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Hello 😊
So I haven't written a blog in absolutely ages! Korea is now just my everyday life, so I never really feel like I've done anything exciting enough to blog about, and my previous holiday was Boracay where I'd been before and all I did was sit on a beach for 4 days so it would've been extremely similar to the Guam and previous Boracay blogs. So I've been waiting to do something that is worth writing about, and Indoensia was it! I hope you enjoy it 😊
We finished school on the Friday and as my friend Matt was staying, I went to the baseball and rank beer instead of packing! We got home around 9pm (Matt had already dug my rucksack out for me) and I had another beer whilst throwing clothes all over the floor and sorting out toiletries. Matt laughed at me when I tried to pack jeans (something which I later thanked him for in my head when I was sweating buckets in the mornings, evenings and the middle of the night) and I think I was eventually packed by about 1am 😊 So I said my goodbyes to Matt as he headed
off to step into North Korea and I headed to get the limousine bus. This was the first exciting bit of the holiday as we get the bus from the Grand Hyatt hotel, where Barack Obama just happened to be staying on this weekend! There were LOADS of police and they were putting mirrors underneath the cars and all sorts - it was very exciting! Unfortunately we didn't catch a glimpse of him as we had about 3 minutes between stepping out of the taxi and getting onto the bus! Katharine had to run in to buy the tickets, leaving all our bags outside as you had to scan all the bags as you went in - far too much effort! Anyway, that was all the excitement of the travelling - the rest of it just involved the bus, an aeroplane, some film watching and some food eating (not bad food on Garuda Indonesia I have to say!)
So we arrived in Bali at abut 8pm and got a taxi to our hotel. We dumped our stuff and headed straight for dinner at 'Mozarella' on the sea front. We were attracted to this particular eatery as they had a
Beatles tribute band playing - I mean what more could you ask for? So we sat eating great food (spring rolls, garlic portabello mushroom, garlic prawns), drinking cocktails and enjoying the music. We had a nice walk along the beach and an early night, which was just right after a full day travelling! 😊
I would like to say we were up and out at the crack of dawn for the first day of our holiday but in fact we stayed in bed until about 11am. It was just that little bit too much of an effort to move ourselves from our beds to sun loungers on the beach! We had lunch at the hotel, then 'factor 30-ed' ourselves and braved the heat of the day! A lounger each, lots of water and reading our books took up most of the rest of the day, with Katharine attracting the 'sellers' left, right and centre. She was buying magazines, getting her nails done, then getting me dragged into buying friendship bracelets! She needs lessons in how to avoid eye contact 😊 Although I was probably just as bad with my ice creams and I bought a present for Mum (yet
to be given!) After such a stressful day doing nothing we decided to treat ourselves to dinner at a restaurant recommended to us by our friend in Seoul. She had described it as 'the best place for ribs', which had obviously interested me a great deal! She was right! Only a short taxi drive away and easy to locate because of the mass of smoke coming off the BBQ at the front, we were at 'Naughty Nuri's' ready for some good rib action. We made a bit of an error with our order as we shared some ribs, along with nacho's and wedges. Upon reflection we should've had a plate of ribs each….but don't worry, read on to tomorrow to find out how we rectified our error! The food was great, you got a 'shakey shakey' dance if you ordered particular cocktails, and everybody was friendly 😊 Great! We then got a taxi back to Kuta as we had been given these dodgy 'get in free before 10pm' flyers for Skybar (the tackiest place on Earth quite possibly) and we ran in at 9.58pm and headed straight for the toilet as it had taken a while to get there! We
then got our free drinks (sugar in a cup) and started our night. I won't bore you with the details….drinking, dancing, drinking, dancing and I woke up with a hangover!
So the next day was another slightly late start. We made it to the beach for lunch by about 2.30pm and had a quick sandwich before hitting the sun beds for the rest of the day….catching up on more much-needed sleep! We woke up just in time to see the sunset and then headed back to the room to get changed for dinner. Katharine's friend Oscar (old family friend) had arrived in Bali that day so we met up with him; and yes, we went to Naughty Nuri's for the second time! This time, no mistake was made and there was a plate of ribs each! Delicious and well recommended if you ever find yourself in Bali! 😊 We then got in a taxi with a crazy driver who liked to speak English in a multitude of accents and sat down on a beanbag on the beach with a quick beer before bed! Very chilled and not leading to a hangover….
My summary of Bali (from the 2
days I was there) - it is incredibly hot, taxis will try to rip you off, the beach is nice but not so beautiful as other Asian beaches as the sand isn't white (I've been spoilt!) and Kuta is pretty gross, i.e. Malaga in Asia! I'd love to go back and see some more of the island and maybe go to Ubud to see the monkeys - slightly more cultured than my experience!
The next morning we were up early to get a boat to Gili Trawangan. We were a little nervous when they were giving travel pills out for free, and despite the fact I don't get travel sick, I felt like I should take one! So I did. I now believe they were sleeping tablets as I slept for the full 2 hour trip across the sea, as idd everybody else! Every time I woke up from my sleep everybody else was passed out! Hilarious! Anyway, we made it over and dropped off at Lombok and Gili Air first. Then we spent the last 10 minutes of the journey on the top of the boat until we arrived on Gili T. We didn't know where our hotel
was so we got a horse and cart to take us. This was later regretted by Katharine who developed a lot of sympathy for the horses on the island as she couldn't understand how they had got there and why they had to carry those carts around. I get where she is coming from, but after quizzing the owners of the horses a few times, she found out that they have a home to go to (a field) and they work a day then rest a day! Apparently! Anyway, we dropped our bits off at the room and headed to the beach for some lunch. I had a delicious tuna sandwich, like no tuna sandwich I'd had before - very fresh fish! We then planted our towels onto the sand and lay there for the rest of the afternoon. It was ridiculously hot and very sandy, so I had to keep taking breaks in the shade and the sea. The beach was also quite 'corally' where we were laid so it was painful getting into the sea, and when we did get in we got carried along by this current! It kept making me laugh as Katharine was carried along
the beach and I managed to stay where I was - it wasn't dangerous, just amusing. We later found out that a tiny bit further up the beach there is much less coral, and no random current - a less stressful beach experience! That evening I had Nasi Goreng (fried rice) for my dinner, which was great, and then we headed out for a few drinks. After having a giggle in the 'reggae' bar we went to find the party! We met a Dutch couple in the street who were also looking for the party, only to find out that the party was where we had just left! We must be too cool for school! Anyway, we went back to the reggae bar for a couple of drinks with them and then headed home with the promise that we would meet up the next day for the party, which was definitely going to be happening at the Irish bar!
The next day we changed our accommodation to somewhere a bit closer to the beach. We felt a bit guilty as the man was really nice at the other one, but we are super lazy! Before we left, they did
provide us with some entertainment as we ate breakfast, as they decided to pull down the leaves and coconuts that were hanging rather precariously above the roofless bathroom in one of the rooms! As they fell to the ground we realised that they probably would kill somebody if they fell on them - they came down with a right thud, the leaves and the coconuts - but they were really funny whilst doing it by making loads of silly noises and shouting to everybody from the roof. We headed to the beach for the day again - I had a mozzarella salad and 2 chocolate milkshakes throughout the day (important info!) and then we headed back to our new room to get ready for dinner. Oscar was now in the Gili's as well so we arranged to meet up with him and our new friends at the food market (after locking ourselves out of the room for a bit by breaking the lock!) The food market was amazing - £1 for a huge plate of food (see the photos) and Oscar had bought a bottle of whisky with him from East Timor so we drank our way through that with
some coke before heading to the 'party' at the Irish bar! There was a party, but there's not much to report - bit of dancing, bit of drinking, met a few people from England, but the most important parts of my night were the pizza eating at the end, and seeing the 'Buddha cat' on the way home (again - see photo!)
On Thursday we enjoyed breakfast by the beach, with a view that could only be described as stunning. I ate my scrambled eggs on toast looking out over a beautiful sea onto other islands - paradise! We then headed off on our snorkelling trip for the day, heading around the other 2 Gili islands - Gili Meno and Gili Air. We got on the boat and set sail, stopping after about 10 minutes for our first snorkel. Our 'guide' obviously hated his job or just hated people who were on holiday, as he basically told us he would leave us behind if we weren't back at the boat in half an hour and then laughed at me (and others) when we asked for lifejackets. After the Boracay incident of a year and a half ago, I don't
think I will ever jump off a boat in the middle of the sea again without a lifejacket, however strong-a-swimmer I am! So I ignored and him and lazily bobbed along with my jacket on 😊 We didn't see any turtles unfortunately but I did see a bit of a shipwreck and some awesome looking fish. We then got back on the boat (with the man shouting at Katharine as she nearly floated away on the current - obviously her fault in the middle of the unpredictable sea!) and headed off to another snorkelling spot. Again, no turtles, but there were some more amazing fish! After that we headed off to Gili Air where we ate lunch (chicken sandwich for me), had a brief wander along the road and then ran back to the boat so we didn't 'get left behindd'. He had given us a lecture before we got off about people not being back in time before (we were finding his attitude hilarious by this point!) We then headed for our last snorkel spot with a bit of a scary moment where the boat was like one of those pirate ships you go on at a theme park
because the waves were so strong, Again, I saw some lovely fish 😊 On our arrival back at the room Katharine and I both passed out for 3 hours straight then got up to head to the food market for round 2 of cheap but great food! We met up with Oscar again and had a relaxed drink on the beds at 'Horizontal Bar', only to be almost pooed on by a bird 3 times! It kept on landing right next to my left ear! We then had a fairly early night ready for our last night in the Gili's….
….which turned out to also be quite relaxed as Katharine and I weren't feeling our best. We both woke up feeling a bit ropey but ploughed on with breakfast (pancaked and honey for me, eggs for Katharine) and spent the day sunbathing with Oscar on some sun beds on the nicer part of the beach. I enjoyed some Nasi Goreng for lunch, along with the olives from Katharine's salad, and still felt a bit sick, but OK. We left the beach hoping to go and see the sunset but after an argument with a man about hiring some bikes,
and general fanning about, we just missed it and only saw the remnants (which was still beautiful). This was pretty much the point at which we admitted to ourselves just how ill we were feeling, and after lying down on the bed at 6.30pm with the promise of going for dinner and a massage 'in a bit', we only moved from the bed over the next 14 hours in order to go to the toilet….int he bathroom with no door. Needless to say, Katharine and I got to know each other even better than we have known each other before! I'll spare you the details. It could've been the food market, it could've been the chicken sandwich, it could've been the water…..who knows!
My summary of Gili T: the horses and carts are quite cool as a novelty, but I am a little wary about the horses welfare; there are loads of diving schools and apparently it's pretty cheap to do your PADI there if anybody is thinking of doing one; there is some 'over-charging' in some of the accommodation - it's probably worth shopping around, and it is a very chilled island! Also, an interesting fact: the island
has no police, just security. If you are caught committing a crime, like stealing, you are made to walk around the island with a sign strapped around your neck saying exactly what you have down, so everybody sees you. You are then thrown off the island and basically banished! Same for foreigners apparently, so be warned! 😉
The next morning we still felt grim but we had planned to make the short boat ride to Lombok so that's what we did! We sat in the hotel lobby and used Agoda to book ourselves what we hoped was slightly more luxurious accommodation for when we got there as we felt so rubbish. We ran around buying last minute postcards and magnets, only to nearly miss the boat and having to squeeze right onto the end with our massive rucksacks! The ride was only 20 minutes so we survived, but then our bags got taken off the boat at Lombok port (which is a really horrible port!) and we had to pay the men, which always really annoys me. I have then 10% of what they were asking for and that was probably still too much! Then other people tried to
start conning us into making a transfer to our hotel with them…. Now, we hadn't quite realised that our hotel was 2 and a half hours from the port so we did have to concede a little bit, but we did also get money off their offer and were soon on our way to Kuta beach. Our journey took us high into the mountains where there were monkeys lining all of the roads. Our driver noticed our excitement and let us stop to take photos with some of them - it's just a shame about all the rubbish surrounding them….I'm not sure Lombok quite has provision for it's tourism yet! We eventually arrived at the villa (Kies Villas) and were instantly glad that we had booked in to stay somewhere nice as we were shown to a lovely room (with a bathroom door) and pretty much headed straight to the pool for a dip and a relax in the sun! We decided to head out for dinner around 7pm and test out the stomach situation, getting a lift on the back of Steve's (the guy who part-owned the villas) scooter and going to a nice small restaurant where I had
pasta to be safe! We ate dinner with Steve, and 2 other girls who were staying at the villas, who were already at the restaurant as Steve had recommended it. As we were eating Steve arranged to have a scooter bought up to the restaurant for me and Katharine to use over the next few days, which we ended up scooting home on that evening, rather dodgily! Although we couldn't go back until we had seen the 'bird singing' contest that was happening across the street! It turns out that anybody can keep this particular type of bird in a cage, and teach it to sing. Then they all meet up at night, hang their birds up on pegs and basically shout at their bird to sing the longest and the loudest. The judges in the middle choose the most impressive birds. Rudy, who also worked at the villas and a bird in the contest but it didn't do very well and he took it to the vet the next day (I thought he meant he'd taken it to be killed the first tim she said it, but I saw it alive before I left….not that I can tell birds
apart!) Anyway, that was completely random, so we watched for a bit and then scooted back to the room and had another early night, to hopefully see off the last few germs!
On Sunday we were back to full health and decided to go out on the scooters to see the local area. Katharine decided to catch some rays first (never one to miss the chance for tanning) and then we went to head on our way. This was Katharine's first time on a scooter so we took it slow and rode off to find ourselves some helmets (which are pretty elusive in these parts!) We ended up hiring some for £1 for the day from a random man and then got some lunch (ciabatta) and some petrol (which basically looked like wee in bottles from random shops on the side of the road) before heading off into the hills. We both got a little more confident and proficient on the scooters as the day went on and we headed to see some different beaches and drove through the jungle and the rice fields. We saw a huge lizard, the man who owned one of the places we stayed
in on Gili T, and lots of local people in their villages or in the paddy fields. We had a small relax on one of the beaches but mainly took in the awesome scenery! On our way back into town we stopped off to buy some provisions, including some Beng-Beng chocolate, which we then accidentally got addicted to, and then had a brief chill by the pool. Steve then came by asking if we fancied going to see the sunset as he was heading that way for a surf. So we got ready and followed him on our scooter (with Katharine driving us both after her new-found confidence kicked in!) to another beach where you could climb onto this mound to see the sunset. Unfortunately there was quite a bit of cloud but it was still beautiful, and we watched Steve have his surf! We then scooted back (me this time because it was dark!), got changed and headed to 'Nana's' for dinner on another of Steve's recommendations. We had a Bintang beer each, and I had Mie Goreng (noodles) and some spring rolls. The spring rolls were the weirdest we had ever had and we spent a good ten
minutes working out what they reminds due of. We came up with a Gregg's pasty - one of the cheesy ones. They were delicious, but probably not what I would sell as a spring roll! We then scooted back again, stole a DVD (Wedding Crasher's) off Steve's computer and Katharine and I watched it in bed. What a host Steve was!
He got even better as we had mentioned needing to get to the airport on Monday and he had arranged us a transfer, making our day completely stress free! We decided to really push the sunbathing to the end and worked on our tanning by the pool for most of the day! At some point we packed our bags, and we scooted off for lunch, but most of the day was spent on a sun bed or in the pool (there were no other guests at this point so it was like our own private little area!) I had a great burger and chocolate milkshake for my lunch, and we ordered spring rolls which we then had to take away as we pigged out too much on the burgers! We said goodbye to Steve, Rudy and Kenya the
puppy (who had terrorised Katharine most of the time we were there as she hates dogs!), paid up and headed off to the airport 😞
My summary of Lombok (Kuta beach area): it's like Northern Thailand with beaches; everything is really spread out and you need some form of transportation to see things (preferably a scooter if you're just visiting); it's really chilled, with not a huge amount to do; it's quite under-developed for South East Asia and there isn't that much scope for development to happen, so it could stay as beautiful as it is! 😊
Predictably our first flight (Lombok to Bali) was delayed, but we thought that was OK when we got on and had been given the extra legroom seats! The flight was 40 minutes and within that time they gave out snack boxes, expected it eaten and wanted the rubbish back before we landed - it was quite the rush! Then it took almost an hour for our bags to appear on the conveyor at Bali airport, where we were already clock watching after the first delay! So when we got our bags we went rushing through the airport (not realising quite how
big it was) to find departures, went to the wrong departures, ran to another area, got lost again, then finally made it! All this time we were going through loads of bag scanners and the plastic bag of spring rolls was getting more and more bashed about and x-rayed on multiple occasions, which I found hilarious! When we finally got checked in and breathed a sigh of relief, we got ourselves changed out of our wet bikinis and refreshed for the flight, only to find out that this one was also now delayed! So we sat and ate our battered spring rolls and bought random books and stuff with our left over money. whilst waiting for our second flight of the evening and finally boarded an hour late. Again, we had extra legroom, and this time it was a 2 hour flight and we got an entire evening meal - great! So we landed in Jakarta with about 20 mins before our flight to Seoul was going to depart and ended up running through the airport like mad people. We got a bit of a shock when they asked us for a departure fee as we had spent all of
our money in the airport. We managed to scrape it together between the Indonesian currency and the American dollars I randomly had with me (always useful to carry a few of those around it seems!) and then dashed off to passport control. There was a queue, so we pushed in, with the help of security, and made it to our flight with a little bit of time to spare! No extra legroom on this one (you know, the one that's 7 hours as opposed to 2!), but we did get a fantastic pasty as a snack, and a breakfast as we came into Seoul at about 6am. All in all, we didn't do too bad on the food front with Garuda Indonesia!
My summary of Indonesia as a whole: the money is MENTAL. The biggest note they have is worth about £5 and if you try and pay with it, they often think that is too big and want 'change'. Unfortunately, when you have 'change' everybody wants it so you don't have it for very long! There doesn't seem to be enough 'change' in the country to go around! They also need to knock some zero's off - I
thought Korea was bad but Indonesia has another zero on top of Korean money - £5 = 100,000rupiah! It's hot, and I mean hot! 5 minutes of sitting perfectly still in the sun resulted in sweat dripping down my face….10 minutes and I was practically melting! I enjoyed myself for a holiday, but I couldn't live there - it was just so stifling!
So that was that….back to Seoul and back to work (oh, after the John Mayer concert on the Tuesday evening!) A week and half back and I'm planning the next trip…. 😊
Claire xxxx
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