Despite all my previous declarations about Bali, we went back.

So much for never say never.

It was early 2018 and we were in need of a break. Not an expedition, not a complicated journey involving six forms of transport and a border crossing, just somewhere warm where we could sit down for a while and do very little.

Bali fitted the bill.

It was close, a bit over six hours from Australia, relatively inexpensive and, most importantly, we had really loved Alam Indah on our previous visit.

In fact, if I am completely truthful, we weren’t really going back to Bali at all.

We were going back to Alam Indah.

There is a difference.

The trip began in the usual glamorous fashion, with a problem with the plane.

Apparently the one we were supposed to fly on wasn’t going anywhere, so another one had to be found.

This took some time.

Eventually they conjured up a replacement, we all climbed aboard about an hour late and finally headed north towards Denpasar.

One of Bali’s great attractions from Australia is simply how easy it is to get there. A few hours on a plane and you are suddenly somewhere completely different, and you can have a very decent holiday without requiring a second mortgage.

This may also explain why half of Australia appears to be there at any given moment.

We headed straight back to Ubud and Alam Indah, tucked away in the greenery beside the Monkey Forest.

Very little had changed about the place, which suited us perfectly.

The bungalows sat among lush tropical gardens, the pool looked out across the valley and there was that wonderful feeling of being hidden away from the traffic and general busyness of Ubud, even though the centre of town was still within walking distance.

And yes, the monkeys were still there.

Still cute from a distance.

Still considerably less cute once they got close enough to steal something.

This time we knew what we were dealing with.

We spent our days doing very little of importance. Long breakfasts, wandering into Ubud, visiting the markets, walking through the rice fields and eventually finding our way back to the hotel when the heat or traffic became too much.

It was exactly what we had come for.

There was no great list of things we needed to see. We had been here before. We knew our way around and were perfectly happy revisiting favourite places and then retreating back to the gardens of Alam Indah.

After a few days it was time for the second part of the trip.

We were heading to Alam Gili, another property run by the same family, this time on the Gili Islands.

This sounded promising.

If Alam Indah was anything to go by, we were fairly confident we would be happy.

And we were.

The pace slowed even further once we reached the island. There were beaches, clear water and considerably fewer reasons to do anything useful.

Which was fortunate, because doing anything useful was not on the agenda.

Days revolved around swimming, wandering along the beach, eating and deciding whether it was too early for another drink.

The water around the Gilis was beautifully clear and perfect for snorkelling, with boats heading out across the shallows and the mountains of Lombok sitting hazily across the water.

It was a very easy place to stay.

And that, really, was the point of the whole trip.

We hadn’t come looking for adventure. We hadn’t come with a list of temples to visit or mountains to climb.

We had come because we needed a rest.

Ubud gave us the familiar comfort of Alam Indah, and the Gilis gave us a beach, warm water and absolutely no compelling reason to hurry anywhere.

For someone who had once announced she would never go to Bali, I was becoming surprisingly good at going back.