Love John Hardy jewelry! Have fun shopping there.

Bob, I would never fit your mold of travel. I'm not a pool person (not a swimmer at all). What would you schedule for ME during those hours at the pool? haha

Haircuts, nails, tons of shopping, relaxing, laundry, pizza and capresse salads

This is Bali?!

Sounds like you're having lots of fun!

:)

Paule

Ahh.. life is good! Let me guess... HT is doing your laundry while Jeane is giving you a free dental checkup, hopefully before you ate the pizza and capresse salads.

The John Hardy factory tour was very interesting. they employ about 650 people, 450 in actual production. everything is hand wrought. many pieces of silver and gold are truly tiny and are joined to make magnificent jewerly. After the tour, which Karen had pre-arranged via e-mail, we were escorted to the showrooms. They are located in a fabulous bamboo building with a soaring ceiling--maybe 3-4 stories. The girls had a blast picking out items... This is quality merchandise and the prices reflect that. Gold items were priced at 30% off on this day. I forced K to leave behind a lovely $9800. gold bracelet... WHEW!!!

Following the shopping we were invited to sit down to a lovely lunch with some of the staff under an open aire roofed area. All foods were prepared in a "green way", not using any fuels, only fire. The whole focus of JH today is 'green eco'.

Jeane is seeking some furniture for her office, so putu took us to an amazing "old" wood shop. Actually it is a huge, and I mean huge, open air "museum" of old pieces... large doorways, chests, buckets, odd roots fashioned into pieces of furniture, tables, carved doors---really amazing. Jeane and Putu conferred with a designer to develop what she wants. Putu was an amazing help for her each step of the way. They also do custom which Jeane may take advantage of.

We made an ATM stop and then dropped the girls off in central Ubud on Hanuman street for about 4 hours of retail therapy.
The guys returned to the hotel and hit the pool for a couple of hours.

We met up again at about 7PM at Nomad restaurant, on Ubud Main St. where we had a so so dinner, but tons of fun. The girls were hot as H, but some Bintang beers, mixed drinks and plenty of water soothed them a bit. By 9PM, Karen was fading fast, even falling asleep at the table so we called for the hotel car. The girls all hit the shower upon our return.

The day had been quite warm, maybe 80 with some humidity.

K was up at 6 and enjoyed the tranquility of our porch overlooking the huge rice paddies.

About 7, the monkeys could be seen over the wall on the next property. there were perhaps 40 of them. they were running thru the grass with our security guard keeping them moving and away from our buildings and pool.

K hit the pool while i caught you up to date.

Today we will share breakfast again with the 6 of us on our porch at 8:30. Putu will come for us at 10 and we will head north to Lake Bratan and a visit to the amazing Temple on the Lake, plus some other stops I expect.

The 6 of us are having a great time together with lots of travel talk, decent food, many drinks, and so many laughs.

Thank you Fodors, as it is because of your Asia Forum that we all met and have become good friends.

Sigh.... Wishing I was there....thanks for the updates, sounds like great fun. :)
Same here ref the Asia forum Bob, I have met some wonderful people on this board who I now see "in real life" and would consider good friends too :)

Sidebar:

As Linda was taking a bath in the open air shower this morning one of the monkeys that Bob had witnessed earlier jumped up onto the ledge as she was rinsing the shampoo out of her hair. When she opened her eyes she was face to face with the monkey and let out a blood curdling scream which of course scared the monkey off. Lol, only in Bali.

We too are having a blast with our good friends Bob, Karen, Jeane and Craig who we have met through Fodors. Life is good.....dinner time :)

Aloha!

Ditto the sentments about meeting some really nice folks from the Asia forum. I consider many of you to be good friends. I enjoy our annual GTGs in Boston (which we are missing this year) and Honolulu, as well as chance meetings in Bangkok, Singapore, Texas, LA, etc. What a great group of fodorites!

Peter, I hope Linda is OK after her monkey encounter! Yikes! I'd let out a scream too!

Carol

no monkeys in my shower today but my view out over the rice paddy with two cows in it, plus ducks and birds was exceptional..

we had a fab full day today--will report tomorrow.

A monkey in the bathroom? Another reason for me to prefer my bathroom INdoors!

I like outdoor bathrooms, not keen on the spiders though....when we stayed in Langkawi we had frogs.......and that was indoors!

Oh, it all sounds like such fun!

This thread is getting me so excited as this will be our first visit to Bali! We arrive Alam Shanti October 25th, thanks to recommendations from this forum. We have booked Putu as well :) Now I'm noting your recommendations for good eats and shopping, hopefully including a visit to the John Hardy factory ;) :)

Not wanting to intrude on your vacation, once you're returned home and are settled in I would appreciate any other tips you might have. We'll spend 6 nights at AS. We have Putu for 2 days...should we let him plan our time or can you advise some highlights?

Our last day Putu isnt available so his partner will pick us up early afternoon until he takes us to the airport for our 9:30 flight to Singapore. I need to figure out what to do that afternoon and where to have our last dinner in the direction of the airport. any suggestions would be appreciated.

Looking forward to reading more on your thread. Enjoy the rest of your time.

Les

PS I don't want to highjack your thread but I didn't know if I should post as a reply here or start a new topic

if you want to go to John Hardy email ahead and do the program we did. It really makes you appreciate the work that goes into his collections. Lunch is fun also.

It is6:30 am and I just had 2 monkeys having sex on our balcony. Can't beat that for pre breakfast excitement! The guard has finally come and is shooing them away. This is the fist am the guard has not been more aggressive than the monkeys. They do try to keep after them.

above was from karen..


let putu plan for you... tell him the things you might like... moving around is very slow.

uluwatu might make sense on your last evening with dinner on the beach... fish only. or dinner at the village restaurant in sanur.

bali belly hit me just now.. first time.. it must have been the oily noodles at lunch yesterday.. quiet day for me today, others (3) are going white water rafting in putu's village--350,000rp each ($30).

WE ARE HAVING SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH FUN. It should be illegal for any 6 people to have so much fun.

the monkey show was quite large this AM before 7AM. K caught a video of it and will try to post.

Great breakfast yesterday AM---yogurt, honey and musili, scrambled eggs, fresh orange juice, breads, green tea for me... others had the open face crepe with honey and bananas, fruits plates with the best ever mango, coffee, other juices, omlettes, etc... lots of laughs.

Putu was in reception at 10.

we headed first into ubud to The Threads of Life shop... one of the finest quality textile shops in bali---a women's co-op really.. very fine quality. very fine quality prices too. girls each got a few things. must have spent almost an hour there... it is on a lovely flower decked lane off of ubud main street opposite Ary's restaurant. shop is on right at end of lane.. lots of other shops too.

we headed out of town towards lake bratan, but we never made it... stops along the way... first was the giant banyon tree (ho-hum), next was a coffee grower's demo area where some tried ARAK, the national moonshine, and all tried coffees and teas, plus chocolates... i bought mocha tea--like hot chocolate, and spicy tea--tingles in your mouth from ginger.
From there we drove along some beautiful narrow roads in the midst of rice country---oh that unique green color of young rice plants... photos of a woman planting new rice plants, bright field of yellow giant marigolds (used for ceremonies), other red flowers and more rice plants in various stages. all along the way are little family religious markers in the fields.

Eventually we came to the 'small temple on the pond'. The larger temple is on a hill behind the pond. As it happens a religious ceremony would take place there about 1:30 so we hung around for that. Eventually several trucks arrived loaded with people in costumes and fancy dress, a small band with lots of drums, umbrellas, tall banners, offerings, etc. great photo experience... "THE REAL BALI" for sure. Just the perfect experience we wanted peter and linda to have.

Now we were hungry---ok, so i am always hungry. we went to a "local" spot beside a rice paddy and had rice, noodles, etc with drinks for lunch... they also had fresh fish if you wanted it direct from the stream and then killed and immediately cooked over a fire---no thanks..

we bagged lake bratan as it was 1.5 hours further drive and returned back to AS for a swim at 4.

We had dinner res at Terazzo in town at 7. Most of us had tenderloin (Australian beef, not as tender as US but very tasty) with pots and veggies---$16. good drinks and good desserts... we were noisy and had tons of fun. 900,000 rp per couple, included was a bottle of wine, some vodka, a beer and several bottled waters.

All slept well.

Breakfast today on our porch again at 9. A cast of thousands decends with trays of food.

Lazy AM, some swimming and relaxing.

At 1PM, J&C and K are going white water rafting... I am hanging out and P&L are having AS massages (reasonable in their spa).

Tonight we are returning to Dolce Arancia for dinner at 6:30. Clearly this is the best restaurant we have been to thus far and I think will be the highlight of the food experience this trip, except maybe our BBQ at Pook's next month.

Time to hit the pool..

Sounds like a fun day Bob!

PS. What's a "AS" massages?

Alam shanti, our hotel

Just shared a duck pizza with Peter by the pool...yum

It all sounds fabulous. Not that I am jealous, well may be a little, since I am loving my time in Romania. Would love to be with you all and hopefully when all of us return to the States we can have a GTG.

Who is PUTU?? He is putu arnawa, a 38 year old father of two young boys who resides outside Ubud, Bali. He is a early 20th C man with a 21st C mind and intelect. His English is excellent. His driving is very careful. His car seats 6 and is an suv style... He is very knowledgeable about the world, Bali and various aspects of Balinese life and culture. He is unbelievable flexible. His standard fee is about 650,000 rp per day. ($60)-- up to 10 hours... He has a 1/2 day fee too.

You can reach him at [email protected]

we have used him for over 10 years and have never been less than 110% happy.

He will drive for you, as well as arrange shipping, sourcing of goods, finding quality items, etc.
He is very honest as well.

Good idea fanny

tomorrow is our last day in Ubud. In the afternoon P, L, K and I fly to Lombok for 4 nights at Qunci villas.
We are flying Garuda. $81 r.t. Per person.
Upon our return we will be staying on the Kuta/legian line at the stones hotel (marriott).

Three more sleeps. All ready to goooooooooo!!

Bob, happy you and your crew are having so much fun in Bali. And the breakfast at AS! Miss the delicious plates of food that they bring to your room each morning, and enjoying it on the terrace overlooking the rice fields.

As is the best

I'm following along. Sounds like you are enjoying Bali as well as each other's company. Maybe some day we will get to Bali, though it sounds like there's a lot of monkeys, and I am not too fond of monkeys "up close and personal". I had 2 not good experiences with monkeys in Thailand and Gibraltar.

Still following and loving this! Sounds like you are all having a blast! Bali is definitely on the top of the list!

I'm loving your report and appreciative of your suggestions, Bob and Karen. And to think that breakfast may come with entertainment...oh my! I think I'll keep the info about monkeys and small "creatures" to myself as my DH wouldn't be too thrilled!

Safe travels enjoy the rest of your trip.

Leslie

Bob forgot the visit to the royal water palace the other day. It is now a Unesco property, and thus very well maintained. Unesco took it over because of its relation to the historic irrigation system of central Bali. all gravity fed.

Last night our return to dolce Arancia restaurant was just as memorable as our first visit last week. The ambiance, the service, the friendliness and of course the food put it as #1 on our list in Ubud.

We laughed and laughed all evening and enjoyed the drinks and foods so much.

This AM all, but me, went for a rice paddy walk at 6:30 for 1.5 hours with a nice local guide...

afterwards everyone came to our porch for our last meal all together.

C+J are heading out with putu at 11 to finalize her furniture purchases and shipping and do some further shopping.

Putu is keeping 3 bags for us while we are on Lombok, thankfully.

We have a car coming for us at 12:30 for our afternoon flt on Garuda to Lombok ($82 r.t.). It's a very short flt. Hotel car is only about $20. To the airport.

I have to praise Alam Shanti yet again as a perfect place to stay in Ubud. It is quiet, unique, in the midst of a lush park like setting, comfortable, a/c, no extra charge for monkey visits, picturesque, lovely private pool with our room, great fresh breakfasts, wonderful massages (p+ l), outdoor bathrooms and very green. we will miss it.

So long Bob, Karen, Peter & Linda - we totally enjoyed our time at AS with you...

What a great trip you are all having! So jealous!! Bali is moving even higher on my travel list due to your reports!

I think the monkeys sound very funny! Poor Linda, though! That must have been quite startling! DH had a monkey jump onto his back in Gibraltar. He just sat down and it left after a few minutes!

Can't wait to hear more!

Safe travels home, Craig and Jeanne!

Still following along. You're helping me bring back wonderful memories of our time in Bali last year, and for that I'm grateful.

Flordia 1. I have a video of the monkeys visiting our second floor balcony and having sex up there. The file is too big to post, but I will try again.

Loving our time here on Lombok

Oh how funny, rhkkmk!!! Would love to see that one! Keep enjoying your time on Lombok! I will have a few questions regarding our BKK trip when you return. We are poring over your restaurant recs and are really looking forward to our trip!

I will have some rest. Additions...

Qunci villas is even more fab than before... The new area is modern but keeping up the same themes... Foods are just as good or better.
We are enjoying both our private villa pool and the new beach side pool. Nothing to do but kick back...P&L just went for massages this afternoon.

Love love love QV. K and I ate every night there, no need to go further ( or was that just lazy? ;) )
Have fun all.

Ditto Craig lets do it again sometime sooner than later!
Don't tell Bob but we are enjoying this trip much more than I expected lol. Linda and I just had 90 minutes massages for 40 dollars . Happy hour starting gtg

Aloha!