Hello world!
In response to Chris's justified dig at my (lack of) frequency reporting on here, I'm going to give my version of events of the last month or so. Its good to hear lots of people are following the blog, and its also reassuring now that we've ventured into Asia and phones are becoming more of a problem.
Bali really was quite crazy, and not exactly what we'd expected. After we got used to all the hawkers on the streets, on the beaches, in the mountains and in the restaurants/shops, it was pretty easy to live with. Every day really was just a holiday, doing whatever we fancied but with the pressure for us to spend as little amount of money as possible, and the occasional battles with Bali-belly, of which nobody was excused. We mainly situated ourselves around the South in Uluwatu, close to the surf for Chris and John (they've already told you plenty about that) and away from the crazy madness of Kuta/Legian. The locals there were slightly more laid back than further north, but there's no escaping the Tshirt, sarong, jewellery and tattoo sellers to which the beaches belong. But we faced them with quite a jovial attitude, and ended up only being openly cursed once on Padang Padang, but thats another story.
Yarni joined us on the 14th (i think??) from Melbourne which was brilliant! After loads of time spent exploring the southern peninsular, known as Bukit, we also ventured up north to Ubud and Lovina, each for two nights. Ubud, a little town in the thick of the Balinese rain forest, was the quint-essential subtropical SE Asian experience. The Elephant adventure park was a particular highlight, absolutely brilliant, and it wasn't complete until we'd been soaked to the bone by an Elephant who would no doubt argue he was just performing for us. Check out facebook, theres pictures to prove it. Lovina wasn't quite so enjoyable... its abit less visited, which seems to make the locals far more persistant(desperate. And although it was incredibly cheap, the food was pretty bad sometimes. We also took a scooter right up into the mountains in search of a Budhist Monastery Yarni found on a map; basically we didn't find it, but we did see pretty much exactly what Bali is like without all the pesky tourists. The first night in Lovina we also stayed in the cheapest place we've found so far - Rp50,000 for a double room, which is the eqivalent of just over GBP 3 between two people!! Amazing!
We stayed in Seminyak with Richard and Tanya (+2) for a few nights before we flew out to Bangkok on the 23rd October. Seminyak was just north of Legian, quite alot quieter, but still just as much of a buzz. We found JP's, a German owned bar/restaurant, which was brilliant, the staff loved us and we kept going back!
Bangkok, so far, is brilliant! We're staying in a place, recommended by the aforementioned Rich and Tanya, called D + D Inn on KhaoSan Road, probably the heart of the touristy bit, but its still really really amazing. Its largely how I imagined Bangkok to be, but better. Only a few problems; we cant seem to catch a Tuk Tuk without being taken to a shop and pressured into buying something (normally a suit, which we don't really mind because Chris and I would really love a suit if it weren't for the money, and we like playing the 'intending to buy' game with them). Also, there's alot of talk on the sly about these 'Ping Pong' shows. I expected abit of this, but nowhere near this much, its mental! We have had a couple of Tuk Tuk rides, once to get our debit cards from the GPO (thanks Mandy, Geoff, Julie and Steve), so we've seen lots of the city at a glance. But later today we're heading south to Ko Pha Ngan on a bus and boat, so we'll just have to see how that goes! Its all paid for, but we're slightly dubiou about the A/C overnight bus... the picture we were shown looks far far far too good to be true. Miracles do happen...
See you all soon
In response to Chris's justified dig at my (lack of) frequency reporting on here, I'm going to give my version of events of the last month or so. Its good to hear lots of people are following the blog, and its also reassuring now that we've ventured into Asia and phones are becoming more of a problem.
Bali really was quite crazy, and not exactly what we'd expected. After we got used to all the hawkers on the streets, on the beaches, in the mountains and in the restaurants/shops, it was pretty easy to live with. Every day really was just a holiday, doing whatever we fancied but with the pressure for us to spend as little amount of money as possible, and the occasional battles with Bali-belly, of which nobody was excused. We mainly situated ourselves around the South in Uluwatu, close to the surf for Chris and John (they've already told you plenty about that) and away from the crazy madness of Kuta/Legian. The locals there were slightly more laid back than further north, but there's no escaping the Tshirt, sarong, jewellery and tattoo sellers to which the beaches belong. But we faced them with quite a jovial attitude, and ended up only being openly cursed once on Padang Padang, but thats another story.
Yarni joined us on the 14th (i think??) from Melbourne which was brilliant! After loads of time spent exploring the southern peninsular, known as Bukit, we also ventured up north to Ubud and Lovina, each for two nights. Ubud, a little town in the thick of the Balinese rain forest, was the quint-essential subtropical SE Asian experience. The Elephant adventure park was a particular highlight, absolutely brilliant, and it wasn't complete until we'd been soaked to the bone by an Elephant who would no doubt argue he was just performing for us. Check out facebook, theres pictures to prove it. Lovina wasn't quite so enjoyable... its abit less visited, which seems to make the locals far more persistant(desperate. And although it was incredibly cheap, the food was pretty bad sometimes. We also took a scooter right up into the mountains in search of a Budhist Monastery Yarni found on a map; basically we didn't find it, but we did see pretty much exactly what Bali is like without all the pesky tourists. The first night in Lovina we also stayed in the cheapest place we've found so far - Rp50,000 for a double room, which is the eqivalent of just over GBP 3 between two people!! Amazing!
We stayed in Seminyak with Richard and Tanya (+2) for a few nights before we flew out to Bangkok on the 23rd October. Seminyak was just north of Legian, quite alot quieter, but still just as much of a buzz. We found JP's, a German owned bar/restaurant, which was brilliant, the staff loved us and we kept going back!
Bangkok, so far, is brilliant! We're staying in a place, recommended by the aforementioned Rich and Tanya, called D + D Inn on KhaoSan Road, probably the heart of the touristy bit, but its still really really amazing. Its largely how I imagined Bangkok to be, but better. Only a few problems; we cant seem to catch a Tuk Tuk without being taken to a shop and pressured into buying something (normally a suit, which we don't really mind because Chris and I would really love a suit if it weren't for the money, and we like playing the 'intending to buy' game with them). Also, there's alot of talk on the sly about these 'Ping Pong' shows. I expected abit of this, but nowhere near this much, its mental! We have had a couple of Tuk Tuk rides, once to get our debit cards from the GPO (thanks Mandy, Geoff, Julie and Steve), so we've seen lots of the city at a glance. But later today we're heading south to Ko Pha Ngan on a bus and boat, so we'll just have to see how that goes! Its all paid for, but we're slightly dubiou about the A/C overnight bus... the picture we were shown looks far far far too good to be true. Miracles do happen...
See you all soon
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