Where you wake up every morning to the sounds of gentle water lapping against your bungalow door, because the guesthouse pool is adjacent to your room, and it is indeed a private pool because the other guests are old French couples who seem to fear the water.

Where bicycle rides through rice paddies and river canyons work over all of your senses, especially your muscles. Where a twosome is wise to “draft”, tour de France style, as they climb 17kms towards a sacred temple, and abandon the trek halfway to check out furniture stores stocked with distressed wooden gems.

Where you can get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but only on 9 grain country wheat, and washed down with organic juices that must be a hue of green.

Where monkeys have commandeered an entire forest, fit for tourist snapshots. Where watching monkey behavior for a prolonged time leads you to realize how close they are to humans. And where many monkeys die of heart attacks, because they shouldn't be eating the choesterol ladden peanuts handed out by tourists.

Where dirt cheap warung compete with fine dining, but all restaurants – from peanut and tempe infused Indo fare gobbled down at a big wooden communal table to juicy Belgian steaks served in a serene rettan furniture garden – nail it.

Where live music is a way of life, and where Cuban cover bands sport matching outfits (requisite resort whites, or Hawaiin shirts and cowboy hats) and impeccable harmonies.

Where daily offerings to the gods are scattered about the town like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs. Where your guesthouse owner makes a special offering of rice in a banana leaf laid carefully on your breakfast table every morning for good luck, which you darn well needed at the $4 hair salon.

Where Legong dancers, eyes darting and bulging wide like horror movie villains, sway to the manic, hypnotic, ringing, and arythmic tones of the gamelan.

Where desert is generally chocolate ice cream bars from the corner store, of which there are five brands (of bars and stores).