Day 10 - to Sanur

This morning we packed up and had left the hotel by 0900. We drove for about 20 mins passing coconut trees, banana trees, wild chilli plants, mandarin trees and lemon trees on the way, all wild that could just be picked by any one.

We arrived at the Ulun Danu Temple around 9:20 and it was relatively quiet. We met our guide who took us through the temple explaining the Hindu religion and describing the reasons why all statues and temples along the road are dressed in clothes. Hindus believe that if humans are clothed, so too should their gods and the temples so any temple or statue that you see as you travel through Bali will normally have a black & white or Yellow cloth wrapped around them.

We then had 45 minutes to walk around by ourselves and take photographs. Mid way through there was the start of Prayer and a procession of people all dressed in Hindu sarongs walked through the tourists and into the inner temple for prayer.

Two members of our tour group have a large number of tattoos which grows quite a crowd, especially with people from China and today from Borneo. Many photos were taken of our couple from Bristol and various tourists!

After the walk round the temple we then drove around 15 mins to the Bali Botanic Gardens which we drove around and then stopped to allow us to wander about for an hour. I think I was the wrong time of year to go for flowers as there were none, just a couple of orchids looking very sorry for themselves! They had a cactus house however which was filled the brim wirh various species as well as numerous huge statues with gold leaf and intricate details. There was also a large group of woman practising a dance routine which then turned into a game of passing a large corn through the team using only your legs. They seemed to enjoy having an audience and there was waving and smiles from them as we left.

Next stop was lunch! We had a two hour bus ride to Sanur and we were all starving so we stopped on route as this little restaurant that didn’t look like much from the entrance but once you had walked in were surrounded by bamboo and ponds with fish and life sized wooden carved horses ..... and a dinosaur....!

We made it to Sanur around 4pm and walked around the little tourist shops for a bit before heading to the hotel to shower, dress and meet the 3 new people who would be joining the Lombok tour the next day. One man from Australia, a lady from Australia and another lady from Nottingham. After meeting them we all got together, new group and old group to have dinner which was on the beach until some twinkly lights with a live band. The food was, I had a none nutty fish curry and a couple of cocktails. When the night was done, we all hugged goodbye and promised to stay in touch. You really get to know people when you are in each other’s pockets on a tour bus for 9 days. I will miss them!