We arrived in Bali around 8 PM and took a taxi to Flashback’s in Sanur, a place we had heard was nice. They only had available a room that shared a bathroom and we thought about going elsewhere but after taking one look at the room, we fell in love with it. The room was nicely decorated and the bathroom was beautiful with amazing stonework. The whole atmosphere at Flashback’s was so relaxed and they had a nice pool in the courtyard where we just sat around and let our feet dangle in the cool water. They also served a good breakfast with very civilized hours so we could sleep in and wake up to a nice cup of tea. The staff there were amazing and were so friendly that we knew Bobbie (Amie’s mom) would love it there. We stayed two nights and booked it for a further three nights the following week when Bobbie was due to arrive.

Our first night in Sanur, we ate at a wonderful Greek restaurant and tried our first Bintang, the local beer in Indonesia. It is not as good as Beer Lao but nearly as cheap and I’m sure we will have many more in the coming weeks. The next day we went to Kuta to organize our trip to Komodo since that’s where Perama’s main office is located. Kuta is a little bit like Cancun, with all kinds of Western shops and a lot of package tourists; we probably saw more tourists in Kuta in two hours than we had seen in the last two months in Malaysia. We walked along the beach, which was nice but we kept getting hassled to buy something or have a massage. We were also offered transport every few meters and we soon had had enough so we caught a taxi back to the relative quiet of Sanur. Sanur is busy enough and you do get offered transport a lot but we still really liked the place. We ate at western restaurants, used high speed internet and I was even able to watch a football game (Ireland vs. Israel) live at 2:30 am. After two days we went to Lombok knowing that we would be happy to return to Sanur.

In Lombok we stayed in Senggigi for two nights before our trip to Komodo. Senggigi is supposedly the party place in Lombok but we felt it was quiet, maybe because we went to bed early and slept through the noise. The one thing Senggigi has a lot of is hawkers but they were all so nice that we felt we had to buy something off them. Once they saw we were buying, we were constantly approached and ended up with an assortment of watches, rings and necklaces. The place we stayed in was very nice and for $15 we had a lovely bungalow in a superb garden right on the beach. We also had some nice meals in Senggigi as well as a Bintang or two to cool off in the heat of the day.

After our Komodo trip it was back to Senggigi for one night before heading back to Sanur. The next day we met Bobbie at the airport. We had missed her birthday in May (it was a significant one but we’re not allowed to say which one) so we invited her to come and join us in Bali for the last three weeks of our trip. I know the thing Amie missed most on this trip was her mom so it was nice that she could come, it’s just a pity that she could not bring Jake (whom I missed most) with her. As expected, Bobbie loved Flashback’s and she soon adjusted to our busy schedule of relaxing by the pool and making the odd beer run to the local store. Amie set up a massage for the two of them and believe it or not, Amie complained that it was a little soft and thought she got a lot more from the pounding she received earlier in Cambodia. Of course Bobbie loved the pampering and was already planning her next massage.

We ended up spending four days in Sanur on this visit and never made it to the beach, which was only a 100 m from our hotel. We did take a drive around the southern tip of Bali one night and had a wonderful barbecue on Jimbaran Beach while watching the sunset. We also visited an old temple on the edge of a steep cliff which was full of cheeky monkeys who were known to steal glasses and anything else they could get their hands on. We had to hire a guide with a stick to keep the monkeys away as Amie had to wear her glasses and was not willing to risk losing them. After four days, we reluctantly left Flashback’s for the quiet of Lembongan Island and it was on that trip that we finally saw Sanur Beach. We tried to book Flashback’s for our last day in Bali but unfortunately it was full for the date we were looking for.