Sunday, July 3, 2011

Lovina Beach, Bali, Indonesia: Buddhist Temple and Hot Springs

We are loving our time in Lovina Beach! We had booked 4 nights (June 29 – July 3) at a resort and spa on the shore of Lovina Beach, and we were using this time to fully relax and rejuvenate ourselves!

During our time here we decided to treat ourselves to a day at the spa. It was the most relaxing time I have spent so far! Since we wanted to have all our treatments together we opted for the “Romantic Couple Package”. Just because we aren’t a couple it doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the same luxuries that couples do! We had massages, body scrubs, body wraps, and foot treatments, but the best, and most romantic part, was the jacuzzi bath. They prepared an outdoor private jacuzzi bath for us and the top of the water was completely covered in flower petals! You couldn’t even see the water through all the petals. It was amazing.. and yes, very very romantic!

After our spa treatments we were so relaxed we didn’t feel like doing very much, so we ordered wine and room service and had dinner on our balcony.

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Here in Lovina Beach the tide goes down in the evenings and then comes back up in the mornings. When the tide is low you can see rocks peeping out of the water and sand. It was really beautiful seeing the sunset over the beach during low tide:

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The following day (June 1st) I was feeling a little under the weather. I caught a bit of a cold and spent most of the day reading and relaxing in the shade. After buying a plethora of different Indonesian cold and flu medicines and throat lozenges I was feeling better by the evening, so we decided to go out to downtown Lovina for dinner. We had a lovely dinner overlooking the beach:

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On June 2nd we spent the morning having some more fun in the pool. We are loving my underwater camera and it has provided us with much entertainment as we take photos and watch how funny (and sometimes quite ungraceful) we are underwater!

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Later that afternoon we decided to explore the Banjar Buddhist Temple and Monastery, Bali’s largest Buddhist monastery, located very close to Lovina Beach. It is a beautiful and peaceful monastery, and there were almost no tourists there.

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From there we went to the Banjar Hot Springs, a natural hot spring that was made into bathing pools by the Japanese when they colonized Indonesia. It is believed that this water can heal diseases. It is very beautiful, therapeutic and relaxing to sit in the warm water of the baths. These baths reminded me of the thermal baths I visited in Japan. The main difference: in Japan you are required to bathe in the nude, while here bathing nude is not permitted.

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It is especially nice to sit under the waterfalls:

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This was our last day and night in Lovina, so we took a nice stroll along the beach before saying goodbye to this lovely place.

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As lovely and relaxing as Lovina beach was, we were getting a bit tired of the slow paced atmosphere and wanted a bit more action in our days. So we decided to head back to Kuta, Bali on July 3rd to spend a few more days in that area before heading off to Singapore on July 6th!

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