Bali: Birthdays. Beaches. Booze. Bronze. Ballin'.

You'll never guess how our Bali trip ended...but before we get to that story, let us start at the beginning. Our dear friend Alyssa, from the motherland became our first (of many :-)) visitor. She arrived the day before we started our long awaited vacation, with Theresa and I working up until the very last day, having to leave from the hospital directly to the airport. We arrived at appoximately 11pm and from the very first step off the plane, the Balinese warmth relaxed us and put a smile on our faces, having been in winter for basically a year, something that would prove to be a great disadvantage as early as the next morning. Our first hotel was a villa at the Bali Dream Villas, and as you can see... we were ballin'. With our own pool complete with a happy Budha, and Indonesian cultural statues pouring our shower water, we were in heaven!!! We woke up on Marko's 30th birthday to a beautiful day, perfect for the beach, but not before the entire staff wished Marko a Happy Birthday, complete with a cake.

We went to Seminyak Beach, spending the whole day in the beautiful hot sun, complete with jumping pictures, paddle ball, and pretending to be sea lions in the ocean (something not uncommon for Marko in water). We met local Balinese people, and quickly learned how kind and genuine they can be. For the big birthday night, we headed over to Nusa Dua for a traditional Balinese dinner, complete with all the fixin's including a traditional Indonesian Cultural dance and presenting Marko with his birthday present, the birthday messages from all of his friends and family (thank you to all who responded!!!) To cap the night off we started our daily massage routine, one we were determined to stick by. This proved to be more relaxing for some then others, as the sun burns were beginning to rear they're ugly head.

The next day sadly was cloudy and raining, so we took this opportunity to visit Kuta, another beach town, which proved to be a small busy Australia, with Balinese people few and far between, needless to say, we were not impressed. Though we did manage to get our daily massages in. :) We then went back to the villa and had fun enjoying the pool with Marko doing his many tricks for us.

Next we ventured north to Ubad, known for its rice fields, and slower pace of life, BEAUTIFUL. While there we fulfilled our adventerous side by going out on a 2 1/2 hr rafting trip complete with a 13-15ft drop and many waterfalls. This was Alyssa's first rafting trip ever, not bad for a first experience..."Only in Bali!" We also went to the Balinese/Indonesian Cultural Center and watched a beautiful cultural show, much of it unfortunately went over our head, but it was pretty to watch.

After Ubad, we decided we wanted more beach, so we headed back to Seminyak, unfortunately we didn't have a hotel room yet, so we spent the next couple of hours searching for an available room which proved to be harder then expected because of the Muslim holiday that was in effect, bringing increased tourists to Bali. But we eventually found another villa which as you can see was AMAZING called Kamuela Bali Villas! That night we went over to Jimbaran, known for its incredible fresh fish with beach side seating perfect for sunsets. This was beautiful! The next morning we woke up to breakfast in the villa, complete with banana pancakes, fresh orange juice and coffee...yumm!!!

Unfortunately all of our batteries died the last day, so we weren't able to capture the last day at the beach or any of the last day's events which gets us to what you've all been waiting for...dun dun daaaaaaaa. Ok so in keeping with our goal to get daily massages and it being a holiday, we were quickly discovering that many of the spas around the main drag were full and we were on a time crunch to get on the plane. So we decided to grab a taxi and drive off the beaten path and simply look for a nice spa that could have availability. Well our taxi driver didn't speak much English and was having a hard time understanding our plan, but heard the word spa, so had his own place in mind in the middle of Kuta (which is crazy with traffic). We showed up to this kind of sketchy place but discovered that it had showers which was beneficial seeing how we'd spent the day at the beach and we getting on a 8hr plane ride, so we went for it. Now I'll tell you right now, we all had our own "special" experience, ranging from minor (having the worst massages ever!) to a little more sketchy (feeling like we needed a cold shower after). Once we all met up in the lobby after, we began to look around and discovered many guys entering the spa and lining up to look through this glass room where there were many beautiful ladies sitting. Theresa pointed out that they all were wearing stilletos with numbers on their chest. I turned to her and said "Isn't that where they do the pedicures?" and Theresa again pointed out, "They don't do pedicures here!" We then witnessed as these stilletoed, numbered beautiful ladies followed these men upstairs to give them their "massages". Thats right folks, we found ourselves in a "happy ending" spa!!!! What a great ending to an amazing trip!!!