Bali

The family group has been in Bali on our own private group Intrepid tour.

What impacts me positively about the island is the jungle greenery and the architecture.  Pretty much every doorway to a compound is an architectural masterpiece and each has its own private temple.  The negative is the traffic.  Bali is quite built up.

The Balinese culture is all about balance in the cosmos.  The people are delightful and moral.  They got totally confused by our booking which had four children with partners and had aligned surnames and sexes in twin rooms which could have gone down a storm for a romantic Christmas.

With one exception, the hotels were great – beautifully designed bedroom spaces, glorious gardens and pools you see in your dreams.  I love towel swans and strategically placed flower petals.

The first night we rented a private villa, followed by two nights in Ubud (now very touristy) where we saw a cultural dance and had a guided walk and bike ride.  Then we moved to Sideman where it was much quieter and we went for a walk in the rice fields and wandered through the grounds of an eerily deserted luxury hotel.  They couldn’t afford the revised planning regulations so 82 people lost their jobs in the village, a US couple went bankrupt and the buildings went back to nature.

From Sideman we went to Lake Batur and climbed up the volcano to see the sunset along with thousands of other tourists, then to Lovina to snorkel at Menjangan Island which had a wider variety of fish than the Great Barrier reef in Australia and finally Bedugul (Botanic gardens and temple) before returning to Sanur.  I want to give a heads up to the community run restaurant on the beach adjacent to the Segara Village Resort.  We ate the nicest meal there with the quickest service of the entire holiday.