monicastott

It was a 36 hour journey from Senggigi to Flores, by far the longest journey I have ever taken, so I was actually quite excited. We booked the bus through a tour agent in Senggigi and it cost us about 300,000Rp I think. We were picked up from our hotel in a luxury air-conditioned car and driven to the bus terminal about half an hour away. From here, there was a lovely guy who had been assigned to getting us on the bus. He warned us immediately that we’d get hassled and we would be told we need to pay again or pay extra, so we just walked straight through the station with our heads down and tried to ignore the shouts and the smutty grins we got from the men. We were safely settled on ... read more

The Gili Islands are off the northwest coast of Lombok and easily accessible from either Bali or Lombok. There are three islands; Gili Trewangan which is the biggest and known as the ‘party island’ as it is where most of the backpackers head to, Gili Meno is in the middle and is what people seem to refer to as ‘the honeymoon island’ as it is very quiet, relaxed and romantic, and finally, Gili Air is slightly bigger than Meno but still quiet in comparison to Trewangan. We arrived on Boxing Day and stayed until after New Year’s Eve so thought that Gili Trewangan was our best bet for a good old fashioned party. Gili Trewangan We left Nusa Lembongan via Scoot boat service which was really expensive. I think we payed about 40,000Rp for the ... read more

“Leaving on a jet plane...” I seriously couldn’t get this song out of my head for the whole flight from Sydney to Bali. We arrived in Denpassar quite late at night so we’d organised with our hotel to pick us up. We don’t usually do this but decided to because it was late and made the whole experience so much easier. So we came out of the arrivals door, eagerly searching the signs held by taxi drivers. It’s such a lovely feeling to arrive in a country, particularly a new country where you don’t know what to do or where to go or even how to ask where to go, when you’re greeted by that lovely sign with your name on it; A sign that promises a nice, relaxing journey to a nice, relaxing hotel. But ... read more

On New Years Eve we went to Blues Point with everyone from the hostel. Blue’s Point is basically just a patch of grass by the side of the water but it’s directly opposite the Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House so promised a perfect view of the fireworks. We headed down there early to get a good spot and we were lucky enough to bag the best view possible. It was an alcohol free zone and we’d been told that the police would be really strict but we managed to get through security with our bags of goon (cheap wine in a bag) and enjoyed an afternoon in the sun. By about 6pm we’d obviously had too much sun and too much goon and me, Sam, Kim, Ry, Rob and Simm all had a snooze. ... read more

After a couple of days in Sydney we made the silly mistake of checking our bank accounts and decided it was time to find a job. Sam was lucky enough to have been given the phone number of an English guy who employed casual staff over Christmas delivering Christmas hampers. I joked that he was like Santa, delivering all the festive goodies and presents. Unfortunately he wasn’t given a sleigh though and had to make do with a 2 tonne truck. It took me longer to find work so I registered with a couple of job agencies. I had to complete an RSA (Responsible Service of Alcohol) before I could legally work in a bar. This was a one day course, costing $80 and perhaps the biggest waste of a day that I have ever experience. ... read more

The next evening we went into the city to find our house that Sam Coates was lovely enough to arrange for us. We had a big room in an 8-bed house share and it was attached to another 8-bed house next door by a huge BBQ area at the back. The room was big and bare so we went to the local supermarket to buy some bedding in the hope of cheering the place up. We unpacked all our stuff and tried to convince ourselves that it was fine, but we weren’t doing a very good job. Most of the people who lived in the houses were Brazilian and were friendly enough but obviously spoke to each other in their native language so we were like foreigners in the house. So many people lived there that ... read more

We arrived in Sydney early in the morning and my cousin, Matt, met us at the airport as we were staying with him and Vicky and baby Will for our first night. It was weird being in Australia because we were so far from home but if felt exactly like home. Everything seemed the same, the same but better; the roads were the same and they drive on the same side, the food, and the buildings. After coming from Asia where everything seemed so foreign it felt strange to hear people speaking English everywhere and people actually stopped at traffic lights! The security guys who checked our passports met us with laid back but cheeky grins. They were dressed in creamy brown uniforms that I stereotypically thought was the uniform for any profession in Australia ... read more