Buy a villa with a pool and spend your days drinking coconuts on the beach. That’s what most people who retire in Bali imagine themselves doing, and British fashion designer Robert Epstone was no different. At least, not at first.
“In 2008 I came to Bali for a friend’s wedding. I fell in love with the place and decided then and there I would move to the island,” I was once told by Robert, who died this week. “A year later I did so, ostensibly to retire.
But that idea flew out the window the first time I saw the poverty in Bali – people living in slum-like conditions next to five-star hotels where tourists holiday with blinkers on. I just couldn’t stand by and do nothing.” At first Robert joined the local Rotary Club, which sent him to the drought-stricken Indonesian island of Sumba to dig wells.
But he soon became frustrated with the red tape. In 2011, he co-founded Solemen, a charity to help the most disadvantaged and disabled people in Bali. He also devised a novel way to raise funds: he walked around Bali, a distance of 535km, without shoes in solidarity with the poor, who are often barefoot in Bali.
“I trained for six months doing a few kilometres a day but suddenly I was doing 25km a day,” he said. “My feet couldn’t handle that kind of punishment and were ripped to shreds. But I refused to stop going barefoot and five years later, after walking around three times, I raised a million dollars.
“At some point, I also started dressing a little like .
