When I researched this place before this trip I was drawn to this description ‘An exclusive journey inside an indigenous Balinese village, providing a sensory journey to wellness and nature. An IDEAL destination for experience collectors.’ I thought ah, yes, that’s me, an experience collector. In the heat of a very demanding Spring at work – this seemed like the perfect escape in the Fall, so I booked the trip.
I woke up on this Tuesday morning thinking about…wait for it…the Dodgers! Ever since the Dodgers entered the playoffs last year and were showing up delivering exciting games, it sparked that 11-year-`old part of me that bled Dodger blue in the days when I was convinced I grow up and marry Steve Garvey. Fast forward 40 years, and unbelievably, I am equally obsessed with the Dodgers and any which way to view these championship games – even on vacation. I had jumped through all kinds of cable hoops before I left, subscribed to MLB.tv postseason, all in hopes of being able to live stream the games on vacation when I had time.
I knew it was going to start airing at 6:30am. So when my eyes opened at 6:15am, I quietly took out my iPad to see if I could make some Dodger streaming magic happen. We are 15 hours ahead of California and the game would be starting in 15 minutes. I looked over at Amy in her bed and she was still sleeping, so it felt like a good activity that I could do quietly as I plugged in my earphones and tried to get the live stream going. As I went to stream, the response from the server said that I was blocked in this part of the world. What? I had my VPN going to hide my location, how could they know. I emailed MLB.tv and waited for their response as I listened to the audio. While the audio isn’t the same – it would have to do until I got a response. The series was tied at 1-1, but it was the first game back at Dodger stadium, so I felt hopeful for my team. The more I listened though, the worse it got – they were on there way to a loss when Amy woke up and I was happy to get away from the game.
We went down to breakfast restaurant which was a trip back to the treehouse restaurant. To see it with a daytime view was spectacular. It felt so peaceful and they seated us again at a table with a view of the river. Once we were seated they greeted us by name and confirmed our dietary preferences. They had an a la carte menu and a breakfast buffet. All was inclusive of the cost of staying there. We took a deep breath and couldn’t stop smiling to realize again, this feeling of being here. I ordered a cappucino and told Amy that I would go check out the buffet.
Once I got up there, I knew this would be a buffet like NO other for Amy once she saw this. Amazing selections of healthy juices, yogurts, wheat grass shots, almond milk, cashew cheese – all kinds of every healthy thing you could imagine – all displayed artful fashion with little bottles for everything. You could also see a garden beside you as you sat for breakfast, so you just imagined all of this stuff came from the garden. It was amazing. I couldn’t wait for Amy to see this spread.
I had an omelette made for me, took some crispy bacon, added some fresh watermelon, grabbed a mango yogurt, and a fresh little granola bar as a start. The display was all so beautiful you didn’t want to miss out on a thing. We thoroughly enjoyed lounging at that breakfast, the views, the attention to detail in everything, and just sitting there hearing the river in the background.
We went back to the room to get unpacked. It had already been made up for us and looked amazing. They put anything on the counter in the bathroom on little white towels. Even our shoes in the walk-in closet they put on white towels. It is odd, how anything on a white towel actually DOES look more orderly. We took the rest of the morning to unpack, do a little quiet time reading and get ready to head down to the spa for the mani/pedis we had booked.
When it was time to head down to the spa, it is a beautiful walk through the village and rice patties and down to the river’s edge where the spa is located.
Once you enter you are greeted and they lead you back into this beautiful spa changing area and show you the lockers, private showers, bathrooms, sauna, steam room, ice fountain, and private pool. We both took showers and put our robes on and waited for them to come get us for our mani/pedis – having no idea what to expect, but trusting it would be amazing.
True to expectation, they lead us into a double treatment room where it was open air, you could see the river and hear the jungle life. They had little couches on both sides of the terrace, with copper bowls waiting and ready for us to soak our feet. We both felt like extreme princesses by now and pinching ourselves. Is this happening?
We sat down and could see each other on the facing couches and smiled. After soaking our feet, they led us back into the room where you could still hear the river and they had us each lay down on a massage table for our mani/pedis. Yes, this would be a first – a laying down mani/pedi. I was absolute heaven and we each had two attendants who were doing the mani/pedis. They all had doctor masks on. At one point I looked over at Amy and laughed. It looked like we were both on operating tables with Drs of beauty attending to us. Again, I thought, am I dreaming? Is this heaven.
2 hours later, I was done, Amy’s took a little longer because she had some ‘gel nail’ they had to remove. When I was done, they brought be down into a terraced room at the rivers edge and served me hot ginger/turmeric/blah blah blah something else – but amazing tasting tea with little tiny cookies sweetened with honey. I just sat there enjoying the tranquility and not worried so much that the Dodgers actually did lose today and now were down 2-1 in the best of 7 series.
7531828A-5BA0-46A8-9413-18DC024B0570
Amy joined me 30 minutes later and I said, ‘Just wait.’ Just as it was out of my mouth another tea angel appeared with hot ginger tea for Amy and little cookies. Where are we?
We then talked about the amazing setting of our treatments, the pampering, and then also some of the hiccups of the treatment. For instance, my nails, looked a little sloppy – not that clean edge against the cuticle that you get back home. Also, when they were taking Amy’s gel nail off of her toes, one of the girls was a little too aggressive with the file and was actually accidentally filing a bit of her skin, so imagine how that felt when the acetone to take the polish off hit her skin. Not so good. I looked down at her toes, they looked red…poor thing. We both decided that the mani/pedi ladies back home are the real ‘pros’ and perhaps need to come do some training here. But still – all in all – we would do it all again as it was a 95% blissful experience.
As this resort hits the bullseye on every detail, we wanted to share a little so they would know this is an area of improvement. The spa director came out to talk to us. We were super nice about it – it was more of an ‘fyi, perhaps this is an area of improvement.’ She was so sorry to hear this news and looked at my nails and Amy’s toes. She insisted on making it up to us. She asked if we had anymore treatments booked at the spa. We said we had 60 minute massages on Wednesday. She said what she would like to propose is that today’s treatment would be 50% off and that we should come back tomorrow and they would redo my nails and Amy’s pedi (her painting was also ‘rough’). Also, she would be upgrading our 60 minute treatments to 90 minutes for free. Wow, that was above and beyond to make it right. The true Ritz expereince that you can always count on. We said – this isn’t necessary, we just wanted you to know because we know how committed you are to excellence. She insisted, so we said – thank you, that would be amazing.
After our treatments we decided to hang out at the infinity pool. As soon as we sat in chairs near and umbrella, and attendant greeted us by name and brought us coconuts to drink out of and a basket of fresh fruit and cold waters. Amy and I just looked at each other again, stunned.
We swam around in the pool for about 30 minutes, it was so fun – like a jungle feeling but no chance of weird jungle insects getting to you. Just pristine beauty and tranquility. Until…the kids showed up. An Australian couple with two girls around 6 and 7 showed up and I knew that would be the end of the tranquility. We want girls to be girls at that age, and they were well behaved, but still – girls do scream and scream and have fun. So after a little reading by the pool, we were ready to head upstairs and start to get ready for dinner.
We had a 6:30pm reservation at their onsite 2-Michelin star rated restaurant Kubu. A month in advance they had let me know it is in high demand and if we wanted a pod by the river for dinner, we should book it now. By the time I got back to them 2 weeks later, all of the early seatings were booked and we would have to wait until 9:30pm for a dinner in a pod. We both decided that would be too late and we would be fine in the normal restaurant, we were thinking, geez, we don’t need a private pod for dinner, we’ll be fine and happy to eat at an earlier time.
We we arrived at the restaurant, we fully expected to be seated at a table in the restaurant. When the hostess kept walking us towards a pod, we were very suprised to be seated there. We hadn’t expected this. Our little butler, Selly, soon showed up and said she wanted to make sure this experience happened for us so she pulled some strings. Wow!
The dining experience and the food itself was absolutely unforgettable. In addition to what we ordered for our dishes, they kept bringing out little chef tastings in between each course. We would roll our eyes back as we tasted the delicacies. When Amy’s main course came of roasted lamb, she couldn’t stop talking about how wonderful each bite was – and it was the best she had ever tasted. I had steak topped with foi gras and agreed my was also phenomenal. The only thing that isn’t great here in Indonesia is the wine or the wine selection. They have so much else going for them, I’m okay to pass on the wine and enjoy the local drink selections if I want something fun with dinner.
When dinner was done, the chef came by and talked very enthusiastically about each dish as we asked him questions. It was so fun to engage with a chef so passionate about his art. He is truly talented and we can see why the restaurant is Michelin rated.
When dinner was done, they called us a ‘buggy’ to take us back to our apartment. We were both ready to go to bed. Selly asked us about any offsite activities we wanted to do, we looked at each other and shook our heads. No, we were sure we didn’t want to leave this oasis for 3 days or ever.
Back in the room the turn-down service had occurred and I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if our butler, Selly, popped around the corner and helped us get ready for bed – that is HOW attended to you feel at this place. I’m glad she wasn’t there, as I’m still able to do these things for myself for now, just one day in at Mandapa. LOL.