Bali, Ubud and Gili Islands

When our Asian Air plane landed on Bali the pilot welcomed us to “paradise island”. Needless to say, we had high expectations! We had a free pickup from the hotel we were staying in, and let me tell you that those dreams were shattered on the ride in to Kuta!! We saw neon signs, drunken Australians, tons of motorbikes and people selling sunglasses. I thought to myself “What is this place? Las Vegas? Thailand on speed?” We decided to sleep on it. Maybe Kuta would look better in the morning. It didn’t!

Kuta was hot, crowded and full of tourists that probably don’t really like travelling to other countries. These tourists could frequently be spotted on their motorbikes without helmets and with a beer in their hands. Some of them were even driving around with their children. WITHOUT HELMETS! We had enough of red, fat Australians after the first day (sorry, I do normally love Australians!), however, we had booked our hotel for 4 nights. We decided to spend our days drinking fancy coffee, eating great food and reading books. Luckily we had a pool where we were staying. We loved just hanging out there reading and swimming.


After our 4 nights in Gomorra was over we decided to check out what attracted Julia Roberts to Ubud. I think that’s where that movie/book Eat, Love, Pray is based (haven’t seen it). I could really see why anyone would come there to “find themselves”. We LOVED it! There are so many statues and old sculptures everywhere. The hawkers were less annoying, and there are so many cute cafes and stores. It is also very green there actually. I did feel that I was back in Angkor Wat sometimes. So yes, we did finally find our paradise Island in Bali eventually!

After a few days in Ubud we went to Trawangan in the Gili islands. There were no cars or motorbikes here! Although, there were many cute horses that seemed to be worked a bit too hard. The place was amazing though! Imagine combining diving, beautiful beaches, great, cheap food and places that show recent movies every night for peanuts! We had a really good time there. We managed to read a couple of more books, and we finally realised what backpacking is all about ; reading and eating.

We were quite sad to live our beautiful island today after 6 days of paradise. We are currently back in Ubud. We will stay here for 2 nights before we head to Jakarta. Hopefully we will get to see a Balinese dance tomorrow.


Hope all is well in Norway and the UK!

Matt&Betta

Singapore

We arrived in Singapore to begin the Asian segment of our trip. A bit that we have both been looking forward to since we left LHR some 142 days earlier. Singapore is a very good starting place for asia as it's got the hustle, bustle and food but it's also very westernised and extremely clean and safe. A gradual way back in.

It's also a lot more expensive that other asian countries, so we stayed in a dorm room. The first time we had to do that in a while...in fact the first time for a month that we had to stay in a hostel at all.

We've both really enjoyed Singapore, it's a very interesting place and it's got a fascinating history and some amazing new developments. The Marina Bay Sands hotel complex is astounding, and the Singapore Flyer is very impressive too. We went to the Zoo which was great, possibly the best Zoo I can think of, as well as the Changi WW2 museum and rather eclectically, the Philantelic museum too (we were very hot and they had air con!) However, trumping all of this by a country mile, are the hawker markets. These are very basic eating areas, where there are loads of stalls selling local fayre. They are not posh but they are very functional and incredible value. You are looking at £2-3 for a wonderful plate of local grub, freshly cooked. Noodles, Rice, Dim Sum, Curry. It's all there and all lovely. I didn't try the frog porridge though I'm sure it's delicious too.

We also had some business to attend to. Namely getting our visas for China and it turned out to be a bit of a pain. We turned up with forms printed and filled out and passport photos, but were told when we got there that we needed proof of our flight from China. We had to go back to the hostel (90 min round trip) to pick that up, only to be told on our return that the forms were out of date and we'd need to fill out new ones too. So much for trying to be organised. We eventually got our applications in with seconds to spare before they closed (at 3pm obviously!) To our amazement 4 days later we collected our passports with visas with very little fuss (and £50). Yay, we can now go to China.

We also discovered when we were there, and somewhat by accident, that Joe was arriving in Singapore for work, and more incredibly, Ragnhild was coming out for a holiday too! As such we met Joe for dinner twice and Joe and Ragnhild once, as well as hanging out a bit, and even blagging a swim in the roof top pool of the Hilton. It was really nice to meet up with some friends from home and for Betta to speak some proper Norwegian too.


Next up, a new country for us both, Indonesia.

MandB

Brisbane and beyond

After having said goodbye to beautiful New Zealand we found ourselves in Australia once again. We spent 3 and a half day in Brisbane. Hospitable Nikki picked us up from the airport and we spent 2 days at her place. She took us to an amazing cheese factory and we had a good time there.











On Friday the 8th we met my old friend Julian. It was so great seeing him again! He has a flat with nice views of the city. Since we wanted to spend as much time with him as possible, we decided to stay with him for the last night (Sat the 9th). We had a great time! Julian was playing the piano and the guitar for us constantly. It felt like being in a musical. Seriously! Julian’s nice friend Craig was also there.

Inspired by the Ylvisaaker brothers (Norwegian guys), we decided to make some prank phone calls to the states. Julian was playing the piano and singing while trying to ordering rooms. It was so funny! Unfortunately, most people hung up, but there were a few that didn’t ;)

It was very sad to leave on Sunday, but at the same time we knew that Asian food was calling for us.

At the moment we are in Singapore. We are spending 6 days here because we want to get Visas for China. Man it really was a hassle trying to organise that! Matt had checked out the information in regards to getting the visa. When we got to the office (after an hour of looking for it), they told us they needed the immigration papers for Singapore, and our itinerary! So we had to go back to our hostel and get it. Why don’t they put that information online??? When we got back we had to fill out the forms we had printed out from the internet again. It turned out that the version we printed out was outdated. We get to pick up our passports again with the visa on Thursday. However, I am starting to feel nervous about that! China keep cancelling all these meeting because of the Nobel peace price issue. We all know how important I am, so will they let me in? I guess I shouldn’t joke about that online. You never know. But seriously though, I really hope it all works out!

Singapore is very hot. We have been walking around a lot. We saw Little India and Chinatown yesterday.
The hawker markets are amazing! The food is really cheap and OH SO GOOD! Matt was very excited about getting bubble tea again. I was not so excited about drinking rubbish coffee. Is it time for me to give up my addiction?

It is raining at the moment. We are going to the zoo today. Hopefully we’ll see the white tiger.

By the way, we only have less than 3 months left of travelling now. Christmas will come before we know it, and then we’ll be home. Luckily we get to eat loads of noodles before that happen.

Enjoy the fall guys! At least you don’t need to worry about aircon.
Matt&Betta

New Zealand

Sorry for the delay in this instalment of the blog. We’ve just been having too much fun. We’ve been here almost a month and it really doesn’t feel like it.

We took advantage of some home comforts in Christchurch (and were able to feel what a 4.6 earthquake is like) before setting off on the first leg of our NZ road trip. We got our Jucy ‘crib’ campervan and headed south. Unfortunately this coincided with the most unseasonable weather for about 20 years and a storm the size of Australia brought rain and snow in large quantities. Fortunately we were able to borrow blankets, so sleeping in the car was OK but it was pretty cold at night and getting out of bed in the morning was a real struggle. In a nutshell we went to Queenstown and felt like the only people not going to the mountains but it’s so beautiful there we didn’t mind too much. The weather meant we couldn’t head south or west so we went down to the east coast and to the Dunedin peninsular which is very pretty. We waited for 90 minutes for Blue Penguins to not appear on a freezing cold night but that slight disappointment aside we had a great time.



Back to Christchurch to warm up for a couple of days before heading off again for our road trip part 2 up to Auckland. We planned a day in the vineyards of Marlborough near Blenheim. We biked around from cellar door to cellar door. We actually learnt as much as we drunk and it was a brilliant day out. The biking was the most exercise we’d done for weeks though so we were a bit sore in both head and bottom the day after.
Our road trip north was really nice and a few standout things included The Waitomo Glowworm cave which were really nice as well as the Coromandel peninsular which was beautiful too. We also had a slight car accident in Rotarua (not my fault I hasten to add) but there were no injuries, we had a zero excess insurance policy, and there was not much damage so it was no big deal thankfully. An example of the notorious bad NZ driving though.

Following that we went up to the Bay of islands where we were lucky enough to stay with Terry and Celia at their bach. The highlight for us was a boat tour. The bay is just lovely and we saw so many Dolphins and also Orca too which was great. This part of the world is really stunningly beautiful, even if Cook once called it ‘the hellhole of the pacific’. It’s changed quite a lot for the better since the whaling days of the 19th century.


Finally we’ve been relaxing and taking it easy in Auckland with Elizabeth before we hit the road again.

I can safely say we are leaving NZ with very fond memories, every one is so friendly in shops and cafes etc. Apart from that it’s also really English in so many ways and it’s been really nice to stay in ream homes rather than backpacker places. Even though we’ve had a month here there are quite a number of things we would like to have done but didn’t have the time. Next time.

We have been really well looked after by friends and family in NZ and Australia. Everyone has been so helpful and generous to us so a big thanks to Suzie (Sydney), Tony & Dawn, Terry & Celia and Elizabeth. We are very appreciative of all that you have done for us and you’ve helped make this a very relaxing and fun segment of our trip.

Off to Brisbane for 3 days later today then Singapore on Sunday for the final third of our trip, in Asia. Now where did I put the suncream…


M&B