Eat Pray Love (and shop!)

After visiting Bali for the second time in a year, I can truly see why it’s called the Island of the Gods. Where else can you find lush green rice terraces, as many monkeys as you could ever hope to see, delicious varied vegetarian food from around the world, beautiful temples, majestic mountains, crystal clear waters with ample opportunity to see sea life and the kindest, friendliest and most cultured people. In fact, Bali was so great that I went twice in 12 months!

Last year, for my birthday (for a number that I shall not mention!) our family visited this great Island and it quickly shot up the list to one of our most memorable trips. Prior to this my only reference to Bali was from Eat, Pray, Love.

So this year while hubby decided to go on a ski trip with the girls (which after my experience last year I kindly turned down), V and I had to decide where to go. As my parents were visiting, I convinced them to stay a bit longer and come on the trip with us (it didn't take too much persuasion - the travel bug definitely runs in our family!). They had never visited Bali, and I knew it would be a perfect blend of enough cultural and new things for them to see and plenty to entertain V too! I was worried that when V heard the girls were going skiing, he would be sad, but when he heard we were going to Bali he couldn’t stop constantly bragging to his sisters. Thankfully, the girls did not share my feelings for skiing, and were quite excited about their own daddy daughter trip.

As we stepped out of the airport, it felt a bit like coming home. Our driver from last time Gedeh (actually pronounced 'good day') who V affectionately calls 'bad day', was there to greet us. While last year we chose to stay at a big chain in Ubud (which was lovely), this time we choose to go a bit rustic, and picked a beautiful villa facing a rice field (one created for the hotel, but nonetheless beautiful). After driving through a narrow road where only one vehicle could go through at a time (there were several times during our stay we had to back out all the way because another vehicle was coming through) we made it to Menzel Ubud and got keys to our abode for the next few nights called 'Kutai', which I later discovered is a historical region in Indonesia.

Travelling with V is a true pleasure as he definitely has the travel gene (boy after my own heart!)and was very excited about being in a new place. He excitedly ran around the villa claiming the upstairs as 'ours' (I was only included because his usual compatriots were missing) and the downstairs for thatha and thathi.

Now being the materialistic child of his generation (how do I change this??), V was most excited about our plans to visit the Ubud market that night so he could get a toy. Not that I blame him - market shopping is truly fun and shopping in a mall does not hold a candle to being able to walk through rows of market stalls and bargaining with shop owner. Ubud markets do not disappoint and I had the added pleasure of my favourite shopping companion - mom! After a fun filled night of shopping. we were ready for the next day.

While my favourite animal is without a doubt a dog, I have to say after visiting Bali, monkeys are a close second. We started the morning by visiting the Monkey Forest, one of V's favorite places from our last trip (if you ask V, he will say everything was his favorite - he takes indecisivevto a whole new level!). The monkey forest sanctuary is truly unique. It feels like entering the tomb raider - a forest filled with temples, huge banyan trees and an endless amount of roaming monkeys. The monkeys are quite tame and will not hesitate to come up very close (which is good or bad depending on how much you love animals!). In fact last year, one monkey liked Lekha's bag so much she started pulling at the beads dangling off it!

What I love the most about this place is that they have tried their best to maintain a natural habitat for the monkeys and the monkeys look quite happy. There is plenty of food left out for the monkeys and you can observe them playing, cuddling and fighting. It's the most up close and personal that I have ever been with these cute creatures.

If you have ever watched Eat, Pray, Love the first thing that springs to mind when thinking of Bali (other than Julia Roberts!) is riding past lush, green rice terraces. So our next stop was the Tellagalang rice terraces (minus the biking part). This is also where the Instagram famous Bali swing is. I have to admit on our last trip I did rent the dress and get some photos - after all when in Bali :) This time however, we just walked around the rice terraces and did get a gazillion photos on some cute nest like spots that are set up for tourists here (and actually everywhere you go in Bali!). V loves taking photos in these (guess I should appreciate this now as in a few years I'm sure I will get eye rolls every time I ask for a photo!) so we literally took one in EVERY single one.

Our last stop of the day (I think our driver was trying to fill up time) was to a coffee plantation. Now if you know me well, this should have had me very excited. However, the speciality in Bali is Luwak coffee. It sounds harmless enough, exotic even, until I found out that its literally poop coffee, and as all little boys who are obsessed with toilet words do, V loved the idea and kept encouraging me to try some (which I was not brave enough to do). They literally feed coffee beans to the Luwak (an animal I had never heard of) and the Luwak poops out the coffee bean which they clean and roast. The idea is the Luwak only consumes the best coffee bean. I think I much prefer my coffee hand picked rather than poop picked! Needless to say, I stuck to flat whites my whole trip!

If animals are your thing, Bali is definitely the place to visit. The next day we visited the Bali zoo, which has fast become my favourite zoo. As a mother of 3, I have visited a lot of zoos across the world, but this one is truly unique. Kids have an opportunity to feed deer and wallabies, ride elephants and walk around with lemurs roaming freely. They even have a splash park to cool down!

A visit to Bali would not be complete without visiting a few of the beautiful temples. What is truly unique about Bali, is that while you are driving around it seems like there is a temple at every door - this is actually true as every house has a temple - not a tiny shelf with some idols in it, but actually a large outdoor temple. Hinduism is the most prominent religion in Bali, and while it shares a lot of similarities with the way Hinduism is practiced in India, the largest difference is that there are no idols in Bali. The Balinese pray to their ancestors, and while the stories that form the foundation of Hinduism in India exist (and are well known), they don't actually pray to those gods. We visited two beautiful temples - the Tamang Ayun temple and the Tirta Empul temple.

Another things that is in abundance in Bali are waterfalls. The best part of visiting a waterfall in Bali is that you can actually get into the water (at your own risk ofcourse). Last year we visited a large waterfall (Tengungan) that required us walking down a LOT of steps. This year our lovely driver suggested Ulu Petanu, a smaller waterfall that would be accessible to my dad and V. V loved the experience of walking down the steps, across the stone steps and jumping (let's be realistic being carried) into the cool water.

Now if you were thinking that the only thing missing in Bali is mountains, you would be wrong. A short drive from Ubud is the majestic Mount Batur, which is actually an active volcano! I made the mistake of telling. V this and he kept asking if it was going to erupt!

While I would have loved to hike the mountain (which is a popular activity), time and physical constraints kept us from being able to - but its always another reason to make another trip at some point!

While Ubud is wild jungles, outdoor markets, arsy cafes and animals, our next destination, Nusa Dua was the opposite, but equally beautiful and fun - beautiful beaches, resorts and high end shopping. Now sitting for days on a beach usually isn't my thing, but the Nusa Dua beach is gorgeous - warm, crystal clear water and amazing waves. V and I had the best time building castles and enjoying the waves wash over us.

One of the most Instagrammed locations in this area is Nusa Penida, a smaller Island near Bali. We had missed this on our last trip, so we booked a day trip out to the Island. While the scenery was stunning, its a bit of a tourist trap and our driver, unlike Gedeh, wasn't great and missed out showing us many of the promised spots, but we still got some great clicks and enjoyed the crystal clear water!

All in all we had a wonderful trip - travelling with your parents as an adult is a different kind of special and I will cherish the memories forever! And thanks to Hyatt we had a beautiful photoshoot help capture our time together.

As we were seated on the plane back, V was already asking when we would be back to Bali!