Bali, Bali, Bali

Once again I look at the blog and realize I am VERY behind.  I am glad to look back and see I blogged about the babies 2nd birthday but it seems as though time has stood still since February.  I have decided to start back at it with a little blog about me and Al!

*Disclaimer - this is a recap of the best vacation Al and I have ever had.  We both feel so fortunate and blessed to have gone on a trip to this magnitude.  I am not writing to brag about it but just so that I can remember this trip in detail for the next few years*

In June 2012, we started dreaming about and planning a belated 10th anniversary trip.  We were married in 2001, so by "belated", I mean about 21 months late!  Al has always wanted to return to our honeymoon destination, Bali.  Over the years, he would talk about it and I would shrug it off as I thought it was a pipe dream.  I mean, who really gets to go to Bali once in their life, much less twice?  So when he came to me last summer really wanting to plan this trip, I thought he was crazy.  Well, I am thankful for his kind of crazy!  We checked our miles and amazingly we found we could get 2 round trip tickets in business class.  Free tickets were a major "thumbs up" for the trip.  I also called in a few favors from my former boss at Four Seasons and we were able to get a reduced room rate at both of the Four Seasons Resorts in Bali.  Two thumbs up.  After talking with our moms, we had their commitment to helping with the kids.  Three thumbs up (?)!  Done and done.  Don't get me wrong - I had to work through some major mommy guilt to be okay to leave the kids for 13 days.  Boy, I am glad I did.

Once we booked the flights and the hotel rooms, we started our 9 month countdown to vacation.  This trip will go down in history as the one we waited the longest for.  We typically book trips 2-3 months out.  There were times that it seemed like the trip would never get here but once Christmas came and went, the months started ticking away.  The trip couldn't have been at a more perfect time.  Al and I were a bit disconnected (not has bad as it has been in the past but we certainly weren't running on all cylinders).  For the last few days leading up to the trip, I would call or text Al with the simple message of "Bali, Bali, Bali".  It was that thought that got us through the busyiness of getting ready to leave.

So, April 17th finally came and at 7:30pm, we kissed our precious babies a fond farewell and headed to the airport for our first vacation in 5 years.  And in fine fashion, our first food and drink stop was at the airport (might as well start vacation early!)  At 9pm we started our 27 hour trip to Bali.  Dallas to LA, LA to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Bali.  Let me tell you, business class on Cathay Pacific is the way to travel.  Each person has her own little pod, tv and noise cancelling head set.  Woohoo!

At DFW Terminal D waiting on flight to LA

Flipping awesome business class on Cathay Pacific

Ely could totally travel to Hong Kong - there is a Popeyes in the airport!

Al and I stayed at Four Seasons Bali at Jimbaran Bay and at Four Seasons Bali at Sayan.  Both are exquisit properties and provided the relaxation we needed.  Jimbaran Bay is set right on the Balinese coast line and offers fabulous beach views and sun shine.  Sayan is about an hour north of the coast in the jungle/rain forest (I am not actually sure of the right ecological term).  All I know is that Sayan is lush and beautiful and so very secluded.  Both resorts were nearly full to capacity but we felt like we were the only people there at both locations.

Our first full day (Saturday) was filled with complete relaxation.  "Sleeping in" meant we were both awake by 7am!  I went for a run and Al lounged in bed.  After breakfast and some pool time, we had spa treatments.  For most of our time at the beach we ate breakfast, lunch and dinner at the Resort.  On Monday, we participated in the Cooking School at the Four Seasons.  Chef Kris took us on a tour of the local seafood and produce markets.  After that, he helped us prepare and cook a fantastic Asian meal.  Chicken and Shrimp Pot Stickers, Wok Fried Noodles (Mie Goreng), Vegetable Pickles, Hot and Sour Prawn Broth Soup.  I must say, everything that we made was better than acceptable and we left completely full from our delicious lunch.  So, that afternoon we had to recover by laying by the pool!!

First night in Jimbaran Bay at Sundara restaurant

First Lunch on the Beach at Menega Restaurant

We had remembered this restaurant from our honeymoon.  You pick the prawn and lobster you want cooked.  Amazing!

Pictures from our trip to Kuta, a nearby beach town

Balinese Dancers at the Resort one evening

Ready do do some more eating!

 This is the start of our Cooking Class

Visit to Seafood Market

Visit to Produce Market

All the fishing boats

more fishing boats already back from a night of fishing

On our tour of the Resort's gardens

Dressed and ready for success

Notice I am doing all the work :)

Making pot stickers/dim sum.  Same technique to make tortelli!

Soup

The rest of our time at Jimbaran Bay was filled with trips to the local beach town of Kuta and Seminyak.  We had a wonderful dinner at Ku De Ta restaurant.  It was a hotspot for ex-pats and we were surrounded with the most white people we had seen in days.  There were a lot of Australians there as it is only a 4 hour flight from the western part of Australia.  The food was fabulous and the drinks were quite tasty.  We had a fabulous wine, Feral Fox.

Dinner at Ku De Ta

Views from our final days at Jimbaran Bay

After 5 nights at the Jimbaran Bay, we left our beach resort for the lush paradise of Sayan.  Although the trip should take an hour, we took about 4 hours to travel so that we could see the country side and visit different villages along the way.  We saw woodworking villages, painting villages, jewelry making villages, the whole nine yards.  We stopped for the. best. pizza. I have ever had on an island vacation!  thin crust with shrimp and mushrooms.  Yum - I can taste it right now!  Rapuan Cili will definitely be a restaurant worth visiting again (if we are ever able to do this again!)  And the views of rice patties were breathtaking.  A funny sidebar is that the rice fields were filled with ducks - I mean like 30 of them waddling around in one big group.  It was quite funny (or maybe it wasn't, but by this point Al and I had spent 7 days together and our perspective might be a bit jaded!).

Stop at a Silver Jewelry Store.  Funny frog statues.

At a fabric shop - Batik design on the fabric to make patterns

Rice fields along the road

If you look close, you can see the crazy ducks!

I said it a few times on our trip but once we got to Sayan, I realized that I didn't appreciate the beauty and magnificence of this resort when we were on our honeymoon at the young age of 22.  The quiet beautiful of the rainforest was breathtaking.  Al and I spent each morning having breakfast in our room overlooking the Ayung River.  It was bliss.  We had one major activity while in Sayan, a mountain climb and other than that it was very low key.  There is a delightful village not far from the Resort called Ubud.  We walked and shopped for several hours.  At the end of one of the streets we wondered down, we found a Monkey Park.  There were monkeys everywhere.  One of them literally attacked me.  Even Al was startled.  I was a bit embarrassed when no fewer than 30 other tourists got a laugh out of my screaming.  You should scream too if a monkey jumped on your back!  We had wonderful lunches at a BBQ restaurant called Naughty Nori.  We enjoyed it so much we went twice.  One night we had our first Laocian meal at a delightful little restaurant recommended by the General Manager.  Our last night in Bali, we ate at one of the 50 best restaurants in Asia, Mosaic.  I throughly enjoyed it although Al was a bit disenchanted by the portion sizes (think fancy French restaurant tasting portions).

Our wonderful villa

Al is standing on the roof of our villa - You enter in from the top and the go down a flight of stairs to the living and bedroom areas.  

First night at Sayan

Al's new hat bought in Ubud

Our first visit to Naughty Nuri's

Dinner on the 2nd night at Sayan

Our 2nd visit to Naughty Nuri's.  Check out the little lady manning the grill right out in front!

Al had been talking for months about getting a cheap Balinese massage (like ones that are $10 for an hour treatment).  One day after lunch at Naughty Nori's (which by the way had the best margaritas) we stopped by a little spa and Al got his hour massage for $15.  He loved it as they little lady walked on his back.  I had a pedicure.  It was fun but the color selection was limited to 6 Revelon shades!   We did do a couples treatment at the Resort Spa.  It was a full package deal that lasted 3 hours.  It was hard to talk Al into it but he did enjoy and appreciate all the relaxing that can be done in 3 hours!  I had a body scrub, massage, head oil treatment and a bath.  Al had a neck and head massage, full body massage and facial!  What fun.

Our major activity was climbing Mt. Batur, Bali's second largest mountain, to watch the sun rise.  It is actually a volcano.  It isn't active but does have some steam coming out of it.  We woke up at 2:30 in. the. morning. to catch our ride at at 3am.  The resort had some muffins and croissants packed up for us ready to snack on while we had the hour drive to the foot of the mountain.  We got to the mountain around 4am and started our trek up.  It took about 90 minutes of true mountain climbing (I mean, we didn't have a harness or anything but our guide did have to help pull me up the rocks about every 5 minutes).  The morning was clear and beautiful until we got to the top.  At 5:30 we reached the summit.  Just in time to see the fog roll in.  I mean, did we just really wake up at zero dark thirty to climb a mountain to miss the sunrise because of some fog?  Well,  sunrise was around 6:15 and right at about 6:10 the fog began to move and we say the most spectacular sunrise.  It was wonderful.  There were about 50 other crazy folks up there with us and we all enjoyed the view.  After the sun rose, we went and checked out a cave of bats, and some craters from when the volcano erupted the last time,  in the 60's, I think.  The climb down took about an hour.  It was fun and well worth the early morning.  Al and I both felt we got a heck of a work out.  We drove back to the resort and made a few stops to do some shopping.  We returned to our home away from home around noon and had a big old lunch!  After lunch, I don't remember much other than sleeping most of the afternoon!

At the top of Mt. Batur and all the fog just before sunrise.  

Al and our delightful guide in the bat cave

Looking over a valley of black lava 

We made it back to the bottom - check out what we climbed!

Our 2 fabulous guides.  The one on the left was "slow and steady"

A view of Mt. Batur from our drive back to the Resort

Our trip concluded with the 24 hour travel that we started with.  Thankfully, with a total of 50 hours of travel, we didn't any lost luggage, flight delays or any trouble.  We landed at 5am on Tuesday, April 30th and boy, was I ready to see the kids.  Thanks to Google Voice and FaceTime, we were able to talk with the kids about every other day.  Leah had watched the kids the first 4 days (Wednesday night to Monday morning) and my mom watched the kids from Monday (April 22nd) until we returned. If mom isn't lying to us, then she really had a great time with all 3 kids and they had a great time with her. Leah, on the other hand, had quite a tough stay.  On Friday and Saturday she had a stomach bug/food poisoning and Monday morning, tragically, she suffered a stroke.  I will post about that soon.  I don't mean to gloss over it because it is certainly something she will be recovering from and we will all learn to live with over the coming months and years.  We are just thankful for both of our mothers to be so willing to help make this trip a possibility for us.

We so needed this time together.  Reality hit us with a 2x4 as soon as we landed in Dallas.  Work pressure to catch up from being gone, caring for Leah during the first stages of her stroke recovery, keeping up with the kids, etc.  I am thankful for the time to refresh and be able to tackle all that life hands us with a fresh mind and spirit.  I firmly believe that all couples need time away from their kids and real life to just be together without any distractions.  I hope it isn't another 5 years before our next vacation but I will take what I can get and work hard to let the positive effects of this trip last for months to come.