Bali in December, Pt.3

After our gorgeous round trip through Bali we finally came back to our hotel again. We were greeted with a nice flower necklace - almost like in Hawaii. We spent one day in our hotel to relax and recover. The round trip was actually quite exhausting because we always had to get up very early. (I think I never got up as early to go to lectures here in Singapore...).
You can see some pictures of our nice hotel garden by night here. Again we were experimenting with slow shutter and flash. I really like the effects you can achieve with that.

Our last highlight of the Bali holiday was a mountain biking tour from the rim of the Batur volcano all the way down to Ubud. Actually it was rather mountain rolling than mountain biking because 99% of the tour was downhill. We were a small group of maybe 8 people and we really enjoyed it. Our tour guide did a great job in selecting the small roads through tiny villages. Only a little part of the tour was on busy main roads. So we came again very close to the friendly Balinese people.
The tour included as well a visit at a typical Balinese house. There are a lot of constraints in terms of how the house has to be build according to their religious beliefs. The floors of the different rooms have a different elevation depending on the usage of those. And it is always aligned to the compass directions in the same way. It was very interesting to see how an average Balinese family lives in a village.
The tour was concluded with a nice lunch and we got back to our hotel in Sanur passing all the little art shops in the area of Ubud.

On our last full day on the island we did a half day trip to Nusa Dua. That is the absolute posh area on the southern peninsula of Bali. There is one fancy hotel next to another. We could take a free shuttle bus to our sister hotel "Grand Hyatt Bali" and we enjoyed the facilities there. The swimming pool (or rather the swimming pools) were really amazing. One of them was winding like a river through the garden with a total lenght of maybe 100m. The other one was enclosed with natural rocks and looked almost like a rocky coast line rather than a pool. And of course both of them were connected with a water slide...
On our tour through the area we were surprised about the number of Russians there. Apparaently they really splurge if the go for holidays.

Back in Sanur we spent the last evening in our favourite restaurant "Lotus Pond". The waitresses there are as courtous as they are beautiful - and the food there is great as well.
It was the perfect conclusion for our Bali trip. I really enjoyed those 12 days and I think I have to come back some time to explore the rest of the island. In the nature reserve in the West of Bali as well as in the North East there is still enough to see and to experience!
Many thanks as well to you, Dad! You were a great travel mate! I can't think of many people with whom I could spend such an awesome, exciting and harmonious time.