Another adventure for the family Gill and the Epstones........ after a huge amount of research done by Darling Robert, we decided to go to the Gili Islands. Namely Gili Meno! We knew it was the smallest island and were told there was only one hotel and one restaurant, and cold water showers etc. This is not true, there are a few restaurants, most of the hotels have gone due to the economy, the bombs, and because it is ghastly! Sorry, we stayed at Mallias Child Hotel. It was dirty, damp and virtually uninhabitable! The barbeque was horrid......... so with great joy, we chartered a glass bottom boat and went over to Gili Trawangan): A different world! We stayed at the Villa Ombak, clean, nice people, clean rooms and at last no rain. On Gili Meno it rained the WHOLE time, I had to buy a raincoat and it was freezing. Here the sun shone and all was well with the world.
We had great food at Scallywags, lunch and a barbeque dinner and left the next day for Bali. Oh and the youngest Gill member, Yoyo learned to swim without wings!!

Our travel agent really got it wrong in terms of travel time. We took a car from Seminyak to Dempasar Airport. The flight too 30 mins. We were collected by Harry who whisked us to the port, we jumped on our boat which took about 20mins to Bali Meno. So fom door to door around 3 hours and it was the cheapest way to go.

Good to be home in Seminyak:) More to come.............

a day in Ubud

OK, yesterday, we went to Ubud :( ok, we had lunch at Naughty Nuri, highly recommended all over the world! no SERIOUS - wow those Martinis are lethal. Their spare ribs, lamb chops, steak and barbeque chicken are outstanding. The place is like a shack on the side of the road, BUT YOU HAVE TO RESERVE A TABLE!.................. a bit like the Caprice or the Wolsey in Mayfair, London..... no really!

Chris, our favourite English artist, his gorgeous wife, Sylvia and their divine 7 year old daughter Yoyo, based in Shanghai, are with us on our first Bali adventure and thank goodness! Through the eyes of a child things are simpler, she preferred the Vanilla milkshake to the Martini at Nuri. Why not? Then we went to a cool art material shop where Chris chose his acrylic paints to cover our deeply boring huge pot with his unmistakable art which has seriously sold really well in Shanghai. Hopefully soon in Bali. Will let you know