Aoife and Vinny

After two weeks spent in the Gili Islands, we arrived back in Bali to a place called Sanur on the south east coast, where we had planned to spend a couple of nights before flying to Singapore. Vinny was not feeling very well however, so when we got there, he had to cancel his plans to do a free diving course and spent the two days in bed. I felt great, completely over the food poisoning for the first time in two weeks! It was shortlived however, as the following morning, the 14th of February, I woke up with a terrible headache and felt awful. We had to drag ourselves to the airport that evening and took the short flight to Singapore where we went to check into our hostel, only to discover that it was ... read more

After an amazing few days in Nusa Lembongan, we decided to head back to Bali! Vinny went off to book our boat back to Bali and booked us onto the vegetable boat back to the mainland!! This is a tiny little boat, that comes over from Bali early in the morning loaded with vegetables and leaves with around 4 backpackers on the way back! We left The Secret Garden and headed to the beach, a little sad to be leaving and contemplating staying on longer! We couldn't believe it when this tiny little contraption appeared along the shore!! We waded in and threw our bags on and climbed aboard! Another stop was made a little further to collect two more backpackers and off we went across the fairly rough sea between the islands! An hour and ... read more

To say I was excited to visit Bali is an understatement! It was somewhere I had always wanted to visit (and no, not because I had read Eat, Pray Love)! However, its hard to talk about Bali without mentioning the terrorist attacks in 2002 and 2005. The bombings in Kuta in '05 resulted in 20 fatalities and many injuries and as a result of this and ongoing terrorism concerns, visitors to Indonesia are warned to avoid all but essential travel. We weren't too worried as we intended to avoid the tourist traps of Kuta and Legion and instead, headed into the town of Ubud in central Bali. We arrived late and had organised a pickup to bring us there.After a long drive, we arrived at our guesthouse and checked into a beautiful villa with engraved wooden ... read more

Aoife and I arrived in Penang island, connected to mainland Malaysia by bridge, on the evening of January 12th by ferry from Langkawi. Upon arrival, the taxi drivers swarmed the area putting pressure on people arriving. We planned to get a free shuttle bus as it was our understanding that the guesthouse was less than ten minutes away. The taxi drivers told us that the shuttle was not running at this time of year which turned out to be untrue. Then another taxi driver hounded us asking where we were going. He was adamant that our guesthouse was 20 minutes away and we agreed a fixed price. Turned out it was just over 5 minutes around the corner. I questioned his earlier lie and he just got angry with us. "Keep your f##king money" he said ... read more

On January 4th Aoife and I arrived in the island of Koh Lanta. We stayed in a hotel called the Ailf Apartments for around $20 per night. The hotel is about a 10 minute walk from the beach up a back road in the middle of nowhere. However, they provided us with a motorbike during our stay for free and we were allowed to use the beachside pool in their sister hotel, the Garden Hotel. This was where we spent most of our time in Koh Lanta! Koh Lanta is by far the least developed Thai island that we've been on and there was a very relaxed vibe about the place. It was exactly what we looking for from Thailand. The hotel worked out well with the free motorbike and the use of the swimming pool ... read more