Warmadewa dynasty ruled Bali for almost 4 decades from 913 AD until 1345 AD, when Majapahit kingdom annexed Bali after defeating the last Bali king named Sri Asta Sura. Writer present Bali king and it's periodization in a separate writing, and if you would like to have a glance on Balinese king, can be browsed from this article index by clicking " See other articles "
Sanur village in the past was known as the stronghold of black magic masters. All Bali have known this story, that the most feared magician was from Sanur. The place along the beach was believed to be the playing ground of those invisible practitioners. Rumors said it was often happened a war among magicians. The most wide spread Sanur magic war was in 1975. It was said that when the dark is started along the beach of Sanur can happened that a ball of light flashing over the trees or even the Bali Beach hotel rolling down as big and height as one meter, or a ball of light flying over trees diminishing and disappeared in the darkness, or two balls of light colliding each other then broken into sparkling peaces of lights like fire explosive art work during a festival. It was believed that the Sanur magicians was in war with magicians from Kamasan, in Klungkung, where was also the famous stronghold of the black magic. This scaring story about Sanur has been so deep in the mind of Balinese, so in the past whatever the situation was, they would avoid having dealt with people from Sanur in the sense of making conflict. According to the common people in Sanur, they did not feel that the magician was their expert, and they did believe that was belong to only certain people that was specifically studying or inherited from their mastering parent. Based on the attribute given to the village of Sanur, a film for entertainment was made in 1980 describing the behavior of the " leak " ( leak mean black magic master ). This film was so popular especially in Indonesia and Australia, since one of the main figure was an Australian lady. This film is also believed to promote Bali very effectively, so Bali was become the second home for Australian. The name of Sanur, actually does not refer only one village, but it denotes at least 4 villages those are Anggarkasih village in Northern Sanur, Banjar Taman, also North Sanur, Banjar Semawang, South Sanur, and Bet Ngandang area, the south west of Sanur. All these village is under Perbekel government called Perbekalan Sanur. According to the tradition the Perbekel, the head of Perbekel goverment was trusted to a Brahmana cast which is still until now. The tradition said that the area of Sanur was trusted to a Brahmana cast to manage. We we see, that the village of Sanur has many Brahmana families, and now most of the business enterprises in Sanur belong to Brahmana family. This is a shifting paradigm of traditional meaning of cast in Bali.
In 1904 the Dutch Colonial Administration claimed that the people of Sanur had plundered a Chinese wrecked ship of " Sri Kumala". The king of Badung after organizing a check to their people in Sanur he in contrary found that the people in Sanur were helping the crew for salvation of the ship, and refused the claim of the Dutch. But the Dutch was insisting that according to the Chinese owner of the ship he was plundered. The Dutch got their point to start attacking Bali. The first army garnizun was dropped in Sanur, and the army damaged the the village of Sanur, Badung, and Kesiman. In 1906 after the fierce battle, the king of Badung decided to fight with the last drop of blood followed by all family and the soldiers. This battle is famous as the Puputan Badung. Beginning of 1930 the name of Sanur started to be known by at least world anthropologists, painters and writer who put special attention to Sanur, or even built their refuge in Sanur. Dr. Jack Mershon and his anthropologist wife, Jane Bello an American anthropologist, Ms. Vicki Baum known with Balinese name as Ketut Tantri a writer of the Revolt in Paradise, Belgian painter Jean Mark Le Mayeur de Bruxelles, followed by Australian painter and collector Ian Farweather, and Donal Frend. They have made the name of Sanur become more and more known by people outside Indonesia, and Sanur was visited by celebrities of the world. We can not forget also the work of earlier anthropologist and archaeologist who have dedicated themselves to disclosed the historical and cultural aspects of Bali, wrote it in a book, and spreaded it to the world, such as Prof. J Krom, Prof. JL Brandes, Thomas Stanford Raffles, Prof. Van Stein Callenfels, Prof. Swellengrebel, Dr. Stutterheim, Prof. J. G. de Casparis, Prof. Charles Damais, Dr. Urs Remseyer and still many others. Sanur, The Traditional Village and Modern HotelsFrom the village of magicians, an equalizing beach, and the heritage of Le Mayeur, a Belgian painter married Balinese woman and a famous dancer. Today Sanur is more a relaxing places than any other resorts, where business is closed, and hotels have wider space. Sanur hotels have better image as for higher class travelers, despite the fact that seen from the quality of hotels compared to other resorts in Bali, Sanur hotels are almost at the same level. There are simple Sanur hotels, Medium category Sanur hotels, and deluxe Sanur hotels. It was probably the image is come from the fact that in Kuta as the most developed tourist resort attracts various level of society, even the bigger numbers are more or less hippies. Deluxe Sanur hotels are not many such as Grand Bali Beach, Bali Hyatt, Sanur Beach, Raddin hotels, and Radisson hotel and Apartment ( now Sanur Plaza hotels and Apartment ). these Sanur hotels have from the beginning have been hosting travelers from U.S.A, Japan, and Europe. At the same era with Grand Bali Beach, there is a popular villa of Tanjung Sari as one of Sanur hotels collection, which is now already fade un-maintained. The space of Sanur Hotels is normally wider compared to Kuta, and the development of Sanur hotels has not as fast as Kuta also, the space can be maintained to be easier to breath. Around the Sanur hotels there are still high tress, flowers and open space do not yet developed into concrete construction. Hopefully Sanur hotels environment could be maintained for decades before any breakthrough in Bali economy be found, as tourism might not be sustainable.