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| View in the morning when we woke up |
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| Beach right outside our door |
I'm searching for words to describe Bali. Paradise, relaxation, and rich, deep culture come to mind. Since finding out we were traveling to Indonesia, Bali has been on my short list of places we MUST go. I had a deep visceral longing to see this place. I'm glad that my dreams came true. It was a process involving ever changing Austin's work and clients' schedules and ultimately involved booking plane tickets the day of, only to find out that our flight out of Cilacap (only a few flights a day, only to Jakarta) was not at the time that the person from Austin's work booking tickets had told us, which led us to waiting three hours without air conditioning in a small room that passes for the Cilacap airport, having to reschedule/change/miss our first connecting flight to Bali and hop on a different flight a few hours later. It involved switching airports in Jakarta and trusting a taxi van that was not one of the "trusted" taxi companies. It involved me running through the airport back through security to get food for dinner for my family before our flight boarded, only to find out later that Garuda Indonesia airline still serves MEALS!!!- even on two hour flights. But it was all OK, because when I woke up Wednesday morning, I was unsure if/when we were going to Bali, and that night, I was in Bali. Hooray for last minute adventures!
We arrived at 10:30 pm in the middle of a rainstorm, so we were not able to really take in any scenery until we woke up the next morning to this view out our balcony. We have four suite upgrades a year with our awards program for Hyatt, so we were able to use a suite upgrade and live in a space bigger than our student apartments while we are here. It is definitely a step up from our accommodations in Cilacap and lends itself perfectly to relaxation, and (rejoice!) Landon gets to sleep in a separate room.
This beach is very close to our hotel room. The water is clear and gorgeous blue. The beach is clean, which is way different than the beaches near Cilacap that we have been frequenting. The waves are not rideable for body surfing, but fun for Landon to frolic in the water.
We spent our first day recovering from our crazy travel day. We talked to family, booked tours and experiences, and spent the rest of the day at the pool and the beach. Austin and I were practically giddy with unbelief at how beautiful this place is. This is the stuff dreams are made of. With Austin's work in Cilacap, we dealt with nobody knowing English, dirty streets/beaches/everywhere, and not much to do. It is hot and loud there. With this job, we end up experiencing lots of moments where we think, "WHY?!? are we doing this? This is unpleasant! I just want home-cooked food and familiar snacks and salad!" We can get down into the lowest of lows. But then, like a bright ray of sunshine, in comes the dream vacation to Bali, which is much more affordable when you are flying from two hours away instead of 20. This is why we do this. To be able to see the world, not pay a ton for it, and spend time together as a family doing fun things. What a blessing!
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| Hottest pool |
The ocean water is so warm here that Landon had no problem wading in up to his neck and then wanting to go out deeper. We carried him out and he had a marvelous time swimming around out in the ocean. We also built a sandcastle together complete with an ornamental dribble castle on top which Landon promptly destroyed as I was putting the finishing touches on it. Such is life with a toddler.
There are a series of pools at the Grand Hyatt resort. The day that we swam in them, it was really hot outside, so the pools themselves seemed a little too warm and not very refreshing from the heat outside. The only colder pool was the toddler pool that was only one and a half feet deep, with a waterfall. Landon loves swimming in the pools and jumping off the side or off the rocks into the water. There are also a couple waterslides that we have to go down at least 10 times every time we go swimming. It's fun having a kid that's old enough to tell us what he wants to do!
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| Slightly less warm pool with waterslides! |
Our hotel is a resort, so it is spread out over a large property with koi ponds and babbling brooks all over the place. To get to breakfast, we have to walk along the beach or through the paths along brooks for a quarter mile or so. I'm not complaining, at least when we aren't late getting somewhere! We eat breakfast and dinner at the Grand club, which we get into because we have been living in hotels for 8 months. There are perks with all the sacrifices!
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| Landon doing his swimming |
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| View with sunshine! |
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| Landon giving me a flower |
Austin saw this monitor lizard in the pond right outside our room. I thought he was making it up until I spied it too as I was writing this post. It is a little freaky to walk back at night knowing this lizard is hanging out nearby! The weather here is about like Cilacap is right now- hot, humid, with occasional thunder storms and rains downpours. We have been so lucky to not have any downpours during our adventures so far, just on our way to church.
In conclusion, we could live at this resort and not leave for the entire time we are staying here. The only problem is that there is so much to see and do in Bali that we aren't using the amenities and features as much as I would want to! The Grant Hyatt Bali is a great family resort and we are enjoying our time here very much.
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| Open air lobby |
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