Now, I love a good farm animal as much as the next person—but when that rooster let loose at 4am, it felt less like rustic charm and more like a personal attack. I wouldn’t have minded so much if I could’ve drifted back into dreamy bliss, but my body had other plans, still sore from yesterday’s parade of adventures and apparently not in the mood for a second round of sleep.

I decide to be productive with my early start and knock out the daily blog but once the sun was up and the world felt slightly less aggressive, I took to the streets for a walk-and-talk, having a quick chat with Jamei along the way. Back home we often do a morning walk complete with sunrise and conversation. These chats are my favorite – equal parts therapy, comedy, and cardio. It was nice to have a morning ritual, even if it is an entirely different format. Navigating a vid chat while navigating roads that have not met safety standards in most countries was still worth it (but I giggle as I think about the potholes back home and realise maybe it feels much the same)
I head back, but on our way to breakfast, we had a little mechanical drama. Matthew’s bike was acting up – something about the brakes, or maybe just the bike’s general attitude. We pay a visit to the bike shop to see if they had a way to fix it. The lady pulls out her trusty toolkit, which is less “Swiss Army” and more “MacGyver meets minimalist.” Matthew is always game to fix things, but today’s issue required the one tool she didn’t have. After a brief moment of squinting and tinkering, we enacted Plan B: swap the bike. The hire shop was understanding, and Matthew rode off on his new wheels like a man reborn

Breakfast was an omelette, inhaled with the urgency of someone who’d been awake since the rooster’s solo at 4am. We lost track of time – blame the bike swap, the wandering, or just Bali’s ability to bend the clock – and returned to the villa to find the cleaner already mid-sweep. We did a quick, apologetic shuffle around her, tidying as we went, trying to make it look like we hadn’t just left a trail of sandy footprints, tangled towels, and snack wrappers like breadcrumbs in a tropical fairytale. For a moment, it felt like we’d walked into a game of hide-and-seek. The place was mid clean, but eerily quiet all of sudden, like she’d been waiting us out, hoping we’d vanish again so she could resume her mission uninterrupted. We tiptoed around, trying not to disturb the peace, half-expecting her to emerge from behind a curtain with a feather duster and a mildly judgmental smile.
We wandered into a different part of town today—new streets, new stories. One man was painting a Dwarapalas, those fierce gatekeeper statues with bulging eyes and weapons that say “not today, evil spirits.” I admired his brushwork and briefly considered commissioning one to stand guard over my Disney room back home. Because let’s be honest – if anything deserves spiritual protection and a firm “no touching” policy, it’s the shelf of limited-edition Snow White and emotionally significant plushies.
He was painting in full white traditional clothes, which felt both elegant and wildly optimistic – like wearing a wedding dress while eating BBQ’d ribs. Not a single splash of paint on him, which made me question everything I thought I knew about gravity and self-control.

It seems there’s a few fun things to see in this newly discovered are, with still the familiar steamy charm as Bali is so well known for. Then came the lobster. Not on a plate, but towering above us in full crustacean glory, a statue so large it could moonlight as a parade float. Clearly, the Balinese have done their homework and catered to the Aussie love of “big things.” You know the type: Big Banana, Big Pineapple,… and now, Bali’s version of the Big Lobster. It was both majestic and mildly absurd, which is exactly the sweet spot for Australian tourism.

​Just beyond our crustacean encounter, we passed one of the many turtle conservation spots dotting the coast. A pair of Scottish and Irish young women were being handed baby turtles – tiny, flippered bundles of hope – and naturally, we followed them down to the beach to watch the release. Not in a creepy way, just in a “how could you not?” way. The turtles paddled off into the wild with surprising determination, and I offered to take a photo and video for the girls, instantly transforming into the David Attenborough of beachside wildlife moments – minus the accent, plus a lot more squinting. They were full of gratitude as they walk back up the beach and we savour a moment to spot their little heads bobbing with purpose for the big blue sea. Good luck out there guys.

The sun was particularly bitey today—less “gentle kiss of warmth” and more “surprise slap from a fireball.” It reminded me of Boston in her younger years, when she’d already mastered the art of seeing the world through her own wonderfully offbeat lens. After one especially toasty afternoon, she emerged pink-cheeked and radiant, and in true Boston fashion declared, “I wasn’t sunkissed—I was sun-pashed.” Equal parts dramatic and poetic, like a tiny philosopher with a flair for Aussie slang.
So we decided to retreat home for a dip, which felt like being hugged by a cool cloud – refreshing, slightly surreal, and exactly what my skin begged for. Today I managed to stay in the “sun-kissed” category, thanks to a liberal slathering of SPF50+, now as essential as thongs and frizz-ease in this climate.
Lunch was at Old Brick, our unofficial headquarters for people-watching, and an essential stop each trip to Sanur. The food is honest, styled innovatively, the drinks are cold, the staff charmingly unhurried. The cast of characters drifting past could rival any soap opera, if soap operas had more Bintang singlets and fewer plot lines. 

One of my favourite things is sitting near the front, where snippets of passing conversations float in like radio static. Just fragments—“…She’s been here three days and already has a tattoo and a boyfriend,” or “I got two for the price of one”, each one a tiny mystery begging to be solved. It’s like tuning into a dozen stories mid-sentence, none of which I’ll ever hear the end of, and somehow that makes them even better. 
My favourite snippet was a husband, wrangling two sandy, giggling toddlers, telling his wife to take her time and that he and the boys would be just fine. She strolled off with a hopeful sort of smile, and while we’ll never know for sure, we liked to imagine she was headed for a massage and a moment of peace. As for him, he gets a gold star.
After a heavenly massage In a bold move of self-reinvention, I gave myself a haircut. No mirror, no plan, just vibes. It’s either a triumph or a cry for help, time will tell.
To round out the day, we found ourselves watching a documentary about a reality show that was never made. It was weird, wonderful, and oddly fitting. Because if today had been pitched as a reality show – rooster wake-up, lobster sightings, turtle paparazzi, and DIY grooming – even the turtles would’ve signed the release forms.