home. Others, including Terry and me, were continuing our adventure in Bali.
Sanur marked the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next.
