Bali Adventure

I know it has been a long time coming, but here goes.  From 14 through 21 April 2010, our little family went on a vacation to Denpasar, Bali, for some rest, relaxation, and adventure!  Let me start by saying that traveling with a growing (and very interesting) toddler is becoming more and more fun because she actually gets to enjoy and voice her opinions on many of the activities that we do...and there's way more ice cream than if it were just Jeff and me.  :)

We arrived very late in the night (around 1:30 or 2am) the first day, so the first thing we did was crash out in our villa room.  I was quite grouchy since I was pregnant and didn't get a wink of sleep on the 7-hour flight over from Korea, but was very thankful to be in an air-conditioned room with a king-sized bed to be able to get to sleep right away.  Tay awoke somewhat when we first arrived, but fell back asleep without too much fuss, thankfully.  The next morning, we woke up to sunshine and the sound of birds chirping...and I felt much better.  We took a quick tour of our accomodation:  lovely bedroom, nice size bathroom with large tub, outdoor shower, beautiful stone private pool, outdoor covered kitchenette, nice lounging and eating area.  Since we woke up earlier than our breakfast was scheduled to arrive, we took a walk around whole villa resort premises, too.  They had a nice, large community pool with a shallow area for children, a small Thai restaurant that connected to the lobby, and a spa (that I didn't see, but Jeff says it was decent).

-- break, break --

Due to being sick, busy and moving and all that craziness, I wasn't able to finish this post, so I am back now weeks after the trip to try and finish it.  I will be brief, but hopefully hit the highlights.

During our week-long trip there, probably the two biggest highlights of the trip were the waterpark (WaterBom) and the Elephant Safari Park.  The water park had a HUGE kids pool/play area and three slides that were easy enough for kids even as young as Tay to go down by herself (although she was a little intimidated about going down by herself).  They had one really wide slide that we could go down side by side (with still plenty of room) and they had two curvy water slides, which Tay greatly enjoyed.  In the kid play area, they had the usual smaller slides and a giant bucket that once it was full, it would dump a massive amount of water on one side of the play area...powerful enough to knock an adult over if they weren't paying attention...phew.  Tay liked just watching the "biiiig bucket" fill up and dump on everyone standing underneath from the side lines.  She also got a kick out of just "swimming" around on her hands and toes all over the shallow area of the kids play area.  We ended up going back the last day we were there just to get some more play time in the water before heading back.

The elephant safari park was really amazing.  When we first arrived, we saw a few big elephants that people were standing around and feeding, so while we waited for our "elephant trek," we were led to that area as well to see the elephants.  Tay was a little intimidated at first, but shortly after we got there, two little baby elephants came out to feed as well, and one of the trainers came over and gave Tay some pieces of corn to feed the baby elephants!  She wanted me to hold her while she fed them, but she was SO excited.  The baby elephants were seven months and one year old...so small and adorable...and quite fuzzy!  After getting to feed the baby elephants, Tay wanted to feed the big elephants, too, so she had me set her down and she handed the big elephants bamboo pieces one at a time and really got a kick out of it!  She wanted to feed all of them!  After a bit of doing that, another trainer came to get us to get on our elephant for our brief trek through the "jungle."  I was a little nervous that Tay might be too scared to get on the elephant, but I was mistaken.  She had no problems getting on, and she was really excited about the whole event!  She told us before we got on the elephant, "Daddy ride biiiiig elephant, me ride little elephant, and Mommy ride (pause...thinks about it a minute)...mommy elephant."  When we actually got on the elephant, she said, "Me ride biiiiig elephant with Daddy and Mommy," and she was perfectly fine with that.  Our elephant's name was Puspa and she was a 29-year-old who lumbered along nice and quietly with her heavy cargo.  The trek lasted about 30 minutes and we saw many beautiful birds along the way, which Tay enjoyed.  At the end of the trek, Puspa was led to a watering hole where she actually walked into and around the water with us still on board.  While we were going around, another elephant was "bathing" in the middle of the watering hole by dunking its whole body (head and all) under the water and coming up for air and going under again!  Tay found that particularly amusing, and even after we were off the elephant, she kept looking back and mimicking what that elephant had been doing and saying, "Elephant go under!  Big splash!"  After the ride, we got to get some pictures with Puspa and Tay got to feed her some food before we went to wash up and get some lunch ourselves.  We missed the "elephant show," but it was nearing her nap time, so we decided to get a quick lunch at the park and head back to our hotel.  The weather that day was perfect, too; overcast and fairly cool with no rain!  That was definitely a wonderful experience for our whole family!

Another "honorable mention" activity would have to be our fishing trip.  We had scheduled a four-hour boating trip to go fishing, but we also made sure we could come back whenever we wanted to in case Tay was getting tired or sick (and in case I was getting tired or sick).  Luckily, we got a small privately chartered boat, and we went out fairly early in the morning.  We did the "trolling" for fish instead of "in place" fishing, which meant we would be moving almost the entire time until we caught something on the line.  I felt a bit nauseous at the beginning of the ride, so I sat still with Tay in my lap for the first part of the trip trying to keep my breakfast down.  Jeff caught the first fish (a relatively small one) less than 30 minutes into the trip!  That was a good sign for us...because I started to fell really nauseous about 40 minutes into the trip and handed Tay off to Jeff right before feeding the fish my breakfast off the side of the boat.  Hello, sea/morning sickness!  Well, apparently right after I handed Tay to Jeff, another fish caught the line, so he ended up handing her to our boatman as he reeled in the next fish, which was bigger than the first.  After I cleaned up a bit, I took Tay back and felt a bit better as I sipped a little cold water and sat with Tay with the breeze in my face.  Shortly thereafter, another fish took the bait and zipped out on the line, and Jeff quickly reeled that one in, only to realize that it was just a piece of garbage...booo.  But again, not long after that, the other line went zipping out and when Jeff reeled that one it, it was the biggest catch of the day!  Now that we had three fish in three different sizes (all the same type of fish), Jeff said, "We're done.  Let's go home!"  I was sure thankful for that...:)  Tay was really excited about seeing all the fish and seeing them jump around in the bucket.  On our way back to shore, I got sick once more (yay), but what wonderful memories of hanging my head over the side of the boat as we sped back to shore and the ocean spray in my face...hehehe.  Anyhow, when we got back to shore, we had our driver, Mr. Chok, take a photo of our family with each of us holding a fish - Tay holding the little fish, Jeff holding the big fish, and me holding the "mommy" fish (I guess I ought to teach her the word "medium," but it's just so cute that "mommy" is the word she uses to replace what is not big or little!).  Even with the sea/morning sickness, it was a fun and exciting trip and Tay thoroughly enjoyed herself (and we got a great family photo out of it!) so it is definitely worth mentioning as probably the third best activity of our vacation in Bali. 

Some of the other activities we did while in Bali besides swimming every day was visit the bird sanctuary (beautiful), butterfly garden (not so exciting) and a Tanna Lot (a beautiful temple carved out of a giant rock mountain on/in the ocean).  We didn't stay very long at any of these places, but I would say the bird sanctuary and the temple were definitely worth visiting. 

All in all, we had a wonderful and relaxing trip, but I'm not sure if we'd go back.  Maybe we're spoiled by the resort grounds at Cebu or the food in Thailand...and their relatively short flights to both destinations, but I can't see our family traveling on a seven hour flight to Bali again.  It was definitely a wonderful experience, though, and we would recommend it to any couples looking for a fun getaway! 

On the night we were flying back to Korea, we had already sent our "driver" home because our hotel had its own shuttle service to the airport.  When we brought Tay out with our bags to go to the airport, she asked, "Where's Mr. Chok?" because she had already gotten accustomed to him always being there to drive us places...very sweet.  Again, a great trip and great experience for our family...:)