Club Med Bali, Nusa Dua
What better way to take a break from the hustle and bustle of the city life than to take a week's trip down to Bali. During this year's Matta Fair in March 2013, me and the Boy managed to get ourselves a cheap deal to Club Med, Bali for 4 nights at half the normal price at RM1,680 each with addition RM100 for Club Med membership fees. Even AirAsia was on promo and we only paid RM400 per person to and fro inclusive of taxes,etc.
I have always wanted to try the 'Club Med experience' and based on feedback from people, most seem to think that Club Med Bali is the best Club Med in South East Asia. The best thing about Club Med is that when you're in the resort, almost everything is free and provided for, i.e. meals, drinks (including some alcoholic drinks), performances, activities, etc.
So off we flew.
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| View from plane before landing at Ngurah Rai Airport in Bali |
When in Bali do be wary of the cabbies, especially those not using meters. We always go for the Blue Bird cabs. After a 30 minutes cab ride from the airport, we finally arrived at the resort. We were ushered to the lobby by a smiling "G.O." or "Genteels Organizers" and were briefed on the details of what-is-where and activities offered. G.O.s and G.M.s ("Guests/Members") are terms widely used in Club Med and that you will be accustomed to in no time.
First impression of the resort was that it was HUGE. Walking to our room from the lobby felt like forever as the G.O. used a longer route to give us a short tour around. The resort boasts 393 rooms located in 5 buildings and had a traditional Balinese architecture.
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| Two of the five buildings built around coconut groves |
The room was cozy and spacious enough for two of us. The wooden furnishings of the room gives you a very Balinese feel to the room. The only negative comment was that our bed was not a queen sized bed but are joined from two single beds so we could feel the hard edge of the beds in the middle. From our room window we had an amazing view of the left side of the beach.
After unpacking, we could no longer contain our excitement and set off to do a little exploring of the resort.
As it was off-peak, the resort was not overly packed with people and the resort exudes a very calming ambiance as you can see from the picture below. I spent most of the evenings lying on the beach sofa reading on my IPad and took short naps accompanied by the Bali breeze. This is the place where you can just literally do nothing and not be bored.
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| Front view of the beach from the resort |
One of the many things I love about this resort is that they are generous with the beach sofas and outdoor couches lying around the resort. I particularly love the pavilions by the pool set up for people wanting more privacy and to be shaded from the scorching Bali sun.
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| Lovely curtained pavilions by the pool for privacy |
Of course if you're looking for a tan, the sun-decks are always available.
One thing to note of though is that the Beach is not privately owned by Club Med Bali, hence there will be outsiders from other resorts and locals offering cheap massages, fishing and just enjoying the beach together with the resort patrons. With that being said, do not leave your belongings lying around the beach unattended unless you want to risk leaving some 'souvenirs' at Bali.
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| Evening view of the beach |
One thing which really amazed me was the grassy plains under the sea water surface which stretches for a good mile from the sea shore. This enabled crabs and algae to thrive under these conditions.
As we walked, we observed many locals who were fishing for crabs while walking along these grassy plains. There was even an adorable French boy who approached us and showed us his 'collection' of crabs caught in his bucket.
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| Helping the adorable French boy catch a crab. Failed miserably. |
Seeing the bountiful of crabs he got, we decided to go on our very own crab searching mission.
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| The Boy looking for crabs |
After poking and prodding through the holes in sands, which were supposedly homes for crabs, we managed to find two miserable crabs.
Obviously, we were not very good at this.
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| Our 'bounty' after 2 hours of crab searching |
After all that hard work, we head to the bar which was set at the heart of the resort and grabbed a cold beer. I love how you can just walk up to the bar and order your drinks without having to worry about the price.
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| View of the bar from the beach |
If you're wondering about the food served at the resort, not to worry, There are two main restaurants at the resort, Agung and Batur. We usually ate at Agung, the main restaurant at the resort. the food choices are so wide that you will have a hard time deciding what to eat each meal. The buffet sections are divided by types of cuisines such as Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Western, Chinese, and Italian.
There is no point in paying so much for the resort without taking part in the activities offered. There are so many activities to choose from that we were spoilt for choice. There's definitely no shortage of things to do here. Most of the activities available are facilitated by G.O.s and for some sports such as archery, golfing and tennis, proper guidance and training is provided by the G.O.s for beginners which I was happy with as I really wanted to learn the proper way to play golf and archery.
During our stay, we did not manage to try everything but I'll list a few that we did try below.
1. Football, with players being the other resort patrons from all over the world. Team shirts were even provided!
2. Mini putt and golfing. The golfing sticks and other sport equipment such as badminton and tennis racquet, basketball and football are ALL provided by the resort.
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| The Boy having a go at the mini putt. |
3. Squash and
4. Badminton
More often than not, there will be sports tournaments held by the resort for the patrons to join with medals up for grabs for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. I personally felt that the sport tournaments were an excellent ice-breaker for the resort patrons to get to know each other.
As we wanted to try bring back medals as souvenirs, we partook in the badminton tournament and ended up getting 3rd place!
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| Posing with our medals |
Another highlight of Club Med Bali was the circus trapeze. My fear of heights left me walking around the circus trapeze for the first 3 days contemplating whether to face my fears or to just keep pretending I didn't see that gigantic structure standing there.
After meeting Benji, a Malaysian G.O. at a bar one of the nights who was stationed at the circus trapeze, I was convinced to place my life in the hands of Benji and take that leap of faith.
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| The night view of the trapeze and me having a go at it |
Surprisingly, I managed to lift my legs over my head and hang on my legs successfully. Was not as intimidating as it seemed to be. Even went for another go after my first try, what a champ *pats own head*. If you're heading over the Club Med Bali, this is a must have experience.
Other than the abundant activities offered, there's a chilled out lounge with a pool table (chargeable) and a television showing mostly cartoons for children needing a distraction. There was a very warm and homely vibe about this area. Almost feels like home.
Every night, the G.O.s will perform on stage with different themes every night for from Comedy Show, Broadway and Beetle Juice. I'm amazed at how talented and energized the G.O.s are. Daytime they are your lifeguards, sports facilitators and instructors and night time they are your dancers, singers and comedians.
After every performance, the G.O.s will start dancing and draw in the crowd to dance together. The songs are catchy and the dance moves are easy enough for everyone to follow, even the little ones.
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| Performance and after-performance dance with the crowd |
The party begins at the bar with a different theme every night. On one of the nights we were there it was the doctor/nurse theme and all the G.O.s were dressed in nurses and doctor outfits. There were even rooms for "Diagnosis of Illness" where the G.O.s will randomly pull people in to be diagnosed with an "illness" and be given a shot of liquor from the syringe and subsequently be led to the "Medicine Counter" where you'll receive your "medication" by downing a glass of alcoholic mixture with your hands at the back and using only your mouth.
They are really generous with the alcohol, that's for sure.
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| The bar at night where the party begins |
At the same time, the G.O.s will be dancing away on the stage with the crowd dancing together. It was really an amazing feeling to see how synchronized everyone was and how people from all over the world, young or old were dancing together. During our stay for 4 nights we never missed any it.
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| 'White Sensation' theme with G.O.s dancing on stage |
The best part of being at Club Med is that you'll never be alone and along the way during our stay here, we met so many people from all walks of life. We have to give special thanks to the G.O.s, Manu, Geoff and Benji for making our stay so much more memorable. We left Club Med Bali wanting more.
Rock Bar, Ayana Spa & Resort
After leaving Club Med Bali, we adjourned to Kuta and stayed a night at a cheap hotel. As the sunset in Bali has been said to be one of the best, we decided to catch the Bali sunset at Rock Bar lodged at Ayana Spa & Resort at Jimbaran.
When we got there at 5.30pm, there was already a long queue outside the entrance to Rock Bar all equipped with cameras of all sizes. We were told by the hotel staff that the bar was already full and we had to wait for at least half an hour to an hour if we wanted to go in. As we were not resort patrons we had to queue at the 'guest line' and hotel patrons have exclusive rights to the bar without queueing.
As we were already there, we decided to just wait in the queue.
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| The view of Rock Bar from above |
Sunset, according to the local cab driver was at 6.15pm to 6.30pm. We were disappointed as not only were we not able to get into the bar in time for the sunset but even more disheartening was that the skies were filled with dark clouds blocking off the sun. Nonetheless, the view of Rock Bar from the resort above was pretty amazing.
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| Our Bali sunset view that day and yes, that's a monkey sitting on the rock, who I bet is equally as disappointed |
By the time we got in the bar, the sun had went down and the skies were getting dark.
Overall, my expectation of watching a beautiful sunset at Bali was not met. In the end we paid for over-priced food and drinks at Rock Bar. Also, I am quite disappointed at the service of the hotel workers who acted quite high and mighty and were stingy with their smiles. Missing Club Med Bali at this point.
Askara Villa, Canggu
As we wanted somewhere to rest and relax after a night partying at Kuta, we booked a night at Askara Villa for our last night at Bali. This villa is still new and has only been opened for less than 2 years. Askara Villa is situated on the outskirts and if you're looking for a quiet holiday stay away from the crammed and dingy Kuta, Askara Villa is the right place for you. In the villa, you can choose to take a dip at the pool, watch a movie with a selection of movies provided by the Villa, or dip in the semi-outdoor bathtub.
Finding this place was a challenge even for our local cab driver and he called the manager of the place numerous times along the way. When we finally arrived at this hidden gem, the villa manager, Made greeted us and brought us to our villa. Our villa was Villa Anggrek, one of the 3 units of villas available. As we entered our villa, we were impressed by how spacious and clean the villa is. We could see that the villa was well maintained.
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| Panoramic view outside the villa featuring the from the left, our private pool, the villa and the outdoor kitchen/dining area |
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| Villa indoors, from the left, bedroom, walk-in-wardrobe and semi-outdoor shower and bath |
Service was excellent at Askara Villa. The staffs were friendly and even cooked breakfast for us at our villa. Made the manager, made sure we felt welcomed and was always there to cater to our needs. He helped to arrange for transportation to the airport and even handled our food orders an had them delivered to our villa.
As we were worn-out from the whole Bali experience for the past 6 days, we booked for a spa delivery straight to our private villa from Casa Spa. Minimum order per delivery is IDR130,000. We had a 1 1/2 hour body scrub with deep muscle and tissue massage for a total of IDR460,000 for two of us.
We spent our last night at Bali indulging in a bottle of Hatten wine, their locally made wine which was pretty good to be honest, and take away food from a nearby restaurant at Canggu which down right good ribs dining at the outdoor area of our villa and all we could hear was our voices and crickets chirping in the night.
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| Our dinner for two, at the outdoor dining area of our villa |
Nitty-gritty details:
Club Med Bali, Nusa Dua
Address:
PT Bali Holiday Village,
Lot 6, Nusa Dua,
Bali 80361,
Indonesia
Contact: +66(0)22530108
Rock Bar, Ayana Spa & Resort
Address:
Jalan Karang Mas Sejahtera,
Jimbaran, Bali 80364,
Indonesia
Official Website: http://www.ayanaresort.com/rockbarbali/wp/
Contact: +62-361-702222
Askara Villa, Canggu
Address:
Jalan Betaka, Banjar Pengilian,
Canggu, Kuta, Bali 11550,
Indonesia
Official Website: http://askaravilla.com/
Contact: +62-361-7850399
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