A very happy story!

The very beautiful Melka Excelsior Hotel at Lovina, owned and operated by Karl Günther Meyer

As you know, I am involved with the Kupu-Kupu Foundation in Ubud whose founder, Begonia Lopez, looks after disabled children. I have helped Begonia with her webpages and will assist in other ways while in Bali.

I had already planned to visit the Melka Excelsior Hotel in Lovina to swim with their dolphins. Then I thought what a thrill it would be for a disabled child to spend some time in a pool with a dolphin and on the spur of the moment emailed the hotel:

I am coming to Bali next week. I'll be volunteering some of my time at the Kupu-Kupu Foundation for Disabled Children and it occurred to me that some of those disabled children would be absolutely thrilled to be given an outing from Ubud to Lovina and to swim with your dolphins. Could this be arranged? What would the charges be?

To my complete surprise and delight, I received a reply within hours:

Dear Mr Goerman, "Warm Greeting from Melka Excelsior Hotel." Thank you very much for your kind email. Pleased to inform you that Mr Karl Günther Meyer as owner will be pleased to offer 10 children free swimming with dolphins. So, it will be highly appreciated if you can send the exact date of your arrival. Looking forward to hearing from you! Sincerely yours, Nadi

I promptly dashed off my reply:

Dear Nadi, dear Mr Meyer, thank you for your email and the wonderful news. You are indeed very, very generous and we will certainly spread the good word about your hotel. I have set up the Foundation's website and with your permission, I would like to add your hotel to the Foundation's sponsors. I have just now emailed Begonia Lopez of the Kupu-Kupu Foundation in Ubud to ask when it would be a good time to come to your hotel. Mr Meyer, I have already made some arrangements about my accommodation while in Bali but I try and see if I can also spend a few days at your hotel as a paying guest. In any event, I shall do a write-up about your hotel and include it on my many websites. Whereabouts do you hail from in Germany? I am from Braunschweig but I have been away from there since I was 19 years old and I now call Australia my home. Anyway, I'm sure there's lots to talk about when I get there. In the meantime, I shall try and get some date(s) from the Kupu-Kupu Foundation for our visit to your hotel.

Here is Begonia's reply to Mr Meyer:

Dear Mr Meyer, thanks a lot for giving us this unique opportunity to bring our friends with disabilities to your place and experience something totally new for them. Not only is swimming something they never did before (we have had a swimming program for the past two years but before that they had never even been in a swimming pool! Especially for people in wheelchairs it's an amezing experience!!!) but this time they'll be swimming with dolphins!! Wow! I am sure they will never forget this experience! I am thinking of coming on the 15th April; what do you think? What time should we be there? How long will it take? We have to bear in mind that from Ubud to Lovina it would take us around 2-1/2 to 3 hours to get to Lovina. Maybe we should leave Ubud around 8 am. Terimakasi banyak yap! Take care and all the best and may God bless you for this!