So we were back on the coast and staying in a place called Legian which is just up the beach from Kuta. Pretty much the same as Kuta. Extremely busy with lots of bars and restaurants. A few days of beach and commercialism before we headed off to Bangkok! Massive highlight was going to a beach side restaurant/club called Potato Head, recommended by Prodge as he'd been before on another trip. Our last night blow out meal before Alex and Prodge went back to Jak...

We were planning investigating Northern Bali for a bit of walking etc. Ha! Not with our sore legs we weren't! So we decided to head to Ubud for a bit of culture instead. Ubud was on the way back towards Kuta anyway so was a nice stop off for a few days along the way. The main town consists of two or three main streets all heaving with restaurants, cafes, art galleries, museums, handicraft shops, furniture shops, tat shops, clothes shops, hotels and guest hou...

So after our strenuous efforts to (nearly) reach the top of Mount Rinjani we decided to have a bit of recovery time. So the day after we got back to the Gili Isles we left again on a fast boat to Amed on Bali. Well it would have been fast if it had left on time. It was due to leave at 9am and actually left about 1pm. Even once we'd left we didn't actually go very fast as we had to make 3 different stops to other islands. Then it took another half an hour ...

For anyone who doesn't know, Indonesia sits directly on top of the “ring of fire” where two tectonic plates meet. This means there are a lot of earthquakes in the area and many of the islands have volcanoes. The closest one to where we were in the Gili Islands was Mount Rinjani, the second highest in Indonesia and on the island of Lombok – visible from where we were. After much umming and arrrring we decided that we should try and climb it. ...

After a one night stop off on Lombok (next island along from Bali) to meet up with the lovely Alex and Prodge (aka James), we were on our way to the Gili Isles.  The Gilis are three beautiful islands just off Lombok. Gili Air, Gili Meno and Gili Trewangon. Think turquoise blue waters and lovely white beaches. The pace of life is pretty chilled out on these islands. There are no tuk tuks or any vehicles, only horses and carts to take you to where you need to go....