Can We Handle One More Day?

SATURDAY, MARCH 20

Our last full day at Layana. We are fully into chill mode and start out the day with breakfast on the patio. As usual Rich and Janel linger over coffee and conversation. I head out to stake our claim of beach chairs.

Nibblin' and Chattin'

I have previously determined my favorite spot under the trees on the beach and see that there are empty chairs. I summon the pool boy and he prepares three of them for us.

Our spot is being prepped

Janel and Rich wander back to the room for a bit and I get completely set up with my book and stretch out for a long read. Intermittently I look up to see what is going on at the beach and my surroundings. Not much.

My View (high traffic area)

Occasionally I drag myself out of the chair and take a quip dip in the warm ocean. The silence of my surroundings is broken with the Layana 2 speedboat comes in to shore. The speedboat is the preferred method of arrival/departure for Layana guests and its presence causes a mild stir. Everyone takes notice of who is arriving/departing. This morning's boat brings in a couple of happy guests. Everyone gets a full on greeting by the manager/staff complete with flower leis and fruity drinks.

Waitin' for the Layana 2

New guests arrive to a lei greeting

Excitement over. Janel joins me on the beach for a bit. We swim, read and repeat.

Tough life

It is nearing Smoothie Time and we move to the pool area. Rich joins us and claims he is going to take a hike while we are at the spa today. We cajole him into going to the bar and ordering our smoothly which he does quite nicely.

Time to order a smoothie for the girls

Today's smoothie is not that great - pineapple, banana, yogurt, orange and lemon (lime). It is very sour and we really don't care too much for it. Oh well - it looks good in the pictures. . .

That's a great-lookin' smoothie

Spa Time! Today Janel is having a 60-minute coffee scrub followed by a 90-minute Swedish Massage. I am having a 60-minute Balancing Facial and a 60-minute Foot Reflexology treatment. We already know the routine and fall into our treatments tables easily. My facial is great and the reflexology is "interesting." The therapist uses some kind of torture stick that she pokes, prods and rubs on my feet. Sometimes it feels good, sometimes not so much. However, reflexology is supposed to be good for all parts of your body (something about the feet are a map for your entire body, blah, blah, blah). I am not sure if I believe it, but I wanted to try it anyway. I will look up more about it later - when I am not so busy.

I return to the room before Janel and head out to the pool to wait on Happy Hour. No sign of Rich - he has been gone for about 3 hours by now. Finally, Janel joins me at the pool looking scrubbed, rubbed and happy. Happy Hour comes not a moment too soon and we order a Mai Tai (Janel's usual) and a Gin Fiz ("shaken hard and served fluffy").

It is around 5:30 and time for everyone else to vacate MY pool. They have all cooperated except for one girl who has the nerve to be swimming laps. Finally, the pool is all mine. Ahhhh. . .

MY Pool

We enjoy our first round of drinks, but are wondering about Rich. Surely he wouldn't miss Happy Hour. He does show up around 6:00 and says he had a great hike. He made it all the way into Saladan Town and saw a lot of the island. He even scoped out a place for dinner tonight (you mean you want to leave the resort???!)

Rich joins me in the pool, but does not order a drink. It seems he stopped for a small plate of fried rice and a couple of Singhas not too long ago. He is thoroughly satisfied. We float around for quite a long while and are so happy that no one has attempted to enter our pool.

We love our pool at sunset

Alone at last

I inform Rich of our bar tab at Layana

Best time of the day

What a lucky guy

What a lucky girl

Rich has convinced us to leave the resort area for dinner tonight and we agree to head into Saladan. We will need to walk to the end of the Layana driveway and start walking down the road. Rich assures us that a Tuk-Tuk will come along and offer a ride. Sure enough, we walk for less than 2 minutes and a tuk-tuk honks at us. We hop in and away we go for the 5 minute journey to the north of the island. It is an interesting trip with lots of small open-air restaurants and shops dotting the way.

Paying the nice tuk-tuk driver

Tuk-Tuks in Saladan

We wander for a bit checking out the various seafood restaurants on the water (on the bay, not on the beach). Most of them have their "catch" displayed outside so that you can choose the freshest. We settle on Saladan Seafood Restaurant.

"What's fresh today?"

We order soft-shinned crab in curry and Rich and Janel go up front to choose our fish. They have decided on a whole grilled sea bass. Perfect. We also order steamed rice and an omelet to round out our dinner. The crab arrives and is not exactly what we had pictured. We have been eating soft "shelled" crab where you eat the shell and all. Well. . . this is only soft "shinned" crab (whatever that means - we don't know how to find the shins on a crab!). It is in the shell and is smothered in curry sauce. The sauce is delicious and we crack and suck our way through the dish.

Our fish arrives and looks good. We dive in and start the pickin'. We have become experts on whole grilled fish this trip and while this one is beautiful, it is not as tasty as some others we have had. Oh well - we enjoy it anyway.

Sea Bass

When we are finished with dinner we grab another ride back to Layana. Our plan for this last evening has been set since we arrived on the island. We are going to purchase and set free a "Happy Balloon." There are vendors on the beach every night that sell and set off large paper balloons that sail out over the ocean and eventually burn out. You are supposed to put all your bad luck into them and let it go away from you.

We walk out to the darkened beach and soon find a balloon vendor. He lights it for us and we all put in any bad luck we may have. It is a cool feeling to stand on the beach together and watch it until we can no longer see it. It meets up with the stars in the brilliant night sky.

Igniting the balloon


Watching the set-up

Putting in our bad luck (don't worry, Rich touched it too)

cool

Up and away

We feel like our load has been lightened considerably with the releasing of the balloon and we walk back to Layana in the dark. We know this will be our last night in this beautiful paradise.