On my recent trip to Indonesia, I decided to spend a few days on my return leg in a different part of Bali. Business usually requires that I stay in the Kuta area, so with no meetings scheduled I decided to check out the east coast area of Sanur.

The difference was quite striking, to say the least. Truth be told, Kuta isn't a very good beach. Much of it is quite narrow even at low tide, and the wider stretch around Legian is quite steep. The beach at Seminyak is quite nice, but like the rest of this stretch of Bali, the surf is quite heavy. That's great for the surfers, who are probably responsible for making Kuta the tourist mecca it is today, but it's not that great for any other water sports. In fact, there's surprisingly little to do on the beach in Kuta if you're not a surfer. There aren't even that many restaurants on the beach, out side of hotels, and the number of hotels with direct access to the beach is actually rather small.

Sanur is almost a polar opposite. Here the beach is wide and flat. There's a reef about a 100 yards off shore that breaks the waves, generally resulting in a gentle lapping of the water on the shore. Between the shore and the reef the water is quite shallow, so at low tide a large area of sea grass and tide pools is exposed. When the tide is high, the waters are great for swimming, wind surfing and paddle boating. The marjority of the hotels and resorts in Sanur are right on the beach. A paved walkway runs down the length of the beach, past shops, restaurants and the resorts. In Sanur, you could easily sleep, shop and eat without ever losing sight of the sea.

Sanur has a well deserved reputation for being the quiet beach, and it certainly does lack the clubs and other excitements of Kuta, but if you can do without that you'll find a great beach, delicious restaurants and some very relaxing small scale resorts.

To see some photographs of Sanur, see the photo gallery.

Posted by michael under Just back from...

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