The Bali Trip

It has been awhile since my last post as we have been very busy with travel both work and personal. In the last few months since my last post we have flown almost 20,000 miles. But I couldn’t do this blog justice without touching upon a trip to one of our most favorite places on Earth – Bali. We have some history in Bali as we spent part of our honeymoon there (the remainder in Thailand). We so much enjoyed our time there we just had to come back — this time with the little ones (Tenley and my Mother in Law Ya Ya). I will do a few posts here about that trip to hopefully entice your interest in travel to this beautiful island in Indonesia.

Yes Bali is beautiful and yes the people are very kind and welcoming. Bali has many amazing things which I will talk about but let’s go straight to where my accountant brain lives in absolute joy — Bali is cheap….once you get there. Food, hiring a car and driver, clothes, souvenirs, hotels, etc. We spent a week in paradise, filled with relaxation and activities, for the cost of about 2 days in Oahu. It was brilliant to come home from a vacation and be surprised by how LITTLE you spent. Can you imagine? Well imagine no more, Bali is your place.

We stayed at a great little hotel called Surya Kembar which is just outside the centrally located city of Ubud. We like Ubud because you can really get to almost anywhere on the island from there in 2 hours or less. We booked a private villa with a pool and to our surprise, it was actually two villas with a pool in the middle. We were also across the street from the hotel and had a private driveway so we felt like residents! YaYa took the smaller villa and we of course took the larger ones. Outdoor showers, huge kitchen, plenty of bottled water, our own pool to do the occasional late night skinny dipping…everything! Our favorite activities at the hotel included pool time, several in room massages, and playing games late in to the night.

It was a great time for us to be together and bond.

The biggest surprise (although I should have known better) by far was the food. So many restaurants and choices but of course the big game changer was most food could be cooked without burning hot spice like we are used to in India. It was like manna from heaven. Tamaria and I found this great little restaurant on the strip in Ubud that had everything from cheese and meat, to pastas and pizzas, to steaks, fish filets, veggies (not spiced), and a great wine selection. We all shed some pounds in India, now was the time to gain it back! We ate Italian, Mexican, steak, all soaked in the deliciousness of butters, salts, and mild pepper. Cheers!

And of course you can’t go to Bali without visiting their beautiful beaches with light sand and clear blue water. We got our own driver the week we were there and he was able to find us this remote beach where we pretty much were by ourselves. No loud clubbing music, no $25 drinks, no obnoxious parties. It was wonderful. We “rented” two chairs for $2 and got to play in the sand and the somewhat warm water. Tenley loves the water (as long as she has daddy or mommy holding her). It was a beautiful day that we spent at the beach. God continues to surround us with beauty.