What 11129 DialAFlight clients thought of Asia

You have been excellent as always. Will book soon.

Love DAF! Debbie always makes everything so easy and seamless.

We were dealing with George who made the whole process easier and enjoyable. Will certainly use again.

Wonderful service. Lloyd could not have been more helpful.

Very happy with the service, thanks to Adam.

Sally was brilliant in sorting the trip out for us

All went well. Kylie was brilliant as always. Really felt she was watching our backs on this trip ,

Jonathan Greaves was excellent. This is why I keep coming back to DialAFlight.

Samuel was very helpful and went above and beyond for us which was very much appreciated

As always great service

Thank you Jordan our trip to Dubai to visit family went well. You never let us down.

Great service as always

Excellent service from Matilda and will continue to book with DialAFlight

Excellent service from our agent Jake.

Thanks to Niall for a wonderful and unforgettable honeymoon.

Very helpful and professional team, rare these days.

Will use in the future .. loved the clear way things were dealt with and the way checks were made. Love the personal service.

Despite difficult times in Sri Lanka we had a great trip and flights were seamless thanks to Mason.

Jake Chudasama is always very polite, efficient and helpful. Thank you

Great suggestions for hotels, flights and timings, all worked out well

Great staff, always on the ball.

As always a fantastic service in difficult times

Extremely helpful and appreciated call prior to departure

Fantastic service as always. Guy stayed in contact at all times to ensure the journey went as smoothly as possible.

With things changing from day to day Darren and staff were amazing. We thank all of you.

Great service as always - very thorough and helpful

Great holiday and good flight with Scoot, but don’t want to fly from Gatwick next time. Heathrow every time with whoever is going at a decent price

Fantastic service from Ryan as usual - already booked next holiday with DialAFlight and looking forward to more.

Really liked the follow up calls and check in's before departure. The App is fantastic, used it every day while I was away and regularly leading up to the trip.

Malcolm was great and extremely helpful with all my questions.

Blissful Bali

Lift your spirits in beautiful Bali

From seaside yoga to holy water ceremonies and charming culture - this tropical island makes the spirits soar, as Alice Hart-Davis found out

We had only just set off white-water rafting through the jungle gorges of the Ayung River when our guide began flinging water over us with his paddle.

The water was too calm for his liking – this was his way of livening up the trip.

We retaliated in kind until we were all soaked, but then, just to make sure we were fully drenched, he beached the raft under a pipe ditching a small stream into the river and made us stand beneath it for photographs. They like a giggle in Bali.

Snorkelling and swimming with turtles on a trip to the Gili Islands

SETTLING IN

By then, we'd been in and around Bali for a week and had acclimatised to the warmth, the drifting scents of incense sticks, the greeting of everyone with a hands-in-prayer Namaste gesture, and the gaiety of the little temples that peek over the walls of family compounds, their pillars decked out in bright fabrics.

And we were getting hooked on sambal, the tangy, spicy tomato dip that comes with crackers wherever you order drinks. We had also learned that not taking things too seriously is a way of life here, even in the tranquil, opulent surroundings of the Four Seasons at Sayan, set in the jungle just outside Ubud in the middle of Bali.

Aerial yoga at Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay

SO MUCH TO LEARN

I thought our cycle tour guide, Agus, was joking when he suggested we stop for a cat-poo coffee. We had been deluging him with questions as we pedalled through open countryside north of Ubud. How many rice crops did this green and fertile island yield each year? Four.

What were the tall, frondy bamboo decorations going up outside every house? Penjors, to celebrate the national festival of Galungan.

The cat-poo-cino turned out to be for real. It's made with coffee beans that have been eaten, and excreted, by a sad, fierce-looking creature called a Luwak, which makes the beans milder in flavour, once they have been washed, roasted and ground. Oh, yes.

A TOUCH OF LUXURY

The Four Seasons at Sayan is an extraordinary building that clings to the steep side of a river valley, like some retro James Bond baddie's lair.

You sashay across a treetop-height walkway towards a large lily pond that appears suspended in mid-air. The hotel is beneath said pond, with a stupendous view across the river valley. The Obamas stayed here last year.

I knew from friends who honeymooned here in style that Bali is not just for backpackers, though even in the luxurious hotels lining the Ayung, the vibe is relaxed. Everyone is friendly and laidback.

Take a tour of Ubud and take in the beautiful scenery

WHERE TO VISIT

Most people hang out on the pale-sand beaches at its southern tip. They might get as far inland as the hippyish town of Ubud but, with its yoga centres and art studios.

We started on the beach. Steering clear of Kuta – the Magaluf of Bali – we stayed in the beachy, more upmarket Seminyak district.

Then, in search of an island paradise of the sort that brought the first hippies here in the Sixties, we ventured across the Lombok Strait to the Gili Islands. Gili Gede, off the south coast of Lombok (the next Indonesian island to Bali), boasts the super-chic hotel Kokomo Gili Gede

Back on Bali, my husband Matthew had a massage using milk and honey scrubs at Sayan. Then he agreed to spend our final afternoon enjoying a three-hour 'Blessings of Bali' ceremony.

The Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay resort offers a stunning and peaceful setting

A BIT OF PAMPERING

By now we had moved on to another Four Seasons hotel, at Jimbaran Bay on Bali's southernmost tip, where the blessings take place in the seafront pavilion. We did aerial yoga, we meditated. We 'bathed' in the reverberating din drummed up by the massage ladies on 3ft gongs.

After a muscle-probing massage, we donned sarongs and sat, eyes closed, as the priest chanted prayers – and concluded the ceremony by tipping a litre of blessed water over our heads. It was my turn to giggle – respectfully, of course.

First published in the Daily Mail - April 2018

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