...For $US 55 a night we had a standard room at Vila Shanti which was simple, faded but clean and comfortable and to our mind really well positioned. It's nice to enjoy breakfast looking out over the beach and it was well positioned for Hardy's, some good eating and the markets.
All we did that first day was a quick down to Hardy's for essential supplies (why don't they sell Diet Coke in a 1.25L bottle???) and then went to Warung Pergrina for dinner, which is almost opposite Vila Shanti. They only do Indonesian and seafood (no red meat on the menu at all from memory) but man they do it well. Mr had crispy skin duck (55,000) which had the ladies at the next table salivating when it came out! Good food and great surroundings and better prices than we found at any of the beach restaurants. Mr liked it even better because the wait staff all pretended to be massively impressed by his Indonesian, which consists of nothing more than what is in the back of the Lonely Planet Guide.
Having left the crashing waves we were looking for a good nights sleep. But then we were kept up all night be cats crying, playing, fighting together and doing the opposite of fighting together. We are not cat people at the best of times. We are especially not cat people at 3am. This was war. The next morning we placed a big tumbler of water on the veranda table. Any time a cat came in range it was aimed at him. They soon got the message and shifted camp, never disturbing our sleep again. Apologies to the cat people.
The rest of our time in Sanur was spent doing not very much. A dent was made in War and Peace. We ate at Café Batu Jimbar (excellent), Mangoes, Mona Lisa Café (good mlk shakes) Bennos and Warang Pegrina again. Two memorable meals were a trip to the night market where we were entirely dependent on Mr's Indonesian and where fantastic and generousn satay ayam, rice and drinks came to a grant total of 34,0000 for the two of us and Babi Guling booked a day in advance at Randy's (who came up with a Canadian restaurant in Sanur?!?!?
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We did a day trip across to Kuta and walked down Poppies I and along the beach for a bit, but I think that next time, the only reason we'd go across would be to eat waffles at A&W in Discovery, which Mr is a bit obsessed with. It was just too busy and bustling for us.
We did a bit of shopping in Markets which consisted of Mrs spending forever to browse and then turn to Mr, who had to go through the bargaining motions which he enjoyed for the first 2 minutes and then got over in a big way. 2 dresses for the monkeys = 50,000, ladies dress and top = 60,000, 5 of those shoulder bags with the strippy handles and the gold stuff on them = 120,000, 2 kids sandals + 1 pair ladies leather sandals + 2 little sequined bags for monkeys = 120,000. No idea if those are outrageous or good, but we were happy.
We kept in contact with the Monkey's via a phone bought in Harvey Norman for $28 (they'll be giving them away with Happy Meals soon) a 35,000 SIM card and some credit bought upstairs at Hardy's.
We had the dreaded late night departure, but Vila Shanti charged us $30 to stay in the room until 8pm and then we got a driver to take us to the airport where we went to one of the lounges and Mrs lay down and dozed and Mr made use of the free internet and began the journey back to the land of monkeys.
We're now trying to convince some friends to go with us next time. With their monkeys and our monkeys we'll have our own mobile monkey forest!