Back down at the bottom of Ijen, our next stop was Ubud, in Bali - a journey which seemed endless, particularly after our 2.30am wake up call. After two buses to get to Java's eastern harbour, a ferry to Bali, an extremely hot 5hr bus trip to Denpasar and then a slow, traffic-heavy taxi (fed up with public transport by now) to Ubud, we finally arrived around 7pm, 10hrs after we had started. After a shower and some food it was a quick dash around town on our newly acquired scooter, to find somewhere that was showing the Wimbledon men's final, Murray vs Djokovic. We thought Ubud, with its large number of expats was bound to have various places showing it but we were struggling to find somewhere - where's an Irish Pub or sports bar when you really need it? - but we eventually found the match being shown in a reggae bar and club, of all places. We were exhausted but determined to watch the end of the match and it was certainly worth it!

The next few days in Ubud were bliss, mostly because we didn't do very much. We'd found a great little family-run homestay, with its two guest rooms just an extension of a family home, and we were treated to delicious breakfasts, traditional Hindu customs such as blessings of incense at the foot of our room, and lovely Balinese hospitality. Most of our time was spent catching up with various bits of travel admin, and exploring Ubud by scooter while trying to avoid the numerous torrential rain showers - which were frequent, despite it being Bali's dry season. We asked one local if all the rain was normal, to which he replied: "No, it is what the intellects of the world call 'global warming'".

We spent our evenings enjoying a mix of both excellent Indonesian and Italian food, as well as a performance of Balinese dance in Ubud Palace - which we were slightly underwhelmed by. The costumes were stunning, but the first five minutes was probably the best and after that it all felt a bit samey - either we just didn't appreciate it enough, or we were unlucky with the dance troupe that we saw, but still, good to have seen it for ourselves at least.

Oh and Simon and I spent a rare day apart, when I treated myself to a wonderful day of pampering, including a hair cut, a pedicure, a few hours shopping and a 2hr-long Balinese massage (listed in order of decreasing necessity). It was incredibly indulgent, and I felt that I should have signed up for some hard labour/community service the next day to balance it out. Unfortunately we left the next day and the guilt didn't last that long anyway. Simon busied himself with travel admin, and the discovery of both a large supermarket (we have become weirdly excited by foreign supermarkets) as well as the Four Seasons' Resort, no doubt trying to pretend to be a guest to take advantage of their facilities.

Despite the rain we loved Ubud: well-known as Bali's cultural centre, we could have stayed much longer, taking in more bars, restaurants and art galleries, the lush gardens and surrounding rice paddies, Hindu temples and monuments, and very peaceful and lovely people. But we were also equally keen to escape the rain and have some proper beach time, so we headed off for the Gili Islands, a cluster of islands between Bali and its neighbour Lombok.

The Gilis are beach paradise idyll: three separate islands with white sand beaches surrounded by turquoise sea. Each island has different levels of chill versus party levels, and we chose to spend the next four nights on Gili Air, inbetween the more party island of Gili Trawangan and uber tranquil Gili Meno. Gili Air supposedly has the strongest local character, and is a gorgeous little island, with no motorised traffic and only horse-drawn carts (as is common on all the Gilis) but just enough low key bars and restaurants to keep us entertained.

For us it was the perfect mix of chill time and both sea and land exploration - you can walk round the whole island in two hours on its sandy track, which we did one afternoon and saw a bit of local village life, to the sounds of the Muslim call to prayer….probably the more incongruous setting to hear that, at least for us anyway. We went out on a snorkelling trip one day which took us to neighbouring Gili Meno and Trawangan, and although the coral and fish life wasn't great (possibly due to a lot dynamite fishing techniques, such a shame) we did encounter two sea turtles below us in the sea, as well as lots of baby ones in the turtle sanctuary on Gili Meno.

The various happy hours and wonderful food (alternating between fresh fish and wood-fired pizzas) kept us more than happy each evening, and although we didn't quite escape the rains, the paradise island setting more than made up for it (and we know we really can't complain about a little bit of rain….).