Later that evening, Meredith and I booked a very weird appointment at the hotel's spa. After checking in, we were led to separate rooms that each contained a very large tub of water...
Our room's vacancy at Reggae Guesthouse was unfortunately up, so after I returned from diving, we had to pack up our stuff, say farewell to everyone...
We were totally EXHAUSTED from our long travel day. Our taxi driver walked us over to a bunch of dreadlocked French guys getting shit-faced at the bar and introduced us to Bilbo, the hotel's then-proprietar (who, according to the website, seems to no-longer be the owner)...
We found a hotel with a room we liked. After checking in, we had a pasta dinner downstairs, and then, exhausted from our long travel day, laid down for 6pm nap that lasted until the next morning!
...we met up in Amanda's room to try to figure out where we should all travel to next! Amanda only had 4 days before she had to come back to Manila and head home, so we wanted to travel somewhere close enough where we'd still have time to have fun!
...over to the hotel to meet up with Amanda! Amanda had been in Hong Kong and when she'd heard that we were going to be in the Philippines, we'd planned to meet up!
While we waited for the horse to arrive at the hotel (he was being transported down to Manhattan from upstate via trailer), Klaus (the manager of the hotel at the time) took us up to the roof so we could see the totally surreal view from the glass-edged roof deck. Breathtaking!
By the time I landed, got to my hotel and checked in, I felt like I was coming down with a nasty cold. I ordered a room service pizza and plate of fries (only vegetarian items on the menu)...
So I went back to my room and decided to go with room service. The only items on the menu without meat were the salad and mozzarella sticks! (Oh, and I also got a brownie with ice cream)
On Saturday morning we woke up to the sound of someone hitting the tiny gong at our weird mini-palace gates! I went out to investigate and it was the hotel staff setting up the 8am breakfast we'd ordered the night before out on the little island thingy in our pool!
Our bungalow had these crazy sprawling gardens and was walled off from the rest of the resort like some crazy feudal castle. Here are the "gates" to our room. Meredith laughing at the hanging gong people at the hotel would hit to announce their presence. WHAT?
I totally forget the name of the 2nd place we stayed at in Ubud, but it was pretty insane. Here's Meredith like "Whoa" as we walked through the stone-walled maze that led to our bungalow.
We cooled off with a quick dip in the pool, and then packed up our things and headed off to the REALLY fancy hotel we booked for our final two nights in Bali.
Since it was our last few days in Bali, we decided to splurge and stay at a fancy place in Ubud. Our first choice hotel was booked solid for night, so we made a reservation for the following day and set out to find a place for the night. We ended up finding a rad place around the corner that had these cool two-story houses with wrap-around porches.
The grounds of the resort had all of these beautifully sculpted ponds and hills. The result of locals applying their rice-paddy hill-terracing technology to the purely aesthetic realm.
After dinner, we ended up going just a few feet down the road and booking a bungalow at Saranam Eco Resort. The hotel's front desk is right off the road at the top of a mountain. In order to get down to the bungalows (which are at the BOTTOM of the mountain, you have to get in a little elevator car and a cable-winch slowly lowers the car down a railway laid on the hill.
Here's the entrance to our bungalow. (Although, considering that the structure was primarily made of marble and stone sculpture, I don't know if it technically qualifies as a "bungalow" anymore)
