After waiting for almost three hours we stood with the crowd of people holding name signs and waited for the family to clear immigration. K & N were amazingly chirpy after their long flight from Canada. One of their first comments was about the heat. A couple of days before leaving Canada they were experiencing -32 degrees. Bali was about to warm their frozen lives.
Our driver from Villa Agung Khalia transported us to Villa Maia. Villa Maia is a new Villa at Villa Agung Khalia Ubud. The Villa and pool are beautiful. The drive up to the Villas is not, we wondered where we were going. We drove through Sukawati and up a very steep and winding road, the last few hundred meters was quite rough.
Villa Maia sits in the rice fields it has two bedrooms and two spectacular bathrooms both with huge stone bathtubs.
We quickly unpacked allowing Joe and Flo out of their flatbed seats in the large suitcase. They had smiles from ear to ear as did the four human type adults who quickly found swimsuits and jumped into the beautiful pool. Joe and Flo found a great place to sit, they took up positions at one end of the huge slab dining room table from where they had magnificent views over the rice fields.
Dinner soon arrived as we had preordered. What a feast, lumpiah, satay, mie goring, salad, fruit and black rice pudding. After a few G&T's and bintangs and a good chat we went to our separate rooms and climbed into the extremely high, extremely huge king sized beds.
5am found H & I sitting in the Bale sipping coffee and listening to the early morning sounds of Bali. As dawn broke in the distance the crescendo of rooster calls came closer and closer as in waves. We were then joined by K and another cup of coffee. At 6am we listened to call to prayers from some distance away. Not long after we were joined by N, cup of coffee in hand. We all sat silently in the Bale and watched the incredible morning sky and the local rice farmers coming out to begin work. I glanced around and saw that we were indeed a very happy and contented group of travellers. What a wonderful start to our trip to Bali.
coco