When we first started the babybarrettravels blog we set off with a 5 month old who had to be carried around in a sling. Baby Barrett was small enough to lay of top of our trusty travel bag. 10 years later he’s big enough to carry it!

Deciding where to spend the school summer holidays has its challenges. With southern Europe getting hotter, the southern hemisphere is winter and rainy season in much of SE Asia – our choices in July and August are limited. Not to mention a war in the Middle East reducing flight options and local fuel availability making some destinations unrealistic. So this time we decided to break the old travel adage of never going back to somewhere you’ve been before. 

10 years ago we flew to Bali for a brief visit on our maternity leave grand tour. We loved it, despite a few hiccups along the way including James experiencing ‘Bali-belly’ and passing it on to both of us!! Needless to say we have packed the hand sanitiser this time…

This time we’ll be spending longer there so we can explore some different parts the island. Then onto Flores and Komodo national park, before heading to Lombok and the Gili islands, with a brief stop in Singapore on the way home. 

Before we left home, London was facing a series of stifling heatwaves. So the irony of escaping to an equally hot Indonesia was not lost on us. Nor were the carbon emissions from our long haul flight.

On landing, things in Bali felt familiar – the humidity, the ubiquitous smell of incense, friendly welcoming people, mopeds everywhere and tasty food for the grown ups – James does not concur because of the unusual flavours and is asking for fries with every meal – we are working on this!

We had a couple of days chilling in Sanur to recover from jet lag before taking a short boat ride to Nusa Lembongan – a small island off Bali’s south coast.

Our time on Nusa Lembongan was spent playing in the sea, chilling by the pool, going on a disappointing canoe ride through a mangrove forest, and watching the sunset with cold beers whilst James played in the waves.

The highlight was easily snorkelling with manta rays in crystal clear water, albeit with quite a lot of swell. Having 2m giants glide underneath you almost within touching distance is just spell binding – time just seems to stand still. A family memory that will stay with us forever.

Our next destination is back on Bali, inland to Ubud.