More from Senggigi

Honestly, you could drive through Senggigi and think this is the wildest, ugliest beach resort on earth..... but get off that main road and find the right spots and things improve dramatically. It's actually spectacularly beautiful in certain areas....

Like the gardens and beach front of the Sheraton .......

 and our beach front bure (which we have been able to colonise for the last three days) ........

 ... with views to the north 

 and to the south ........

 There's even good coffee over the road from the Sheraton at Gula Gila (the Sheraton does not do great coffee!)

 and sunsets are just great at happy hour from our favourite table on the terrace .....

 Tonight we took a 90c taxi ride down to Cafe Alberto on the beach. Cafe Alberto was always a great favourite of ours in previous visits - and usually full of expats and tourists enjoying great Italian inspired and Indo food. Tonight we saw just as many prosperous looking Indonesians as expats - all enjoying the great food and atmosphere at Cafe Alberto.

 We were lucky to catch our best sunset of the week tonight at Cafe Alberto.....

The lovely young Alberto (grandson of the original Italian Alberto who set up the restaurant) drove us back to the Sheraton after dinner. Such a lovely thing for him to do....... he'd attended the Sekolah Nusa Alam (along with his brother Alexander and sister Isobel) and remembered our friends Ibu Leigh and Pak Gregg well. A nice connection and a really lovely night for us.