After three busy days in HK, the six of us went to Bali for three nights. Since neither Matt and Jenica nor Missy and Jon had proper honeymoons, I signed them up for honeymoon treatment. We all took turns taking our pictures with their towel lovebirds and eating the two happy honeymoon cakes. Aletta and I were honeymoon tagalongs.
Bali knew we were coming so they built a hotel just for us. It was next door to where we stayed, but we did eat dinner there one night.
Our first morning was a bright and early pick up by our driver, Yasa (he drove the Stonda's around on our first trip the year prior) to go inland to the Ubud area to go white water rafting down the Ayung River. The rapids were mild but fun and the scenery was really beautiful with lots of lush trees, waterfalls, and tall cliffs.
Half way through we pulled up on a bank for a photo op with some nice rock carvings.
At the end of the ride we had a few hundred steps to climb and I was huffing and puffing simply carrying myself, then there's this lady hired by the rafting company as a porter to get the gear back up to the top, balancing a net full of life jackets and helmets on her head while climbing the steps. What a show off....
At the top was buffet lunch with some fun Indonesian desserts. Um, Aletta...
After lunch we traveled into Ubud for some market shopping and a visit to the monkey forest. The monkey forest has some nice temple areas and sculptures around the park.
Aletta and a new friend just hanging out...
This little guy was certain Jon had food in his pocket and kept digging in.
After Ubud, Yasa took us to the western coast to the Tanah Lot water temple for sunset. There are two temples-- this bigger one we just looked at from afar...
And this smaller one that is on a bit of rock that has an arch worn away under it that makes for pretty pictures...
We saw a few newlyweds down on the beach taking photos with it in the background.
After many days of busy touring in HK and Bali, it was time to relax at the beach. We got good weather and enjoyed the sand and the surf. The waves were big and it was fun to watch the surfing and try some boogy boarding ourselves.
There was no lack of beach vendors and at one point there were three pedicures and souvenir buying all going on at once.
The sand was a pretty mix of black sand and regular sand and as the water ran back down after a wave washed out, there were cool patterns.
After all that hard relaxing at the beach, we spent three hours in the spa. It was fabulous and my package ended with a soak in this tub in an open air balcony with a nice view of the beach as the sun was starting to go down.
After spa was dinner time and then some aimless wandering around neighboring roads in search of dessert, which we finally found at Dairy Queen :).
We had an early morning flight back to HK the next day. Our last HK night was spent eating soup dumplings and then catching the Wednesday night horse races at Happy Valley racetrack. It was a nice night for some beer and cheap betting.
Goodbye time the next morning, sniff sniff. Thank you all for coming! See you stateside in a few weeks!
