Bali Part 1: Beach Bali

PartyofSix: Bali was supposed to be our inaugural #FourSixTwelve trip (see Our Story for more information) in August of 2019. We choose to go in August because it’s part of the shoulder season (just before or after the highest tourism season) in Bali; we love the shoulder seasons. We were traveling from Frankfurt, so we were lucky enough to manage a six-hour flight to Dubai, then an eight-hour flight on to Bali. The kids mostly slept on the way to Dubai and used their tablets or Nintendo DSs on the second flight. That being said, lest you think we had it easy, one of them woke up on our descent into Dubai and proceeded to throw up all over the floor in front of him on the nice, new Airbus. #SorryEmirates He was well enough to enjoy the Jump Zone with his brothers in Dubai, which may well be the cleverest thing we have ever encountered in an airport. When you have the opportunity to allow kids to work off some energy while traveling, you obviously take it.

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We spent our first six days in Bali at the Besakih Beach Hotel in Sanur. We picked Sanur because we heard it was very family friendly. I can’t say enough good things about Besakih! The kids absolutely adored the Infinity pool that overlooked the beach – we had to practically bribe them to go to the beach. The pool also had a swim-up bar that we adults enjoyed a few times. We all really liked the onsite restaurant, which had some of their favorite standard Western fare as well as Indonesian food. Our middle son ate spaghetti bolognese every day, and sometimes twice a day. Breakfast was buffet – a mix of Western food and Indonesian food. That pretty much how we got the younger two boys to try Indonesian food. The boys especially enjoyed being able to eat in their swimsuits. Our daughter became an expert at napping in random places throughout the resort. As for the adults, I didn’t wear a watch until it was time to leave the resort and I think that speaks for itself.

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Besakih’s rooms were fairly nice and they put us in rooms right next two each other; my only minor complaint would be that they didn’t adjoin. It’s nearly impossible to find a room or suite that will accommodate all of us, so Bob and I usually end up in separate rooms with two kids each. Besakih has several room choices, from the standard bungalow-style room with a balcony to a stand-alone bungalow. Paved walkways lead to the pool, restaurant, and ocean, as well as back out to the main road. The grounds are like one big garden, with little koi ponds and animal statues for the kids to discover. The staff were kind and helpful at every turn. The restaurant personnel were not just patient with our kids, they genuinely seemed to enjoy them.

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One of the few times we got the kids to the beach, we discovered we could hire a glass-bottomed boat to take us out to see and snorkel the reef (just offshore). We all went out the first time, but only two of the boys wanted to go the second time. Unfortunately for us, the second time out was much rougher and we ended up coming back to shore early because one of the boys started to get seasick.

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We did manage to get out into town a few times and to run into a few lovely people. We at out a few nights, randomly choosing whatever sounded good from the main road (Danau Tamblingan). It had several places to buy souvenirs as well as a few bars that also served ice cream for the kiddos. At one restaurant, the waiter made roses out of the boys’ napkins. At that same restaurant, a lovely Australian woman came over to compliment us on the kids’ behavior and tell us how wonderful it was to see a family the size of ours in Bali. Of course, I could have pointed out that the kids were mostly exhausted rather than generally well-behaved, as the youngest boy proved by curling up and falling asleep in his chair, but I decided not to and just tried to accept the compliment graciously. We also met a German couple whose young son wanted desperately to play with our boys – they finally managed to accept him into their fold as they struggled to overcome the language barrier. (Despite living in Germany for three years, the boys never did manage to pick up any German and didn’t like to be reminded of that.)

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All in all, Sanur (and specifically Besakih) was a wonderful place to spend our beach days in Bali. If I had it to do over again, the only thing I would change is to flip our days in Ubud to the beginning of the trip and end on the more relaxing note of Sanur. Ubud is definitely the more exciting and adventurous part of our trip – read all about it in Bali Part 2: Bohemian Bali.