Lovely trip cut short by Corona
I would like to commend Alan and Jay for their fantastic work in getting our flights changed on Singapore Airlines in the nick of time. Cannot thank Alan enough for his rapid action
I use you although I can often get slightly cheaper elsewhere because of the person to person back-up service that you provide
No problem at all
Marshall was very professional and friendly and very helpful with any queries
Our flight got cancelled for part of our return leg and Byron was excellent at communicating and rescheduling
Very efficient. Superb service.
It was our choice to go to Kuta but wouldn’t go again! Town is very tacky now, though our hotel was great.
Please allow more time for a connecting flight if it’s to be at a large airport eg Dubai
Great service as always. Great experience!
Richard organised everything and as usual it went to plan
Great suggestion on the hotel
First class
Went like clockwork
Love the staff. They do the best they can to get a good deal and I will definitely be using DialAFlight in the future.
Excellent service. Always use when booking our longhaul flights.
Excellent, friendly service. Thank you for your help
Everything went smoothly
Very good customer service.
Top class service as usual. Many thanks for your care and attention
Excellent customer service, you kept me informed all the way... Definitely recommend you to my family and friends.
Thank you for all your hard work. Everything was perfect.
Everything went perfectly. Four seasons Bali upgraded me. Hotel recommendation in Kuala Lumpur perfect. Ground transfers from destination Asia perfect company
Booking, support and travelling all top service highly recommended.
I use Ewan for all my travel and have recommended him to everyone for over 16 years.
Problems with cancelled flight and lost luggage but you were very helpful in trying to assist us
Another fab holiday!
As usual everything went like clockwork. Callum did all he could,as per usual.
The customer service I received from Harry and his team was superb which is why I keep returning to book my flights with DialAFlight every time I travel.
Robbie was excellent
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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