The B Side: Starwood Preferred Guest Binders

Sorry for the laziness and lack of posts, I think it's been like 10 days or something. There are a myriad of excuses from sheer laziness, to poor Internet, being towards the end of the trip, and having too much fun to spend time on the iPad typing. Currently we are in Ubud, Bali with 6 days left to go, but thought I'd catch up on the pervious two stops in Bali: Seminyak and Nusa Lembongan...

After flying from Bangkok to Bali, we headed right to Seminyak, which is on the southwest coast of the island of Bali, which is in Indonesia. We were stoked to explore a totally new country and region, as a sort of vacation from our vacation. Plus, we were pretty stressed from our week on Koh Chang. While it is an awesome resort town, its mostly a vacation spot for Australians, and not necessarily a Mecca of Bali traditions. Unless drinking Bintang beer is a tradition. The main reason we went was to spend the remaining Starwood points I had left, which we did by redeeming 5 FREE nights at the W Retreat and Spa. If you haven't heard me say it before, WE LOVE STARWOOD.

Nothing beats a free room at a 5 star resort, especially after 6 weeks of traveling, and we made sure to take full advantage of it. Our days consisted of pool time (which consists of doing the doggy paddle from end to end and reading in a day bed), walking along the beach and into town for breakfast, walking down the beach for a $5 massage ($100 in the hotel), down the beach for a $5 lunch ($30 by the pool), and having a beer for awesome sunsets EVERY NIGHT while the DJ at the W busted some hip tunes. We did our best to take advantage of all these free amenities, while stretching our flashpacker budget to the max... Including me getting called out by pool security for smuggling in outside sammies. But don't worry, we still had some fantastic dinners while playing the Honeymoon card. Technically, that's still legit.

Trying to think of what else we did there, but getting into a state of total and utter relaxation is all that comes to mind. The "off the beaten track" and "culture" stuff would have to wait. After Seminyak, we headed to an island off of Bali called Nusa Lembongan.... more on that, maybe tomorrow...