Bali & Singapore

I travelled to Bali and Singapore in June with my husband. We had a lovely week at the Nusa Dua Beach Resort and Spa. The hotel is situated in the resort of Nusa Dua, which is a purpose built resort designed to very high standards. As you enter the resort you will be bowled over by the wonderful array of flowers, plants and shrubs which adorn the roads leading to the various hotels. There is a very new shopping area called ‘The Bali Collection’ where you have many upmarket designer shops. In the complex there is also a selection of restaurants and if you want a little pampering, a few Spas.

The hotel is directly on the sandy beach and you can walk, jog or cycle along the path which leads into three other hotels, The Laguna Resort, The Westin Resort and The Melia Bali. You can visit any of the beachfront restaurants of these hotels as well as several within the Nusa Dua Beach Resort. We stayed in the Palace Club Rooms at the hotel, which entitled us to the use of the Palace Club Lounge where we were able to have our daily breakfast, afternoon tea and cakes and two hours of cocktails each evening. It was well worth the extra money for this room type. The staff were wonderful and the Balinese hospitality was amazing. During our visit to the island, we hired a car and driver. This only cost us about £25 for the whole day, great value and he took us to wherever we wanted. We went up to a village called Ubud. Historically, the Balinese village of Ubud can trace its roots to as far back as the 8th century; it is documented on ancient palm leaf scripts that a revered holy man from India by the name of Rsi Markaneya embarked on a spiritual journey across Java and eventually came to the island of Bali to spread the teachings of Hinduism. We then travelled on to Lake Batur and the Kintamani volcano. On the way back we visited the exotic rice terraces at Tegallalang and then on the Elephant Cave Temple.

We left Bali and flew to Singapore for a couple of days on the way home. This was our third visit here and we never tire of it, we walked for miles around Clarke Quay with its host of restaurants and shops, we spent a day at the Singapore Zoo which was very interesting and has links with Steve Irwin and Australia Zoo. The city is very clean, the people are very friendly and we will return again when we venture to the Far East in the future.