When I woke up on Thursday morning and turned on the game, it was already half over and the Dodgers were on their way to a win and moving ahead in the series 3-2. As Amy was still sleeping, it was a good morning for me to go down poolside watch the game and blog before breakfast.
Down by the pool it was a quiet and so peaceful and still. I blogged and watched the game while I waited for Amy to wake up and join me for breakfast. Once she came down, they seated at this beautiful couch with cushions and a view of the river.
We were mourning a little that this was our last experience here for breakfast. We were pretty sure no other hotel or resort would be able to compare in the healthy breakfast selections or with the level of service. But for now, we enjoyed the last few moments and I visited the breakfast bar and ordered several items off of the a la carte menu that were tiny portions but fun for a little taste.
After breakfast and one last walk around the rice fields, we headed back to our room to pack. We had a little bit of a late check-out at 1pm and it was almost noon. As I packed, I wondered who was lucky enough to stay here next and again felt so grateful for the time at Mandapa in the pristine surroundings and this room.
I called Selly when we were ready and she arrived promptly. She had our final bill and we checked us out there in the room. Baggage attendants came and took our bags to the car that was waiting to take us to our next destination. Selly let me know that a Chinese family had rented 6 of these rooms and would be there next. Wow! I was trying to wrap my head around a family reunion at this resort and how nice that would be.
When we arrived at the top again. We asked for some time to step out back onto that deck with the vista that they had initially shown us. We took time to soak in the beautiful setting and take some photos before heading to the car outside.
Our driver was waiting with our bags and we asked if we could stop at the monkey forest on the way down to our next destination. He said no problem and that he would wait one hour for us while we went into the monkey forest.
When I got in the back of the car, I was sitting behind the driver. It was so hot and I could feel myself gagging as he had a pretty strong body odor going and it was going to be about a 2 hour drive to Nusa Dua (with the monkey forest about halfway in between). I wasn’t sure how long I could take it, so rolled down the window to at least get fresh air and tried not to think about it.
Our driver took us through central Ubud and the artist district. It is such a popular place and there were lots of people milling about the town, lots of traffic, lots of mopeds, lots of color – so bustling in every way. Our driver asked if we wanted to get out and walk around and we shook our heads, it felt too hot and humid outside and we were good just proceeding to the monkey forest.
The monkey forest was outrageous. It is an easily accessible forest park where the monkeys roam freely everywhere – even on people. We both kept saying as we walked around, please God, no, I don’t want a monkey hopping on me. Plenty of visitors were good with it, but it totally gave us the creeps to think about a little monkey climbing all over us.
Watching the monkey behaviors was hilarious and at the same time kind of intense. We saw a lot of them inspecting each other’s butts including sticking their hand up in there, mother monkeys nursing their babies, monkey family fights, monkey wrestling, monkey babies scurrying all around. If you liked monkeys, it was pretty much monkey heaven and they were very entertaining to watch. Also the park itself did feel like a jungle and it was shaded and cool to walk around. After about 30-40 minutes we were done and I think we wanted to leave then mostly because we wanted it to be before a monkey jumped on us.
Onward to Nusa Dua where we would be staying at the Laguna Luxury Resort on the beach. One of our friends had stayed here and highly recommended it. When we pulled up, it very much had a Hawaii resort feel without the Hawaii music. They sat us down, offered us a welcome drink, and then someone came over to talk to us.
As a Platiunum guest, they said they had upgraded us to an executive suite, but if we wanted – and for $300 extra per night, they could upgrade us to a private villa with a private pool and they showed us pictures. We both said that wasn’t necessary and really we’d be fine with the executive suite. They also introduced us to Farica, who would be our personal concierge and she gave us her contact number. I sized her up. Could she hold a candle to our Selly?
They then took us to our room. It was a top floor suite that overlooked the lagoon pools and had a balcony. By any standards, it was a very nice room. However, after you have just left Mandapa, you feel like you need to detox a little. As soon as we were left alone in the room, we looked at each other as if to say, our Cinderella time is really over and now we are back to more familiar surroundings. We both feel we adjust well, and had no expectations for this new place or the setting to even come close. It is just hard to explain the shift we were feeling and a little bit of mourning to come away from Mandapa, and the pristine jungle setting. Yet, still, we were fine and this was a beautiful (even if a little dated – think late 90’s) resort and we just were happy to be here for R&R for the next few days before we hit Hong Kong next week. We knew once we got there it would be non-stop touring and site seeing.
After we unpacked, we went for dinner on the property, beach side. It was a beautiful table, there were paper lamps strung around everywhere, and there was live music – a pretty Asian woman singing Norah Jones hits. They brought us a welcome drink and we ordered dinner. I had sushi, Amy had salmon. Both dinners were pretty good and the servers were so sincere. I love the humility of the Indonesian people. Even so, we were missing the magic of the jungle setting of Mandapa and the amazing healthy food selections. We needed to snap out of it. How could we be slightly depressed at this amazing beach resort? Had we turned into Kardashians?