From the minute you arrive in the pristine palimanan and Jogya stone-walled lobby of The Balé (Jl Raya Nusa Dua Selatan, T: 0361 775111) you realize this is a place where everything stops. Here is a part of the island that is tranquil, serene and truly removed from the madness of the outside world.
Greeted by a friendly, gracious and quite beautiful staff, you get the feeling that they know who you are and exactly what you want from your stay. After being escorted by my butler Winnie through the beautiful grounds, to my spectacular room, I am already eager to indulge in my welcome massage at the spa, lunch at Bliss café and dinner in the acclaimed Faces restaurant. Winnie gave me a run down of all the fun things I could do while I was staying, with top priority going to the many spa treatments on offer.
Winnie gone and privacy achieved I lost the clothing, opened the patio doors in the bathroom and jumped into the villa pool. My room, number thirty-six (highly recommended), is one of the new deluxe villas overlooking the lagoon and pristine greens of the neighboring Bali Golf and Country Club. It is so beautiful and private that you feel as if you can do whatever you want. All I wanted to do was stay there and relax but the spa was beckoning this new arrival.
The journey to the spa (located behind the lobby) gave me a chance to check out some more of the grounds. The spectacular landscaping and clean, unfussy, contemporary architecture of The Balé and its many linking walkways create an extremely stylish ambience that many an aspiring ‘designer hotel' in Bali could learn a thing or two from.
The welcome massage was sublime but immediately left me wanting more, so pen in hand I booked the hot stone massage and a facial for the next day. Hungry from all my exertions, I decided to have a big lunch in the spa's Bliss restaurant. The menu is made to compliment a number of the spa's treatments. With fresh, clean healthy food it was hard to choose what to sample, finally, I opted for the fresh cucumber soup, ricotta frittata and seared tuna. I felt like a glutton but it all looked so tempting and besides, this is healthy dining, right?
My big lunch knocked me out and all I could think of was getting back to my beautiful villa and relaxing. I stopped by the lobby to choose a film from their extensive collection and headed back to my room to chill out. Big bed, yummy sheets, huge flat screen TV and everything I could want before me, I popped on the movie and sank into a heavenly slumber. Later that evening I woke to a ravenous hunger, and headed to Faces for dinner. A t-bone steak, fries and a Chilean Shiraz was just the culinary relapse I needed after the well-being spa lunch, though, to be honest the portions were huge and I was not able to finish my plate.
Making my way back to the villa I decided that one day, my dream house would have all the same features as my room at The Balé down to the swimming pool that emerges from the bathroom to the sweeping views. This is how I want to live!
Morning came and I could not be bothered to leave my bed. No problem at The Balé, breakfast was one phone call away and before I knew it I was dining on the lounger beside the pool: fresh juices, coffee and a NYC bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon to satisfy my NYC roots, I was good to go. A quick dip in the pool was enough to motivate me towards the spa for the day's treatments, though I was reluctant to leave my room, after all there was still a bath to be taken in the huge tub, more sun poolside and, well so much I could get up to in my not-so-little sanctuary.
Treatments done and in a total state of bliss, it was time to head back to “real” life… reluctantly I left The Balé, but not before I had signed the visitors' book, ‘I will be back', and said some farewells to the lovely staff who I had got to know in my short stay.
Leaving The Balé was quite a shock; somehow in my short time there I had completely forgotten about the traffic and the hustle bustle of the world outside. No worries, now that I know about this gem of a place I am sure to return.
As day turns to night in Nusa Dua so the mood shifts to cocktails at Eight Degrees South in the luxurious ambience of The Conrad Bali Resort & Spa (Jl Pratama, T: 0361 778 788). The soft onshore breeze sweeps through the open front restaurant and alang-alang bales on the beach, lending itself to a perfect martini moment (classic chic is the order of the day here) before we surrendered to the allure of Executive Chef Gary Rosen's Spice and headed upstairs in the resort to the ocean view balcony of arguably Nusa Dua's finest of fine dining establishments. Spice truly is devoted to overt culinary pleasure in every sense, a medley of Middle, Near and Far East recipes with stunning flavours to appease even the most demanding of palates and I had been looking forward to sampling the dinner menu there since I first heard of Rosen's reputation for excellence in the kitchen.
I couldn't restrain myself from ordering the crispy duck with mandarin pancakes, spring onions, cucumber and plum sauce for the first course - there's something irrefutably appealing to applying the finishing touches to your dinner at the table, forming finger length pancakes with tasty duck morsels and refusing to entertain any notion of sharing the finished effort with your dinner guests. With this quality of cuisine I justified (rather weakly) that selfishness can safely be put slap bang next to goodliness when dining at Spice. I hurried myself through the selection process for the second course, as the options were far too appealing to initiate a deliberation process, finally settling on the green tea risotto with wok-seared scallops, delectable nuggets of ocean fresh fare perfectly balanced by the density of the tea- infused Arborio grains. Main courses at Spice fall into three categories – ocean, poultry and bird and land and field but I was scouring the menu for something a little different, a dish that one won't find in too many other restaurants on Bali. My persistent demanding led me to the sautéed veal liver flavoured with cumin and balsamic pan juices matched to perfection with a very fine bottle of Finca Valpiedra Reserva, Rioja 1999.
There was no room for dessert after the richness of the veal livers and the size (this is a big plate, surprisingly so for such a venue that could just as easily skimp on the portioning) so I opted for a single espresso and picked my way home to the ocean facing suite on the fourth floor to lap up the view of the Balinese water garden and expansive swimming pool of The Conrad. Whisky in hand on the balcony, surveying the activity around the hotel grounds one lapses into the sort of lethargic contemplation of the finer things in life, that periodical moment of reflection only ever prompted by indulging in the finer things that life can afford.
Kicking myself the next morning for booking such an early massage (the comfort factor of the beds at The Conrad borders on being a productivity risk) I made my way towards the Jiwa Spa after a reviving breakfast in the club lounge for a protracted Ocean Flow massage. The signature Ocean Flow treatment at The Conrad is designed to ebb away your cares and rebalance the body and mind with a combination of rhythmic full-handed acupressure and combined effects of aromatherapy not dissimilar to the movements of the ocean waves. The spa treatment countered my morning's intake of coffee and sent me back to a rather inactive state of wellbeing as I drifted through the lobby to the waiting limo for a rather inconvenient return to the working week.
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