Sanur, Bali, Indonesia - Day 2

Monday, March 31, 2025

Our day began at Bali Beach Hotel in Sanur, Bali. The hotel was quiet last night — no Muslim calls to prayer or sounds of scooters zipping by. Our room was dark, quiet, cool, and perfect.

The four of us laid in our respective beds until 9:00am, and then decided we should get up to eat breakfast before the restaurant buffet closed at 9:30am. We walked to the same restaurant where we ate dinner last night, only to be informed by the hostess that the breakfast buffet included in the price of our room was located on the second floor of the hotel.

No problem! Andi, Tory, Aden, and I followed the signs upstairs to Restaurant Roso. This was the Bali Beach Hotel’s Indonesian restaurant. Almost every table inside the restaurant was full, and all the customers were of Asian descent. That was kind of interesting! It felt more like being in China than Indonesia.

Andi, Tory, Aden, and I grabbed plates and hit the buffet line. There were many Indonesian dishes offered, of course, as well as a bakery/pastries section, fresh fruit, a omelet/eggs station, and a cold case with deli cheeses and breakfast puddings. Unfortunately, none of the food looked very fresh; perhaps because we arrived in the last 30 minutes of breakfast service.

Each of us returned to our table with small servings of food. Aden and Andi defaulted to nasi goreng for breakfast (Indonesian fried rice), and Aden also tried some of the mie goreng (Indonesian stir-fry noodles). Andi had some chicken dumplings that tasted pretty good.

Generally, I’m not a fan of Asian foods, so I opted for a mini muffin and a small jar of chia seed pudding. Tory returned to the table with a piece of toast and a muffin as well. She was in the same camp as I was apparently.

Usually, I enjoy eating in breakfast buffets for the variety, but this large-scale service wasn’t as pleasant of an experience. There were a lot of people inside this restaurant, and their hygiene wasn’t the best. I witnessed one family gathered around the dried nuts, helping themselves to handfuls after handfuls at the serving station. When Andi returned with a plate of dried nuts at his second buffet go-round, I cautioned, “I wouldn’t eat that if I were you.”

“I’m going to talk to the front desk and see how much to upgrade to the other restaurant,” Andi said after breakfast. Our experience at the Indonesian breakfast buffet hadn’t been the best.

The four of us returned to our hotel rooms, and Tory and Aden assumed their positions laying on their beds. Tory has taken up Minecraft recently, so she and Aden have been building together in the various worlds. We’ve reached a point in this trip where the kids are so bored they’re actually having fun playing together!

Andi suggested we rent bikes from the hotel and go for a spin along the oceanside promenade. Aden was all for this — he loves cycling above all else — but Tory wasn’t as keen. She’s always been uncomfortable on a bike for some reason. Past family bike rides usually end with tears or injuries.

I assumed Tory would stay back in the hotel room while Andi, Aden, and I went for a ride, so I was surprised when Tory laced up her tennis shoes and met us at the door. “Like I had a choice,” she said with an eye-roll as I commended her on her adventurous spirit. The fact of the matter was, she did have a choice though, and she chose to participate in our family bike ride. I thought that was great.

The Bali Beach Hotel has all kinds of activities for hotel guests to enjoy — bike riding, fitness classes, a younger kids play room, and more. We rented four bikes from the activities desk. Unfortunately, they only had one beach cruiser left, so Andi, Aden, and I opted for the bigger-sized mountain bikes. Aden’s bike was a little too big for him, but he didn’t complain. Tory was excited to have the teal one.

Andi and I knew how busy the beach promenade was yesterday, so we started our ride on the paved sidewalk in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, this part of the trail ended shortly.

There were many local Indonesian families at the beach as well as tourists. We also shared the path with other bicyclists — many who seemed like this might’ve been their first time on two wheels! It wasn’t a fast bike ride, by any means. We slowly biked through crowds of people as we followed the boardwalk along Sanur Beach.

At the risk of sounding negative, I have to say that the beaches of Indonesia aren’t what I imagined they’d be. Generally speaking, they’re littered with garbage which seems to be a real problem throughout the whole country. This three-mile stretch of beach in Sanur seemed cleaner than most, but I think it’s because the hotels & resorts behind the beach maintain it for their guests.

Sanur Beach is protected by a reef about 300 feet from shore. At high tide, traditional Indonesian outrigger canoes bob along the shoreline waiting to head out into the bigger ocean. At low tide, seaweed, sand, and mud reveal itself where the water once stood. This makes Sanur Beach a good place for swimming because the waters are calm and protected. We saw a lots of people floating on inflatables and wading in the shallow waters, almost like a swimming pool. During low tide, people hunted for trash & treasures in the naturally-formed tide pools.

Is this how all of Bali’s beaches are, Andi and I wondered? We imagined Bali to have miles of soft, sandy beaches and cultural charm, and there was some of that (especially in this stretch of Sanur Beach maintained by the resorts) — but overall, we were really disappointed by the cleanliness of beaches in Indonesia.

The four of us rode our bikes along the beach promenade to Icon Bali Mall about a mile away. The whole time Andi and I were sweating bullets as we watched Tory navigate her bicycle through the crowds. She’d speed up quickly, narrowly missing a child or people walking, and Andi would pedal off after to catch up to her. Then, she’d slow down to the point where her bicycle would almost tip over from lack of motion. I kept waiting for her to fall off her bike or hit someone, but she didn’t! We made it to the mall, and parked our bikes at the outdoor rack.

Inside the Bali Icon Mall, the four of us wandered the floors and browsed through several shops. We stopped in one store called Balizen and purchased some cloth napkins and gifts for home. The mall was surprisingly busy for being 4pm on a Monday.

Tory wanted to eat at Subway, but reconsidered once she saw the menu. Her go-to turkey sandwich wasn’t an option. Instead, her protein choices were chicken, fish, tuna, egg, or beef. “Eww, no way,” she said.

We opted to have a late lunch/early dinner at a restaurant just outside the mall called Naty’s. The big menu featured something for every taste. Andi ordered grilled prawns for his meal, I had a burger, Aden had chicken tenders, and Tory ordered mozzarella sticks. The food wasn’t fantastic in quality, but it was OK. We liked being seated by the big picture window more than anything, watching the madness of the mall go by.

The four of us successfully biked back to the Bali Beach Resort without any tears, injuries, or frustrations. Hooray! I did not predict that outcome.

Back in our hotel rooms, we were greeted by a cute towel animal on our bed and a note from the housecleaner. Indonesia does hospitality well, I have to say! The genuine kindness of its people who go out of their way to make our visit to their country enjoyable is heartwarming.

The four of us resumed our usual lounging positions in our respective hotel rooms. Suddenly, Andi stood up quickly and closed the door connecting the two rooms.

“So, here’s an idea,” he started. “Seats just opened up on a flight tonight. Do we want to fly home a few days early?”

Tonight? Really? Hmm… that’s an idea.

We’ve really enjoyed the past 11 weeks of travel through Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia. What a gift to be able to travel the world as a family, making memories, and spending so much quality time together. But to be completely honest, I think we were all ready to go home. What would we see in the next 36 hours that we haven’t already experienced?

“Are you sure? Really?” I asked Andi, because I didn’t want to tell the kids unless we were absolutely certain.

Yes, Andi verified, we could fly home tonight in the same seats we booked for this coming Wednesday. As a mega splurge, Andi and I had previously booked first-class airline tickets providing ourselves a little more comfort on the 19-hour return to the USA. There’s really no “good way” to get to Minneapolis. We’d fly 7 hours from Denpasar, Bali to Seoul, South Korea where we’d have a 9-hour layover. Then, we’d fly 12 hours from Seoul to Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Ok, then! Andi opened the door and called Tory and Aden over to our room. “Are we in trouble?” Tory asked with great concern.

“No, you’re not in trouble,” Andi reassured her. “We have something to run by you guys. Seats just opened up on a flight out of Bali tonight. Would you two be interested in leaving a few days earlier than planned?” he asked Tory and Aden.

“Yes! Yes! Really? Really?” they both shouted, jumping up and down in excitement.

Our new return plan meant we had to pack for the airport right now. That wasn’t too difficult since we travel lightly, and our bags were mostly packed anyway. I spent the next hour and a half organizing our things, and making one last purge of items we weren’t planning to bring back to the United States with us. We left a considerable pile of t-shirts, shorts, sandals, snacks, and notebooks in our hotel room with a note for housekeeping to either keep or donate the items.

Meanwhile, Andi arranged 8pm transport from the Bali Beach Hotel to the Bali airport.

Our drive from Sanur to I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar wasn’t terrible. It took us about 40 minutes to get there as traffic was light this time in the evening. We rode in a nice, comfortable private car from the Bali Beach Resort. “Hotel cars are the way to go,” I whispered to Tory with a smile. “Yeah, but they’re about 30% more expensive,” Andi retorted.

At the Bali airport, the four of us sailed through check-in with Korean Air. Our first-class status gained us access to the KAL priority lounge, but it was pretty gross. It smelled like cigarette smoke and the food looked like it’d been sitting out for a while.

The four of us opted to have dinner at Wolfgang Puck Kitchen Restaurant instead. Our food was actually pretty good there. “This will be the real test to see if Indonesian people are even kind at the airport,” I said to Andi. And guess what? They were! Our server was so friendly and attentive to our table. Even the security checkpoint people were in good moods.

By now it was 11:00pm, and we were all really tired. Our flight to Seoul, South Korea didn’t depart Bali until 2:00am. Tory, Aden, and I sat at the airline gate and watched downloaded shows on our iPhones while Andi participated in a few work calls.

Finally around 1:00am, we boarded our flight to Seoul. First class seats! Aden and Tory were so surprised and excited. “I didn’t even have a chance to research about this,” Aden said, a little disappointed. He always has to know the plan, and loves to watch videos on YouTube before any experience to armor himself with all tips and tricks — just like his father!

On this flight, we had three seats together in the center of the plane, and one aisle seat. Andi was seated next to a woman from Seattle traveling alone. Right away, he struck up a conversation with her. “There goes Dad making friends again,” Tory teased.

Our first-class seats included one meal (breakfast, because it was 2:00am). Tory, Aden, and I all picked the continental option which included fruit, yogurt, and bread. Aden and I didn’t end up eating it because we asked the flight attendant not to wake us up if we were sleeping. Andi picked the noodle soup for his breakfast meal, and said it was terrible.

The best part about flying first-class is that our seats folded flat which made it so much easier to sleep. All four of us slept for about 5 of the 7-hour flight which was pretty good. We were all so tired by the time the flight finally took off at 2:00am.

Our flight from Bali, Indonesia to Seoul, South Korea landed at 8:00am local time. We had a 10-hour layover in Seoul. More to come on our (quick!) visit to South Korea.