Sea Breeze is a small resort with just two pools and a little restaurant beachside with the most wonderful staff.

Each Tuesday evening guests are treated to a half hour show featuring traditional Balinese dancing.

The following day, the 29th was Chinese New Year and having exhausted ourselves sipping cocktails, lounging around the pool and taking massages we headed to the Candi beach resort because we heard they had three restaurants – Chinese, Indonesian and Italian. The first was booked out so we decided…when in Rome…. The setting was amazing, the staff too as well as the company. I’m afraid I can’t say the same about the food in fact at one stage I heard, ‘Yuck’, and that about summed it up. To assuage our delicate palates we headed along the boardwalk to the Italian restaurant for dessert. It just wasn’t our night. We acquiesced. Back to Sea Breeze to further explore the cocktail menu.

The 30th and Surinder was determined to make her mother’s birthday memorabe and find the perfect place for lunch. She had four criteria- spectacular ocean view, fabulous food, access to a great pool and within 20 minutes drive. Amankila fitted the bill.

Lunch was wonderful and when the Balinese dances accompanied by the gamelan began to snake their way through the resort, our curiosity sparked. We took a doorless car to the sea.

Serendipidously it was the day of the new moon, Amavasya, and we were preveliged to be invited to join the Balinese ceremony to bless and give thanks to the earth and the ocean. We donned the special sarongs, accepted the priest’s cleasing waters and placed rice on our forheads and throats to remind us to think and speak kindly.

Knowing how effective alcohol was in keeping things pure and uncontaminated, as proven by first aid to my toe, we headed for the bar…cocktails and canapes…however the Balinese had more in store for us.

Men chanting, the distictive sounds of the gamelan and the smoke from the coconut husks enticed us. The Kecak dance, fire dance, portraying Prince Rama’s battle with evil in order to rescue the princess Shinta was mesmerising and set against the breathtaking backdrop of the ocean at sunset, confirmed that Surinder had definitely given her wonderful mother a day to remember.