Bali Trip

Back from 9 days in Bali with Saeedeh. Where is Bali? I'm glad you asked. Click here for info.
We started off at the Tepi Sawah hotel in Ubud. It was really fantastic. A collection of pretty villas in a beautifully landscaped setting alongside rice fields. We ate breakfast each morning in an open gazebo near the pool. We stayed in two rooms so you'll see photos of two patios.
Click here for hotel photos.

We spent three days wandering around Ubud: shopping, visiting the Monkey Forest, stopping for tea and juice for several hours at a time, visiting sites from the book "Eat, Pray, Love", getting a full hour massage for $10, eating Indonesian food at every opportunity.
More photos.

Just a quick note about that book. The author made a big deal about the palm reader, Ketut Liyer, who changed her life. We visited him, waited in line, let him show us his paintings (which I suspect he wanted us to buy), and then he read our palms. And we got such valuable info as "you will have a long life", "you've had 3 previous lives", and "you will have 3 babies". Then I gave him $20 thinking I was being generous since that's more than our dinners cost. He looked at the money and said, "That's for one." Saeedeh is still angry about what a con this was. Here's the author's web site telling us how to find him. We visited the "medicine woman" too but decided not to have her "do a reading" for us.

On the fourth day we were picked up and driven to our yoga retreat. On the way we stopped at a temple and a butterfly farm. Click for those photos.

We spent three days at a yoga retreat at Prana Dewi Resort. For 3-4 hours each morning and afternoon we mediated, did breathing exercises and yoga. It was tough work! It built up an appetite for the fantastic food they served; organic vegetarian food, much of it grown in the resort. We had a private villa with a gazebo and ponds. The bathroom was open on one side to a private garden with the shower outside. What a way to live! One day we took a tour up the mountain, through rice terraces, to a temple. By the time we got to the temple we were in a huge downpour and got thoroughly soaked.
Click here to see how beautiful the resort was and some shots of our yoga exercises.

On day seven we were off to Lombok, an island directly east of Bali. After a quick 1/2 hour flight, complete with a walk on the tarmac at the airport, we were picked up and taken to our posh hotel, Quinci Villas. We had a patio with a private pool. Which we utilized on the afternoon we were there and realized it was too hot to be out walking around. This was after a short walk on the beach ended with both of feeling queasy.
Click for photos of the hotel and street scenes in Lombok, including some shots of the cute little pony carts they actually use for transportation.

On my last day we flew back to Bali, checked in to the hotel where Saeedeh would stay, and went off for some shopping and dinner on the beach to watch the sunset.
Photos.