After our visit to the temple Wayan took us to visit a plantation called Santi Agrowisata. Here they grow several different types of fruits, coffee beans, teas and spices. There are a few things about this place that make it unique. The first, they process all of their own chocolate, tea, coffee and spices. Everything is organic and available for purchase from the gift shop. The second thing that is unique is that they still hand roast all of the coffee beans. There is even a guy that sits out in the tasting area that you can watch as he does it. The third unique thing, they make and sell Luwak coffee. If you're not familiar with it, Luwak coffee is one of the rarest, most expensive coffee's in the world. It takes several steps to make it, some of which are a little, shall we say... "unconventional". Click here and here to see some videos that explain it. The second one is in Indonesian, but it was filmed at the place we were at. Jamie and I are not coffee drinkers so we did not find it or the Bali coffee very nice but we did find a vanilla coffee and a lemongrass tea that were wonderful.
View while sampling the coffee and tea at Santi Agrowisata
Still roasting the coffee beans by hand
Okay, so on to the day after our visit to Kuta Beach, my 30th birthday! Jamie and I had already arranged to have a babysitter for the evening so I wanted to make sure we spent the day with Kylie. We started out with a wonderful breakfast arranged in the villa. Not really different from any of the other mornings up to this point but I was surprised by the staff of the resort with a cute little birthday cake next to my banana pancakes along with a "happy birthday madam" from all of the staff that I encountered, even the cleaning staff. It was a nice touch and very thoughtful of them to think of me. After breakfast I opened (well, with Kylie's help of course) my gift from Jamie and Kylie, which was a beautiful new watch. I absolutely didn't expect a gift like that at all so I spent most of the next few hours staring at it and asking Jamie if he wanted to know what time it was.
Enjoying breakfast with my girl!
What could it be?!?!
Flowers and a gift? It must be a special day! (Note Kylie in front of me ready to go!)
After getting ready we grabbed a taxi and headed out to Sanur Beach, which is known for being a family friendly beach due to the calm waters and 8 km walking path. It is also one of the few walking paths in Bali that is 'pram friendly'. We walked along the beach, had lunch at one of the resorts and then rented some lounge chairs and went for a swim. It wasn't Kylie's first time to a beach, but it was her first time in the water at a beach and she loved it! She even tried to do "safe pool entry" into the water, which was DAR-LING! When a wave would come she would quickly crawl up the beach away from it and then try to scoot herself back into the water. She also enjoyed playing in the sand and her way of telling us was by covering herself in it from head to toe. After our afternoon out we headed back to the villa to relax before our big evening out.
Sanur Beach - They had these little 'rest spots' all over the place, pretty neat
"They better hurry, this muffin isn't gonna cut it!"
My 2 favorite people!
Lovin' the water!
Cuddles from my sweet girl, happy birthday to me!
That evening Jamie and I had reservations at Ku De Ta, which is the hot, trendy place to be in Bali. We arrived for drinks and watched the sunset and then went to our table in the dining area for dinner. I can say that I've seen better sunsets (Krabi, Thailand for example) but the place itself was pretty neat. The drinks and atmosphere of the place were good and the food was wonderful. Jamie and I didn't find the price to be expensive but for Bali it's considered extremely pricey, which is one of the reasons it's so trendy. They are big on security as well. Just to get inside the door you are searched twice! The walk from the 1st search area to the 2nd search area maybe takes a minute at best, and that would be a very slow casual walk! It's such a hot spot that after the bombings in 2001 and 2005 they decided that they might need to increase security as they felt that if anyone ever decided to bomb outside of the Kuta area they would be a possible target. Crazy right? We had a wonderful night, drank a little too much Sangria and headed back to the villa. The original plan was to go out to a club of sorts after dinner but that never happened since we are too pathetic to hang out past 10pm anymore! How sad right?! Since we had already went through quite a bit of drinks at the restaurant it was probably best that we didn't continue our night elsewhere, seeing as though we needed to get up with Kylie in the morning! I'm telling you, the whole "travelling with kids" thing really puts a damper on things!
The crowds starting to gather...
to watch this sunset
The hubby!
Enjoying the evening
The view from our dinner table, a little blurry after too much sangria! This is probably the same way we were seeing it!
Happy Birthday to me! And a wonderful birthday it was!
The next day was our check out day, so we had breakfast and relaxed around the pool. I hated that we had to leave so soon, but I must admit when you are travelling with a little one you are almost relieved to get back to your own surroundings. At least I was! For our first 'real' family vacation I was extremely happy with how Kylie did. With the exception of the flight over, she handled being in a different environment really good. I was concerned that sleeping would be an issue but she continued to sleep through the night with no problems. Thank god!
Playing in the water one last time!
A few photos of our villa
Flowers from the trees that shaded the pool
All in all it was a great vacation. Had we known at the time of booking that we were considering not going back to the US at Christmas we would have definitely stayed longer though! Next trip - home to the states with a side trip to Clemson, let the countdown begin!!
I'll leave you with one last taste of Bali. Photo courtesy of the Bali international airport! Only in Asia!
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