Dear cleaner.

I know. There’s mess everywhere. This my life!

I know, someone used that pan to eat their corn flakes with a knife.

In the cupboard there, it’s a mouldy avocado that I forgot about,

I waited 5 days to eat it, now I’m sad to throw it out.

And that tupperware container is housing a cockroach that is dead,

It had a proper burial and real tears were shed.

You had better watch your step,

There’s a home made booby trap for a fly they want to keep as a pet.

There’s a pile of rubbish there, but this I tell you please don’t throw it out,

They’re using cardboard to make a maze for their roaches they think I don’t know about.

I know! We’ll pay the damages for the bathroom sink thing,

Tarzan over there thought the u bend was a swing.

There’s a dirty foot print on the wall, I think i know who’s,

Its the person in this family that won’t wear shoes.

I know you come to light the bug repellent thing each night,

Please don’t do this we have hidden it so this place doesn’t catch alight.

The cushions I know are not where they should be,

They are being used as a raft to get away from their enemies.

You might wonder what the coffee table is doing on its side for,

Its being used as a barricade in a nerf gun war.

My daughter’s wet the bed again and I’ve covered it with this expensive looking towel,

She did three wees before bed so I can’t explain to you how.

I know the toilet seat is covered with wee again,

No matter how many times I come to wipe it, it looks like this the same.

So thankyou for coming and cleaning up after us

I’m sorry we are so messy and make such a fuss

But thankyou thankyou thankyou for putting up with us.

So we have had an awesome time on this gorgeous island. Here’s an update on our travels.

After our stay in Sanur we travelled up to Ubud. We booked a driver for 2 whole days to see sights around the area (this only cost £20 for one day).

We went to see a waterfall and I have never actually seen one before so it was a glorious sight to behold. The kids however did not like it because it was too loud and there was many many many steps that were even more taxing on the way back up so we only stayed for about 15 minutes

We did the rice terraces which was an awesome experience. They were burning the fields after harvest in some parts when we got there.

This (picture below) is rice that has been harvested ready to take to a machine that makes the rice come out the husks

We saw several families working to take care of their rice and harvesting it

They use cows to plow the land after it has been harvested and burnt up. This is a plow they use that goes behind a cow and a person sits on the back to rotovate the ground.

The next day of our tour was the coffee plantation where we got to taste different types of coffee.

Bali is famous for their Kopi Luwak coffee which is apparently the tastiest and most expensive in the world. It is made from weasel poop! The weasels choose the best tasting coffee beans, eat them and the workers collect their poop. It goes through a process that makes it hygienic for human consumption. Then voila you have coffee that is strong in taste but low in caffeine.

This is a picture of the process of Kopi Luwak coffee. Weasel poop on the right. After it has been cleaned in the middle. And ready for grinding on the left.

Ethan tried the poo coffee

These were our coffee and tea tasters

We’ve been here a month now and I’ve been truly humbled. I’ve been humbled, not so much by the poor (although that plays a part) but the simplicity of things here.

The people here are happy and they just get on with what they’ve got. They have access to the same tools and equipment as we do but they aren’t so money hungry as we are in the west. They don’t want the biggest and the best.

At our very hotel the people here actually climb a 10 foot wall to water the plants. They dont even use a ladder! They cut their grass barefoot sitting on the floor with a pair of shears.

The poor are allowed to set up a stall on any pavement and sell their wares. Ladies walk round with these baskets on their heads, full of wares (knives, fans, bracelets) and they come in to restaurants to ask for customers and the restaurants don’t mind a bit.

Another thing, is that people seem to trust each other here and they don’t steal each other’s stuff! The staff all charge their phones in a shared kitchen with staff and visitors as well and their phones are still there when they come back. Back home in dear dear London you can’t even leave your child’s drink bottle at a park by accident and it still be there one hour later. In fact it’s not even worth your bother going back there because you have about a 98% chance that your efforts will be in vain because someone will have pinched it.

The most humbling thing of all is nobody is running around acting like entitled b@stards like we do in west. Crying over spilt milk!

As you go about day to day life you will see things like a 1 meter square hole in the pavement with a 6 foot drop below coupled with prongs of iron sticking out the bottom. No one is financially crippling someone due to law suits for loss of earnings for 6 years due to an injury. No. Every one just walks by the big hole in the ground and no idiot falls down and tries to milk the government for all its worth.

So. Bali. Our first week has flown by!

First of all, I do appreciate the sunshine! It’s not hard to please me. I am British, so any kind of consistent weather is pleasing. In England we go from snow boots to shorts and t shirts in a week.

So Bali seems to have no traffic laws at all. There’s no speed limit, the side of the road on which you drive on does not seem compulsory and neither does stopping at red lights. We had one taxi driver, he missed his turn and evidently the way to get round this was reversing 10 meters along a dual carriage way beeping his horn to alert others.

This is a picture that just doesn’t make sense to my English brain. There are 3 adults and 2 children on this moped. It’s insane.

We tried out a couple of local attractions. First one we did was a water park called waterbom which would have been great if any of our children wanted to do anything! They spent most of the day in one foot of water collecting flowers and stones from the edges to add to our ever expanding collection of nature. For us it wasn’t worth the money as what our children enjoyed they could have enjoyed for free at our hotel but if you have more adventurous children or teenagers this would be a great place to bring them.

The second attraction we tried was turtle island and this was more successful with the kids. It’s a charity that take in injured turtles (from plastic waste and pollution) and hatch and release them back in to the ocean . We had the abosulte pleasure of seeing the tiny baby turtles and releasing them back into the ocean.

We’ve spent a fair few days on the beach in sanur. The children dug sand castles and collected so many hermit crabs and this was actually our most favourite day so far.

We discovered a local night market in sanur which is so cheap we fed a family of 5 for a fiver. This is a juice bar where you can get a fresh fruit smoothie for 80p

So basically if you fancied a trip to Bali, Sanur we’d highly recommend if you can get past the totally lax health and safety laws.