At 13:45 we landed on the island of Bali.  The airport seemed to be a fairy tale with his Balinese gate and typical Balinese buildings.  

At the border control (foreigners without visa) we got a brand new stamp in our passports as a first souvenir of our trip.  When two planes arrive at the same moment the customs officers have a lot of work and the tourists have to show some patience!   In the mean time our luggage had arrived too and we could rush into a new adventure.

We didn't get the chance to carry our luggage ourselves, taxi drivers are eager to help tourists in the hope that they'd take their taxi.  

There we were, with much too much luggage, in the heat of the afternoon (32°C), on an unknown island and without any idea where to spend the night.  The only thing we had was a few ads from the internet of some beautiful hotels.  We knew that in this time of year there would be a lot of vacancies in the hotels, so we went to an information desk and asked for a hotel for one night.  The lady suggested us hotel Kuta Jaya in Legian. 

The taxi driver drove us from the airport into the real Bali.  Here we saw a whole different world: low buildings, little, fuzzy stores, small streets,  the tropical lush green and lots of cars and motorcycles.  Finally the taxi stopped at an oasis of tranquility.

Hotel Kuta Jaya has 135 well furnished, air-conditioned rooms in cottage building with hot and cold water system, telephone, radio, satellite TV, and mini bar.  Each room has it private terrace. There is a pool with sunken bar surrounded by a Balinese tropical garden. There are 8 rooms per building. The tropical green lush between the cottages, the pool and  the lobby are very beautiful, but the rooms are a bit cool and old.  They were not what we expected from paradise.

So we did what we planned.  At the entrance of the hotel waited a few private drivers. We asked them if someone could drive us around to visit some of the hotels we saw on the internet.  In Kuta, Legian or Seminyak most of the hotels are located nearby shops, restaurants and bars, but also in the middle of traffic and tourists. You can't call this a quiet and typical Balinese neighborhood.  With thousands of trucks, vans, and local buses spewing out diesel, it has become quite smoggy in southern Bali.
Finally we visited a hotel that was situated in Canggu.  On the internet hotel Dewata Beach seemed to be heaven on earth, and indeed it was.  The receptionist showed us the surroundings and the rooms and promised us to pick us up the next day at Kuta Jaya.   

Bali's location near the equator assures that the lengths of day and night remain relatively uniform.  The sun comes up at 6 in the morning and goes under at 6 in the evening. The shortest day, in late June, and the longest day, in late December, have only about an hour's difference between them. A mother will indicate to her child when to return home from the market by simply pointing to the place in the sky where the sun will be.

To celebrate our first evening on Bali, I Ketut, our private driver, suggested us to have dinner on the beach of Jimbaran.  This is a very romantic place.  The tables are placed right on the beach, in the sand and musicians play love songs at your table.  We tasted the lobster and drank some wine..... 

At the end of a day full of new impressions we went to bed.

Day 2 : Wednesday 16th of may

After a good night's rest we enjoyed the breakfast in hotel Kuta Jaya, in the middle of the greenery and near the swimming pool.  At 11:30 am the shuttle bus of Dewata Beach Hotel was waiting for us and drove us to our Dream Hotel......

Look at some pictures of the hotel and read all about it : Dewata Beach Hotel