showing my own copy by way of introduction
Wayan Nuriayasih’s restaurant in the Balinese city of Ubud feels more like a place of pilgrimage than a tourist destination. Wayan, a woman in her late 30s wearing a sarong and a sequined Super Mario T-shirt, asks me to stick my tongue out, and looks at my palm. There’s good news and bad news, she says. I’ll live for a long time, but two men will leave me for other women before I find love – and I shouldn’t eat so many eggs.
A bewildering number of pills are placed on the table. These, she says, picking up a handful, will help with weight loss. Another set will improve my beauty. Wayan, who is hardly waif-like, swallows a couple of the weight-loss China travel
pills with a glass of water and a grin.
The luxury spa facilities on the beach at Jimbaran Bay, Bali
Peaceful place to rejuvenate: The luxury spa facilities on the beach at Jimbaran Bay, Bali
I notice that every so often, tourists, all of them female, hover on the threshold looking slightly envious… and I assume that in their back packs they all have a copy of the literary phenomenon Eat, Pray, Love. This bestselling memoir – and now Hollywood film – by Elizabeth Gilbert is like A Year In Provence, but with added mysticism and some extreme navel-gazing.
In her book, Gilbert tells the story of how, after getting divorced, she travels to Italy (where she eats a lot), then to India (where she prays a lot) and finally to Bali, where she falls in love, not only with the island but with Felipe, a Brazilian jewellery importer.
Since the book was published in 2006 (and Oprah raved about it on television), Bali has welcomed a steady stream of people hoping to ‘find themselves’.
Julia Roberts went one step further and spent last year making the film version, travelling between Italy and India before on the island with her husband and three children.
Julia Roberts’ character discovers relaxing Bali by bicycle in the film
Easy rider: Julia Roberts’ character discovers relaxing Bali by bicycle in the film
It was a tricky production, with paparazzi in Rome and protests (about the filming upsetting village life) in both India and Bali to contend with, but in their final destination – where the largely Hindu population are said to spend a third of their day in worship – the family had a haven to retreat to.
During filming, the family stayed at the two Four Seasons hotels on the island. The resort in Jimbaran Bay is a study in seclusion, a series of villas set into the hillside. Elsewhere in the world, the Four Seasons hotel chain offers lashings of dependable, Westernstyle luxury, but here its hotels get into the Bali vibe, mixing minibars with meditation areas.
Spa options include mind-blowing reiki treatments and, after just a couple of days, it seems only appropriate that the hotel’s Irish-born general manager combines the job with being a published poet.
It turns out that my villa is next to the one that Julia Roberts and family stayed in, and by peeking over the gate I could see a full-size swimming pool, an open-air dining room and a small army of sunloungers
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That night, as I pondered the significance of the gate that led into Julia’s villa, I realised that I was in the nanny’s quarters – but with an outdoor sitting room and its own infinity pool, it is probably the most luxurious hotel room I’ve ever stayed in. I decide that if I were to come back in another life, being a Hollywood star’s nanny might not be a bad form of reincarnation.
If Jimbaran Bay is privacy-minded, its sister hotel at Sayan has the cloistered calm of a monastery. a round, modernist building surrounded by a river and rice fields in the middle of the island, it’s like a doughnut of slightly austere sensory hedonism, where the only sound is the pounding of the river and the soft footfall of a spa therapist. This is where the cast moved to when shooting the central scenes of the film in Ubud.
In Bali, where nearly everyone speaks English, it seems almost pathetically easy to follow in Elizabeth Gilbert’s footsteps. The aptly named Nomad Cafe, in the centre of Ubud, seems to be a natural gathering point for Eat, pray, Love aficionados. Under whirring fans, I see a couple of women with well-thumbed copies. I sidle over, showing my own copy by way of introduction.
The secluded Jimbaran Bay resort
Idyllic: The secluded Jimbaran Bay resort
Cathy from Arizona is just back from seeing Ketut Liyer, charismatic healer Gilbert visits every day before Felipe arrives on the scene.
‘He said that I’d live until I was 103 and that I’d marry the love of my life,’ Cathy says.
Tia from California, who is taking time out from being a mortgage broker, looks a little nonplussed. ‘He said the same thing to me,’ she says.
‘How did you get to see him?’ I ask.
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