Oh Bali....

Thanks to a generous policy of the company that takes us to Shanghai, we are granted one week of rest and relaxation per year. This year, we decided to head off to Bali. Thanks to the great skills of [H], we were able to score a good flight and a really nice stay at a superior resort.

Our flights were on time and without any trauma. As you already know, we had a good stay in Singapore and then a really good transition to Bali. We were met at the airport by the resort car and taken to Nusa Dua beach to the resort. We did our registration in the room instead of standing at the lobby desk. Our guide then gave us a tour of the suite and an explanation of the services provided. We had a very luxurious suite with free laundry service, daily fruit service, twice daily clean up, in room espresso machine and lots of other little perks (he asked what kind of scent we would like and what sort of music did we want to hear). The gym was open to us twenty four hours per day. The outside deck has a day bed with comfortable cushions. We stayed in the exclusive part of the resort and had our own pool with bales, free breakfast, tea and cocktails. As you can imagine, it was definitely relaxing.

On one of the days, we hired a car and driver to take us around the island. He picked us up from the hotel and took us to many little villages to begin with. He explained that each of the village has their own specialty. One village specialized in silver jewelry (bargained for a nice silver ring), another in painting, and yet others in stone and wood carvings. We stopped at a macaque sanctuary and walked around the forest with paved walkways and basically dodged the monkeys that walked around looking for tourist rubes with bananas. Once they found one, they would either climb on them in search of the fruit, or just grabbed it out of their hands. We saw a couple of monkey chases and fights, and took not just a few shots of them. The remainder of the trip consisted of a stop at a fruit stand, rice terraces, lunch near the volcano (last eruption in 1963) and ended with a massage. Pretty good day overall.

This place is very tropical. There are lots of palm trees,plumeria trees,and miles of sand. There are temples everywhere- each house has a room, then there is one outside, and then one in the community. The humidity is extremely high and the temperature is hot. It was perfect for a pool or beach side stay- lots of sun for heating up and water for cooling off.