Donning pink shirt and pink-striped socks, and I’m ready to settle into the beach cabana that was to be our home most days at Amankila

We first came to Bali in 1996, 30 years ago. We loved it then and it’s a place we love coming back to. A Buddhist island in the world’s largest Moslem country – and the fourth largest country in the world after India, China, and the U.S. – it’s an island of incredible beauty, happy people, great tourist infrastructure, and often amazing food. We’re spending four-plus weeks on the island with six stops, all in beautiful resorts. It should be an extremely relaxing journey.

First, though, we had to get out of New York City. We’d waited until after the Fourth of July semiquincentennial celebrations, forgetting back when we were planning the trip that Trump would of course totally screw up what should have been a unifying national celebration. And on top of that on July 1, the day we normally leave for our summer vacation, the weather turned brutally hot in the city – a couple days with temperatures over 100 degrees. Definitely could have missed that.

Finally on the evening of of July 5th we set out on an 18-and-a-half hour flight to Singapore, the longest flight in the world, before connecting to Bali. Not so fast, though: a big thunderstorm stranded us on the tarmac for something like two-and-a-half hours, not exactly what you’re looking forward to when waiting to set off on the longest flight in the world. The delay, of course, meant that we would miss our connecting flight, further delaying our arrival in Bali. And as though that weren’t enough when we finally got to Bali my suitcase didn’t. Ugh. Not a great start.

View of the beach area from half-way down the hill. There were three pools above us and the one down there, plus of course the beach. Altogether 292 steps from our room to the beach, but they had buggies if you were lazy.

From there though things got way better. First stop for six nights was Amankila, part of the Aman chain on the east coast of the island. It is perhaps the premier hotel/resort chain in the world and we were pretty excited to stay there. And once my bag arrived the next morning we were set.

The resort was every bit as beautiful as we could have hoped, with service that was nearly perfect. It was all set on a steep hill above the Lombok Strait (Lombok being a neighboring island that we visited in 2014) with a variety of pools and a very private beach. Our days consisted of an early breakfast, then down to the beach where individual cabanas provided all the privacy and comfort you could dream of. A couple hours of lounging and reading, then off to the gym for some exercise before lunch. Afternoon was more reading and napping, then dinner. Not a tough regimen to fall into.

Our beach faced the Lombok Strait. At one point during our stay I was confused whether Bali was in the Pacific or Indian Ocean. Turns out the north coast faces the Pacific while the southern part of the island faces the Indian Ocean. And the Lombok Strait is one of the main passageways to exchange water between the two oceans. On top of that, the Strait is remarkably deep, making it a great resting place for these container ships waiting for their next assignment.

There was one off-resort excursion, dinner in a nearby town at Vincent’s, a jazz club that got pretty good reviews. It was definitely cheaper than eating at the resort but the food wasn’t that good while the music and ambience weren’t any better. So we stayed on the resort for the rest of the visit. Fortunately there were three restaurants available so we didn’t really get too bored with our options.

One thing that I found remarkable was that, oddly, we had almost no jet lag. I mean, Bali is 12 hours ahead of New York so you just can’t get further away. Yet by the second day I was sleeping until 5:30 or even 6:00 AM which is just about ideal. So we’ve settled in pretty well here. (Note about that 12-hour time difference. I’m writing this the night after Trump’s stupid, lying speech about election security. I wanted to know when it started so I asked ChatGPT. It said that the speech was set to start at 9:00 PM EDT, so in Bali that would be 9:00 AM Saturday. Umm, no, 9:00 PM on Thursday in DC is 9:00 AM on FRIDAY in Bali, not Saturday. Important lesson about trusting AI!)

The view from our typical lunch restaurant on the beach. I’m not sure I’d ever obsessed about the evolutionary genius of these palm trees, unbelievably tall yet remarkably stable even in heavy winds. How can something that long and thin hold up?

From here we had towards Ubud, the heart and cultural center of the island. Very different from the beach vibe here but, based on our earlier visits, someplace we’re pretty excited about.

Mark with a bowl of gazpacho and glass of rosé for lunch

The view from our private pool across the Strait

More resort beauty

One afternoon on the beach I watched these guys hauling a big old stump through the water heading … somewhere

But then they had to bring it ashore. Turns out floating it was a LOT easier than dragging it across the beach. I mean, that’s how they moved heavy things in medieval Europe!

Reading at low-ish tide

And settling in for for my morning read

Mark liked these piggies decorating the lunch restaurant

And finally, when we think of Bali the most remarkable thing is that the Balinese take beauty very seriously. Here you will see they even decorate the urinals with frangipani flowers. That is taking beauty seriously.