Wednesday 18th July

Mark and I went to the gym this morning instead of walking the beach. Mark started to feel a bit poorly after breakfast though so the rest of the day for him was just spent lying by the pool and close to a toilet:-(

I ventured out for the afternoon to browse the shops along Jalan Legian. But this only helped me to develop a new theory. That is, that shops in Bali look better and more appealing from the taxi :-(. I did have a funny eye brow tint experience where three girls debated watch other and fussed over me for 30 minutes only for me to find my eyebrows looked no different at the end of the ordeal!

Marks’ malaise partly scuttled the group dinner plans as well as he didn’t think he’d be able to eat much, if at all. However, by late afternoon he had recovered enough to make it to the member cocktail hour with the General Manager of the hotel. And, as luck would have it, the beer he had there seemed to further advance his recovery. We still weren’t that hungry though so we just shared a main meal at the hotel restaurant, Husk, before retiring back to our room for an early night. Mark was pleased to find the Tour de France on our TV so that capped off a good end to a rather quiet day.

Thursday 19th July

We met up with Matt and Annabelle for our morning walk but this was just a short one as Matt was going to Splash water park at 9 am with his family for the morning. We did strike one interesting feature on our way home though; a traditional Balinese ceremony was taking place on the beach but with a bit of a modern twist. The couple at the centre of attention were being filmed with the aid of a drone!

Mark and I spent the rest of morning by the pool and Annabelle joined us later on, after a little bit of shopping.

Matt returned in time for him, Annabelle and myself to go to Spa Bali for an hour long treatment session at 2 pm. Mark went to Biasa to source the shirts our hotel manager wears but was not happy with the pricing; once he eventually found the shop. The rest of the afternoon was spent back by our pool before a sunset cocktail by the main pool and then a 6.30pm dinner with both families at Barbacoa. Barbacoa is an Argentinian style restaurant and was a huge hit with all. It’s well worth a visit if you’re ever in Bali.

Friday 20th July. 

Mark left at 7 am for his downhill bike riding tour and I headed out to walk the beach at the same time.

I caught a taxi to the Alila after breakfast to meet up with Annabelle and we strolled the streets for a couple of hours checking out the local shops. We then went our separate ways,each back to our own hotel to have some pool time for the afternoon.

This was our final night out for dinner and we were all meeting up again at Sardine at 6 pm.