Today, Friday, is our last day in Bali, we leave our hotel this afternoon for a 19 hour journey back to Manchester, where Graham and Diane head north to Hull and we stay overnight before flying back to Alicante on Sunday morning.

This has been a journey of two halves, a lively cruise and a chilled beachside Hotel. The cruise was brilliant, excellent food and drink, service and staff were amazing, stops at ports were perfectly placed to explore in a day (all except one), the ship was comfortable and could be as busy or as quiet as you wanted and waking every morning to a different view was interesting and refreshing.

The Hotel stay has been the opposite, chilled and relaxing, more suited to a honeymoon visit 😊 The location of the Hotel (on a peninsular and south of the capital Denpasar) plus the time of year we are here meant traffic was beyond chaotic, limiting our touring of the Island. We would liked to have visited Ubud, a spiritual and cultural area north of here, but 3+ hours in traffic to get there was not an option we were prepared to consider. The Hotel is typically Balinese in spirit and style but offers nothing in the evenings except a guitarist or pianist for a few hours between 6 and 9pm, other than that it’s Balinese Bongos from dawn to dusk, a sound that is now driving us mad 😂

I think it’s safe to say we are all pleased to be going home, back to British staples (we’ve missed bacon and sausages this past two weeks!!), our own beds, the cooler weather and a proper cup of strong Yorkshire tea and Spanish coffee!!

It has rained whilst we’ve been here, hard, sudden and heavy but then the sun comes right back out and dries up all the rain.

Finally, Graham and David managed to fit in a scuba diving day, few pictures showing them preparing to leave, spotting a turtle (as well as other things) and returning very tired. More photos to follow another day!