Island Hopping the Gili's

Our last week in Bali!!!!! :(

We jumped on a fast boat from Ubud and headed to the sweet honeymoon island that is Gili Meno.

 

Imagine paradise and you are in the Gili's; white sand, crystal blue water and a mountainy lombok for a screen-saver worthy view.
Our first Island of the 3 was Meno. We spent our days enjoying the beach, or exploring the island in a tiny one hour walk, aswell as diving.... the most INCREDIBLE diving! With 20m visibility and 24 degree ocean we swam around with Sea Turtles aswell as Bumphead fish (a shawl of 23!!!!!!)... simply incredible. In the evenings we played cards with the locals whilst they sang a very Indonesian version of Jason Mraz with the guitar and bobbed their crazy afros.

We stayed in a cute lile shack... showering in sea salt in the back of the cow field was rather smelly.... to say the least.

 View at breakfast! ^

The 2nd island we visited was Trawangan; the party island! Each bar/club/crazy pool resort has a day of the week that they host a party, we arrived on Monday just in time for Blue Marlin night. THE best party location, the sea, a pool, the bar and two great dancefloors! Locals showed off their impressive moves whilst drunken westerners danced on the bars... brilliant. However, the rest of T wasn't as untouched as Meno, with lines of shops and bars and never ending shouting of 'TRANSPORT!' - but this time on a horse! Its safe to say that we loved the party in Trawangan, but Meno is not worth missing for the chilled atmosphere and incredible landscape.

 

The bluest of seas.

  

The 3rd and final island we visited was Gili Air, snorkelling on a reef just 50m from the shore with turtles was not something to be missed! We also played tourists and got hair wraps, ice creams did a little shopping for various sarongs etc. In the evening we went to an open air projecter in the beach and watched a movie for the first time in 2 months...... cute.

WE LOVE MENO

bye bye, Malaysia tomorrow xxxxxxxxx

Nusa Lembongan

Possibly the sweetest island you will ever see.

About an hour on a slow boat away for Sanur, but it could not be more different! With no stalls of clothes, or even cars on the island, the only thing between our room and the sea was the sea wall - amazing!

 

 We spent our days with juice and yoga (where we once again befriended two middle-aged women who taught us a little about the island as they own property over here) by the beach, along with snorkeling with Manta Rays (much bigger then we remember from South Africa!!!!!) and surfing Lacerations (a surf break out to sea.... green waves and everything CHECK US OUT).  It's really sweet how the kids out here have so much more freedom than back home but are then again, so much safer as everyone seems to look after them.  For example, our surf instructor's boat took out a couple of the local kids! They were squealing with delight every time they caught a wave and I bet their parents weren't at all worried about where they were.

 Scooting around the mangroves was probably the most unsteady few hours of our life, but cool way to see the island without a painfully long walk... hilarious AND practical.

 Snorkelling ^ lol at the honeymoon shots.

Only in Bali.... not enough money for the change so got a chocolate bar instead, perfect.

Probably the best sunsets I have seen in my life! 5 days was not long enough!

Peace and love from Bali,
Jod + Meg xxx

Kuta + Uluwatu (Bali) PARDY

We have arrived in Bali! (well we have been here for nearly two weeks, but the internet is about as slow as everything else on Bali time so we have been struggling to update)

On our first night in Kuta, it was safe to say that we were terrified... we arrived in the dark, got completely ripped off for a taxi (30 dollars when it should have been 6, but he followed us around and into the toilet so what could we do), and then locked ourselves away into a crepe shop of all places, to hide forever.

HOWEVER, after a brave walk down a mysterious dark alley, we arrived in the perfectly fine, and equally hilarious Poppies Lane 2. We wandered outside and realised that Kuta was the Aiya Napa of Bali, with Bounty and Skygarden night clubs handing out free drinks to 'international guests' - free drinks for being on holiday? safe to say we got carried away!

The following night we were ready.... 9pm at Sky Garden for drinks and THE BEST dance in Sky Dome with the locals. We stayed at Gora Beach Inn... after you get over the scary exterior of a dingy car park, the inside is really sweet, for less then 5$ a night we had a room overlooking the pool and banana jaffles for breakfast! Pretty perfect as an escape from the streets of  'Transport!! Transport!!' and 'Mushrooms???'

After we had enjoyed the nightlife in Kuta, as well as hiring surfboards for just one day, we quickly plotted our escape to nicer surroundings; Uluwatu. We stayed near Padang Padang beach, which is beautiful! White sand, blue sea and the rest... though i'm pretty sure we spotted a few comodo dragons!!!!!!!! As we arrived on a Sunday we headed to the Single Fin Party at Uluwatu beach; there was an amazing local band and every traveler was keen to drukenly chat to you about Bali and their love for surfing.

We spent our days either chilling on the beach with a Nasi Goreng (Pot noodle with an egg on the top) or at the Temple, with the monkeys............ THAT ATTACKED US! Absolutely terrifying; the monkeys jumped out the trees, bared their fangs at us and started climbing up Jodie skirt.... our screaming did NOT help but was rather entertaining for the locals.... "You no like monkey???"

^^(After being asked SO many times for photos with various foreign people because we are English, we have started asking for photos back, with hilarious results hahahaha)

In Uluwatu, we spent our mornings taking part in the yoga classes at Mu, a hotel near where we were staying. It was SO NICE! The teacher was really cool, tanned, told us we were beautiful in our sweatiest times and loved everything about Bali - we would definitely recommended this class! It was quite pricey at 100,0000 for an hour but definitely worth the money, we spent the whole day feeling relaxed and stretchy.

One day after class we befriended a 60 year old french man (why are our mates always about a thousand years old) and we gave both of us a lift home on his moped whilst telling us which surf competition he was organizing that day.... hilarious.

Happy Travels xxx

Kenya. Camp 2: Tsavo

Tsavo is RED. Everything is red and glowing as soon as you swing open the banda door in the mornings.  The sand is red and so is the sky, and now so are our clothes and skin.

 

We are now based in the middle of nowhere about an hour and a half's drive from Voi Town - which is pretty much skankville, but quite hilarious! with 'jambo jambo' man shouting how he's clean and my face is shiney - brilliant  But where we are is wonderful!  One night, our roommate Dave, came into our room whispering around about an elephant.  We assumed he was just pissed but he piggy-backed me along and led us to an elephant about 2 metres from the fence!! so amazing!

One evening we watched the African sunset, definetly somthing for everyones bucket list, AMAZING!

For project work, we dug trenches to help maintain the water holes for the wildlife, we dug a shit-pit for the school in order to build a boys toilet, built the foundations for a new classroom, plastered a classroom already built by other volunteers and did some 'wildlife monitoring'.  Safe to say there was a lot of ho'ing involved.

 We also learnt to start fires with Masai Mara when we went to visit there town which we later put into practice on our 'bush adventure day' during which we built dens, in case we got stuck in the bush with a hungry lion, as well as firing bow and arrows built fires out of sticks.

Den Building ^

 

 

The most inspiring part of our trip so far was visiting Imani, the womans group in Voi town, put together to help locals with HIV/Aids, as well as orphans and other in need. The leader that spoke to us was so immensely grateful for our help and had the best stories to tell. We helped them plant crops to fun their group, as well as making bracelets; another form of income.

 

Writing this from Bali (post coming soon!!) we are lovesick for Kenya already, the locals, animals and the friends we made, made it probably the best month of our lives so far!

You have to go to Tsavo, even if it's just for the stars...

Updates soon, Meg and Jod xxxxxxx

The Plan

    Hujambo, Selamat Sore, Hai, Sawatdee, Ayo Bowan.

 

So firsts thing's first on the travel front; the plan - believe me it's changed alot over the course of the last few months. 

First, we were all about Bali, Thailand, Australia, New Zeland and Fiji.  The classic gap year route with countless bagpackers just like us to meet, surf, sun and beautiful auzzie boys.  Saaweet enough, but when we sat down to think about what we wanted from our experience and from each country we planned on visiting, we were unsure.  We don't want to just gain a tan and sit on a beach drinking smoothies (although for a little while it might be nice!). We want exotic locations (not just a hot England), exciting cultures to learn about, cool sites and beautiful, rare species to see!

So, we decided to mix things up a little;

Kenya - Bali - Malaysia - Thailand - Sri Lanka.

(hence the 'hello's at the beginning of this post).

Unfortunately, we had to crop Madagascar out of the equation where we had planned a diving, teaching and conservation project, due to cost reasons.

We plan to stay for roughly a month in each country.

Kenya; the one place in which we plan to stay still, mostly due to it being our first and probably most dangerous stop.  We're in the process of organising a volunteer project; perhaps staying with a tribe, building for the community and a conservation project all in one...

Bali; I suppose it's difficult to give a real plan at this stage of each of the stops, as really our plan is to explore and see something new - the religion and temples as well as the wildlife here,

Malaysia/Thailand; Something very exciting/death-threatening here. Our flight drops as to Kuala Lumpar in Malaysia and picks us up in Bangkok (eeeeek!)  So making our way along the coast, visiting different islands on the way should be interesting!  We are also looking at a short conservation project with Orangutans in Malaysia with real gap if funds permit.

Sri Lanka: Our last stop before home and the most planned yet.  Jodie is lucky enough to have friends from Sri Lanka who have helped us plan our route, places not to miss out on and some volunteering.  After arriving in Colombo, we will hopefully be able to stay with some of the locals who live not far away before heading straight up to the mountains to explore the temples, the national park and visit a friend's family (hopefully digging into a traditional dinner of curry) and to volunteer in the children's orphanage.  Then, as we begin travelling down towards to coast and more touristy side of Sri Lanka, we will stop off at the wildlife orphange, volunteering there for a couple of days.  We will finish our trip with the "beach boys" as our Sri Lankan helper puts it before heading home to Jersey.

Woah, apologies for the waffle but hopefully you find our plan even a quarter as exciting as us! 

Comment and let us know what you think or if you've been to any of these places - tips much appreciated!

We'll keep you posted,

Jodie and Megan

(photos from Nat Geo)