About gbooks

Our luxury travel service puts the ultimate touch on Journeys reflecting a unique experience of a lifetime; we design Legacy Travel for our clients. Our focus on bespoke Journeys entails more than a creative idea and a few reservations. We hand select our land teams, guides, behind the scenes experts - all who reflect our passion for excellence and personalized service. I’m passionate about travel and unique experiences; interested in meeting local people,studying architecture, discovering and learning as much as possible about every city I visit. I adore Paris, yearn to see more of Africa, a recent visit to Istanbul reminds me that there is much more to see in Turkey. A passage to India allowed me to explore the rich and diverse culture, and I barely scratched the surface of this amazing country. Love to sail, discover music and indigenous food of each region, seek out the best markets and design, and of course dine at the local restaurants. I particularly love roaming Africa, recently explored Argentina and India, which deserve another visit. A devoted Francophile, love all things Parisian, world music, excellent wines & champagne.

Say Yes to Soaked and Slathered! Morocco Hammam.

During a recent spa afternoon with my dearest friend and her visiting daughter, we chatted about about Hammams in Turkey and Morocco. I laughingly explained that there are no similarities in a U.S. Spa procedure compared to a Hammam in Morocco or Turkey.

My first Hammam Istanbul

When visiting Morocco, there are several Must Do’s: try tajine, haggle with a souk vendor, visit a hammam! Scrubbing by a stranger is an enlightening experience.

My first scrub was in the oldest public Hammam in Istanbul, where the female attendants in black underwear spoke no English – nor do I speak Turkish. Led by hand, like a child, the guest is often required to wear totally useless paper undies. A massive round heated marble slab covered with other paper panty clothed women is the first step, washed with buckets of warm bubbly water, we then gingerly sloshed across the marble floor to small private room, watery light emanated from sapphire glass in the domed ceiling. Deep steaming before the vigorous body scrub. A question in Turkish, I nodded yes, the response: a brass bucket of water hurled at my head! Waterboarding was my first thought, no, merely hair wash.

Marble is the key building component in these glorious ancient bathing palaces, I am always in awe, no matter the city.

The Hammam is one of the most ancient wellness rituals in the world.  For centuries in Arabia, the ritual was propagated by the Turks. When the Ottomans discovered Roman bath habits and combined these with their own, a whole new divinely purifying ritual emerged.

The process is similar in Morocco, I am a dedicated hammam junkie – every six days, I willingly let a stranger scrub me spotless, polish my skin and wash my hair by tossing a bucket of water at me. A practiced Hammam expert, I now know when the water bombardment treatment begins. The language complications are still widespread, Madame Like? Is Good?

In the old cities of Morocco, every public square has five things: a Koran school for children, a Mosque, a communal oven, a public fountain and a hammam. Public baths or hammams are an important ritual. Old Hammams in Morocco consists of a similar 3 room structure and offer a similar bathing procedure as the Turkish Hammam. Located near a mosque, they facilitate the purification of body and soul before prayers.

A five-star hotel, of course, offers an utterly luxurious experience! Marble palaces oozing opulence, dreamlike brass lanterns splash light patterns across marble or intricate tiled walls, scented steam, and a reverential hush create an intimate sanctuary devoted to your senses. Hammam is a fully immersive traditional treatment at most hotels. Just nod Yes!

In Marrakech, our exceptional guide took me to the oldest Hammam in Marrakech, Hammam Mouassine, built in 1562. Walking underground, he introduced me to the men who feed a hot fire all day and night to heat the huge water cauldrons which produce the steam in the hammam! I love that technology has not replaced these men; if you know where to look, ancient culture is still in place in many locales.  In the medina, a heap of wood and fragrant smoke usually leads to a community oven or here, to the underground caldron in the oldest hammam. Astonishing – a modern city which treasures its culture and history.

La Sultana Hammam

Customarily, the heat for the Moroccan hammam is provided by the farnatchi, the man in charge of tending the fire beneath the bathhouse that heats its floors and walls.  Women would bring a ceramic urn known as a tanjia of a beef stew to cook outside the fire all day – one of these pots was resting at the edge of the stove. Tanjia is the name of both the stew and the ceramic urn it’s cooked in.

You don’t need to drag the tubs of black scrubbing soap home, it’s available online! Elbahya Moroccan Black Soap for Hammam. With Eucalyptus and Olive Moroccan black soap also known as hammam beldi soap have been used for centuries to clean and nourish skin with vitamins and minerals. Made with olive oil and olive paste, this soap is extremely rich in vitamin-e it is a great moisturizer and emollient.

An ancient ritual as integral to Moroccan life as mint tea and tajine. Every Saturday is scrub day in my shower!

On My List Four Seasons Resort Bali at Sayan – Bali High

Usually, a business lunch with our Four Seasons Hotel peeps involves champagne and a scrumptious lunch; it’s been awhile since this lunch with one of my VV Favorite Four Seasons GM’s, Randy Shimabuku, but I’m obsessed with the arrival at Four Seasons Resort, Bali, where he is now the General Manager. He has hosted me in the Maldives, filled my daily schedule with activities from dawn to dusk and a dinner date with an activity director or he & his lovely wife every night. Although my days of resort activities were exhausting, I became an expert on the resort, smart guy, Randy! Stand by for personal photos!

Four Seasons Resort Bali at Sayan

Many travelers balk at beach travel that includes a flight over eight hours. My first vast flight time beach holiday was to The Brando and to the Four Seasons in Bora Bora. Both are worth the journey; Hawaii is not Tahiti! Mexico is not Tahiti!

In Bora Bora, a beautiful beach with an endless horizon, nothing but palm trees or a massive Mountain. Imagine gazing at Mount Otemanu from a bubbling jacuzzi at the Four Seasons Bora Bora, a vista is a thousand times more beautiful than a beach amid humanity. The long flights are truly worth the destination. Bora Bora is in the middle of the Southern Pacific Ocean. And then there are the brilliantly black skies dripping with stars, the Souther Cross comes to mind!

Four Seasons Spa Bora Bora

Maldives invitation seemed so far…longer flight time, initially I was skeptical. Nothing prepared me for the beauty of the Maldives – I stayed two weeks and could have stayed longer. So many activities, endless beauty.

Bali is closer than the Maldives, will you now consider it?! Combine a tropical island getaway with ancient rainforests, enchanting temples and rice fields  With three unique river rafting experiences, there’s something for everyone to do on Bali’s longest river.

Four Seasons Resort Bali at Sayan offers the world’s first arrival by River Raft. I’ve been offered a resort landing with a kite surfer, luckily the wind was up and when the GM took me to the cliff side restaurant where I would have jumped – I said I could never have jumped from there! A river raft arrival, how cool is this? Just say Yes, or Suksema.

For a unique check-in experience, arrive at the Resort by river raft – exclusively available to guests transferring from sister property, Four Seasons Resort Bali at Jimbaran Bay. Duration: 2.5-3 hours.

Famed for its dramatic treetop arrival via a suspension bridge, Four Seasons Resort Bali at Sayan  offers guests a 180-degree change of perspective, with Bali’s first hotel arrival by river raft.

Submerged in a river valley close to the artistic center of Ubud, Four Seasons Resort Bali at Sayan has launched the innovative rafting check-in as an option for guests transferring from its sister Resort, the beach front Four Seasons Jimbaran Bay on Bali’s south-west coast.

Avoid the usual 90-minute road transfer, travelers combining a stay at both Resorts can instead be taken by private car (60 minutes’ drive) to the departure point for a two-hour rafting adventure down Bali’s longest river, the Ayung.

While you enjoy a leisurely guided adventure through Class III rapids with views of lush jungle, rice terraces and majestic gorges, your luggage continues by car and precedes your arrival at Four Seasons Resort Sayan.

After discovering secluded sites – including a natural holy spring and an historic dam belonging to Bali’s UNESCO World Heritage-listed subak irrigation system – rafters land directly at the Resort’s Riverside Restaurant.

Waiting staff ensure a seamless check-in and within minutes guests are relaxing in their room, delivering a hotel arrival unlike any other.

This new arrival by river offers the opposite view with a slow reveal from under the canopy of trees, making it perfect for repeat guests who have experienced the bridge arrival before.

My mantra – the arrival sets the stage for the Journey, certainly applies to this magical adventure! It does not feel like a check-in experience, but rather a transition to another world, welcomed by the friendliest people on Earth, what could be better?!

Located amid two acres of rice fields and groves of fruit trees, vegetable, and herb gardens, 42 private pool villas and 18 suites enable guests to retreat from the world and embrace the valley’s healing energy. Float above treetops on a dramatic suspension bridge and cross into a different world. With locally inspired experiences and rice bowl-shaped architecture set against the lush Ayung River Valley, the Resort takes you closer to the heart and soul of Bali.

Unpacking List: It’s not the things you take with you that define your journey; it’s the experiences you have and the memories you bring home.