So here goes my first blog entry for my travels around South East
Asia...
So far it has been wonderful-
We arrived in Bangkok 7am on Friday 2nd September after a good but
long flight via Mumbai airport ( which was manic and I lost Berwyn but
only for 10 mins as security wouldn't allow mix sex lines!)
Bangkok was crazy... We tried to be proper backpackers and sus out the
local buses to get to Kho San Road (main backpacker area) however it
took us forever- 3 buses and a tut tut later we arrived on Kho San
Road. Blaring music, lady boys galore and thousands of pad Thai food
trolleys including fried insects.
After we checked in at Sawesdee Inn we headed straight for a massage- 4
$ for 1 hour and it was perfect!
First night it Bangkok we under estimated the strength of Chang Beer
+no sleep+ jet lag. So we ended up pretty tipsy and smoking shisha
with a local guy and a lovely German couple.
After ordering more pad Thai at 3am we headed back.
First proper day in Bangkok we didn't leave room until 5pm due to
sickness ....
2 days later we arrive in paradise Bali after waiting 8 hours at
Bangkok airport to save paying for a room.
Bali was beautiful. We stayed in small bungalow called Tamin Ayu which
was basic but fine.
We hired a motorbike and explored the Island for couple of weeks. We
visited beautiful temples and stunning beaches with incredible sunsets.
Then we headed to Gili T which is beyond paradise, turquoise sea, no
transport, hundreds of turtles and fun beach bars.
We stayed in cute bungalow at Lisa Home stay. We made great friends
here, who we would spend all day at the beach with and have great food
at the social fish night market drinking lots of bintang! (Bali beer)
We snorkeled everyday and had our own push bikes to get around the
island on.
Although the weather stayed perfect the sea became rough and a tourist
boat capsized where 10 people died. So from then on boats where not
allowed to leave the island. So we just had to wait until we could
leave paradise... In total we were there for 10 days which for such a
small island is a very long time- it was hard to leave and move
knowing its never going to be as easy as it in Gili T.
Finally we left and headed to Lombok. Lombok is famous for a volcano
called Rinjani which everyone seemed to know about except for Berwyn
and I. Most backpackers spend 3 days trekking to the top but we didn't
have the time or the fitness! So we just did a one day trek a third of
the way up to see and swim in breath taking waterfalls- however on the
trek back down my shoe broke!
After one night in Lombok we caught boat back to Padang pai in Bali.
The sea was still rough but boats were going out- when we boarded all
the seats were full so our options were to either stand inside and get
sea sick or sit on the roof and get wet. So obviously we opted for
choice b as it was 40 degrees. However we discovered the catch when
the boat left the harbour. We had to hold on for our dear lives! The
roof of the boat where we were sat had flooded and the boat near
capsized over 20 times. Because the boat was going so fast and the
roof was now the sea there was no way we could make our way back to
the ladder to get inside the boat. So we just looked at each other and
said " we've just got to try and enjoy this as we're here for one and
a half hours! I spent the entire journey eyeing up the nearest islands
to figure out if I could swim to land if we tipped over.
Needless to say we made in to Bali's mainland.
We headed straight to Ubud ( where Julia Roberts stayed in Eat Pray
Love). We had been before but I had a cold so didn't see much. Ubud is
the best part of Bali for me. Its not on the coast so no lovely
beaches but its still very beautiful. Massages are very cheap! Monkey
forest is the main attraction- the monkeys loved Berwyn three jumped
ok his head and wouldn't get off- so bezza began singing the song from
the monkeys!! And wouldn't stop...!
We spent 4 days in ubud and made some great friends.Berwyn did a
cooking course looking over the rice padi's, he had a great time.
On 1st October we flew to Kuala Lumpar Malaysia. It was a good feeling
arriving in the airport as it felt like we were back in civilisation!
KL is a brilliant city. We stayed near China Town in a vile hotel...
But only for one night.
KL is full of amazing markets- seeing every fake designer thing you
can imagine! I bought a yellow Casio watch for £2- when it lights up
its a disco light- I loved it!! It also has very posh shopping malls
with topshop Gucci etc but still v expensive.
The next night we took our first night bus to Kota Trengganu. It took
8 hours and was ok- even though the engine conked out after 20 mins of
leaving KL!
The next morning we made our way to the jetty and got our boat ticket
for Perhenrian Island.
We arrived in paradise.
A tiny island. It takes 10 minutes to walk from one side to the other.
This island doesn't even have horses- although it does have 3 metre
long lizards! Called monitor lizard. The locals told us that the
lizard's are scared of us and wouldn't attack but I didn't want to take
any chances!
This island was made up of a couple of restaurants (only one sold
alcohol) and dive shops.
This place is the cheapest to do PADI
courses- so we signed up for PADI Open Water, 8 hours a day for 4 days
of diving and studying. It was fantastic but extremely tiring, but so worth it!
The day after we finished was my birthday :)so we were able to do a fun dive
without any skills or learning things!
The evening of my birthday was brilliant, a lovely group of us had a BBQ at a beach
restaurant I had sting ray!!
(by mistake, I didn't order it!!) After dinner we headed through the jungle to the other side of the
island to Monkey Bar-where my friend arrange for them to sing happy birthday etc
and I died of embarrassment!
The cheapest and best drink on the island was MONKEY JUICE...it was kind of a rum, but vile to drink straight!
We spent the rest of our time on the island diving- it was fantastic,
we are so happy that we completed the PADI as we
can now dive lots more during our travels!
After saying our final goodbyes to all the great friends we had made on the Perhentian Islands
we headed to the mainland to Kota Bahru to stay at a hotel that belonged to one of a friends.
We traveled there with our lovely friend Jessica who we had spent the past week with :)
The next day we took another 8 hour bus journey to West Malaysia.
When we arrived we got the ferry to Langkawi- an Island just off Malaysia.
It is very beautiful here, but to our disappointment there are thousands of jelly fish!!
So many we cannot enter the sea :(
Tomorrow we plan to hire a motorbike so we can travel to the north of the island
where they say..there is no jelly fish!
Berwyn has just come back from the local Irish Bar where Wales just lost to France...:(
Anyway, I will keep you all posted!
lots of love
xxx
