Bali and a Moment that Lingers...

By Christina Monk  ·  Vie de Luxe Travel

I'm sitting on cool marble steps in the early morning, outside — awaiting the sunrise. There is a kind of humid heat that wraps itself around me like a second skin. The sun is just beginning to rise over a mountain, and silhouettes of jungle — a thousand variations of green — stretch into the distance.

Quietly, I begin to hear the beating of distant drums. Is this real?

Then, one by one, the native monkeys begin. First one, then a dozen — and then exotic birds and insects chime in, until the whole jungle is a beautiful, wild cacophony. It's intense. It's surreal. And underneath it all, the most incredible, intoxicating scent of frangipani in the air. The smell of the ocean, just two hundred feet behind me. I am overwhelmed and overjoyed all at once.

"I was 8,200 miles from home. And I had never felt more alive."

It was my first morning in Bali. I remember thinking: everyone deserves to feel this once. Not from a movie. Not from a book. From their own two eyes, their own skin, their own breath. That feeling of being so completely, utterly present that the rest of the world falls away.

This is why I travel. It's why I do this work.

You have your own version of that morning waiting for you. Maybe you already know what it looks like. Maybe you just need someone to help you find it. That's what I do...

— Either way, I'm here. And I'd love to help you get there.

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