Bali with Five under 8's

​Our travels have taken us to our fifth country, Indonesia. Over 200 million people in the biggest Island Nation in the world. Over 17,000 islands and in the last two weeks we've so far made it to four of these. Only 16,996 to go!

Splashing at Splash, Bali. Jess and Uncle Dave.

We began in Bali, Sanur beach. Some good points and some not so good points.
The rooms we had were fair but I was put off by the middle aged European men who entertained some overnight visitors on our second night there. The beach was a bit littered with some rubbish on both the beach and in the water - all plastics. Plastic bags, plastic cups, plastic wrappers, plastic straws. Once again we were confronted by the tricky feeling of how much rubbish there is in the world and what we ourselves are contributing to it with our many water bottles and straws consumed in the last 6 months.

On the plus side, Sanur has a stunning jogging path - 6 km long - which runs along the beach and gives beautiful views of the island's volcanoes. Just perfect for a pre-sunrise workout. Plus, next to where we were staying, we found a grassy area with a festival feel to it, surrounded by food stalls and bars where we enjoyed football, beers and good food for cheap.

After Sanur, we moved north to Ubud where we stayed in an awesome 5 bedroom jungle villa (as described on Airbnb) with the extended family, Mike's mother Shirley and brother Dave, and wife Rachel and their three children Felix (2), Olivia (5) and Naomi (7). So now we are a group of ten!

Ubud traffic was worse than I imagined even after having been warned by Rupert and Sarah, but despite the many hours sat in jams we still enjoyed four days, somersaulting in the pool, visiting waterfalls, hanging out at Bali Splash (the poshest water park I've ever visited) and generally hanging out with the much missed family.

It was great to catch up with Rupert, Sarah and Jermiah in Ubud where we had a lovely evening, the kids all got along great, the food was good, the atmosphere was super relaxed and once again we were reminded how lucky we are to be on this adventure meeting such lovely people.

The next day, water park won over day trip round the island so we hit one of the three on the island, Splash.  Although expensive for Indonesia, Splash was great for our needs. Enough slides to keep the two and three year olds happy plus a slightly lax attitude toward height restrictions on the bigger slides meant that even Jesica got on Big Red (which was great for her but not so good for mum and dad who had to carry her up the eight flights of stairs to get to it!). The older kids (Dave and Mikes) were kept amused by the super bowl that deposited you into a funnel with a hole in the bottom which dropped you out in a deep pool beneath and the super slider a huge racing mat slide which picked up some serious speed.  The young boys were happy going round and round the crazy creek whilst we recovered from the supersliders and the day was seen off with a few ice cold beers in the sun followed by a great dinner at Fly Cafe. 

One word of advice to anyone looking for things to do in Ubud, steer clear of the Sacred Monkey Forest, We were only in there for about 20 minutes and Rachel got a little closer than she wished with one of the Macaques, after a visit to first aid and a week and a half in the sea and sun the bites have nearly disappeared. Ouch!

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Uncle Dave and Jess making a splash at Splash, Bali.