“We were looking forward to peace, tranquillity and Christmas dinner on Indonesia’s most popular island”

These words are taken from our last blog post, in the good old days when we were excited and optimistic about our forthcoming trip to Bali.

While we did manage to find Christmas dinner, we weren’t so lucky when it came to peace and tranquillity. Our experience of Bali turned out to be a little less “eat, pray, love” and a little more “You want massage? Marijuana? Boyfriend?”, with some bad weather and a stolen phone thrown in for the ultimate miserable Christmas experience.

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We spent our first week at Solid Surf and Yoga House in the trendy area of Canggu. At first sight, the other people staying at the surf house seemed a little intimidating. Everyone was toned and tanned. We heard someone describe surfing as “so much more than a sport – it’s a lifestyle”, and I nearly threw up in my mouth. With zero surfing experience, pasty bodies and worn out backpacker clothes, Shane and I do not exactly embody the “surfing lifestyle” (whatever that is). But, we were keen to learn how to surf, and with daily surfing lessons, twice-daily yoga sessions and a free scooter complete with a surfboard rack, the Solid Surf House seemed to be the place to do it.

When we got to the beach for our first lesson, we discovered that appearances can be misleading. The intimidating surfer crowd seemed a lot less intimidating when they were falling off their surfboards, and everyone was friendly, encouraging, and supportive. We began to make a few friends, and had a shared chuckle at the “surfing is a lifestyle” nonsense we’d heard earlier.

Unfortunately the surfing was less successful than the socialising. Shane and I discovered that neither of us are naturally talented, which while not surprising, was still a little disappointing. We tried and failed to stand up on the surf board several times, nearly managing it on the odd occasion, but mostly falling off and ending up tangled in the rubbish that fills Bali’s beaches. What felt like seaweed around my leg was in fact a few plastic bags, and wading through layers of filth to get into the sea wasn’t exactly the spectacular surfing experience I’d hoped for.

Our second day of surfing was even worse. Sunshine had turned into constant, never-ending rain, which had washed more rubbish from the rivers into the sea and onto the beach. Instead of wading through it, we were taken to a different surf spot: Serangan beach at Turtle island, on the opposite side of Bali. Traffic in Bali is unbelievably slow, so it took well over an hour to drive the 20km from Canggu to Turtle Island. Once we got there, the rain and wind had picked up, the current was strong, and we spent the best part of an hour paddling off the beach to reach some decent waves. Of course, once the waves came, I was knocked off the surfboard immediately, and had to start the process again.

The waves were huge, and they broke over a reef, which I managed to bump into when I fell off the surf board. Eventually, tired of being battered by waves, the reef, the wind and the rain, and rolling around in what felt like a washing machine, I decided to paddle back towards the beach. As I paddled, a giant wave scooped me up, and I enjoyed what may be my new favourite sport – surfing lying down. As I lay on the board, too terrified and confused to try to actually surf the wave, I found myself back on the beach in no time. “This would be awesome”, I thought, “if I could actually surf.”

—

Unfortunately, the weather in Bali (more rain, more wind) somewhat scuppered our plans to become serious surfers in a week. Surf lessons were cancelled for two days, and too much rain coupled with an ineffective drainage system turned the streets of Canggu into a giant puddle. Walking down the street became extremely hazardous, so we stayed in, watched DVDs and turned our attention to yoga instead.

A video of Bali’s glorious weather

Like surfing, yoga did not come naturally to either of us. We were the least flexible people in the yoga class at all times, and spent most of the sessions trying to find ways to endure the pain of the various positions, rather than achieving inner peace. While everyone else was perfecting their downward dog, Shane and I exchanged knowing, wincing glances across the room – code for “no, I can’t do it either.” Nevertheless, we enjoyed the peaceful aspects of yoga (particularly the parts spent lying down in the ‘resting pose’). Like surfing, I discovered that I liked the horizontal parts of yoga the best.

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Once the weather improved a little, we were able to attempt to surf at the beach again, with slightly more success: I discovered I had been trying to stand up on the wrong side the whole time, and we both managed to get up on the board and actually surf a little for a few precious moments.

We were also able to venture further outside the surf camp, and took our scooter to nearby Kuta to meet up with a few familiar faces. Some the group we had travelled with in Sumatra on our gadventures trip had arrived in Bali and were staying on Kuta beach, and we planned to surprise them at their hotel and join them for their last meal before everyone went their separate ways.

We knew the traffic was bad in Bali, so we left an hour and fifteen minutes to drive the 14 kilometres from Canggu to Kuta. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough, and we were half an hour late for the surprise meal. I ended up walking the last two kilometres because the traffic was so gridlocked we assumed I would get there faster, but once on my own I was hassled virtually every metre I walked along the street. Did I want to buy something from the shop? Did I want a scooter? A taxi? Another form of transport? A massage? A boyfriend? Some drugs? Once we met up with Hendri, Petra, Georgina, Intisar, Sheree, Lucy, Ryan, Mollie and Carlos, they seemed just as happy about being in Kuta as we were. “It’s like magaluf but for Australians”, quipped Carlos, and although I have never been to magaluf, the seedy nightlife and bucket-filled streets looked an awful lot like my mental image of magaluf… except dirtier.

After a pleasant reunion with our gadventures buddies, we headed back to Canggu, hoping the return trip wouldn’t be as stressful.

Sadly, it was far worse. While Shane drove the scooter, I sat on the back, using my phone to navigate through the streets. Most of the time we managed to scoot along at a good speed, but the roads were dark, confusing and not well signposted. As we reached the outskirts of Canggu, I was continuing to navigate, when all of a sudden another scooter bumped into us and my phone was snatched from my hand. We were lucky that we stayed on the scooter, and that my bag with the cash and credit cards remained firmly attached to me, but I was devastated to lose my phone, and we were now lost in the dark, with no way of navigating back to the surf camp.

We pulled in and ventured into a local shop to ask for directions. Without a shared language or the google translate app, we found it difficult to explain our predicament, and the shop keeper obviously felt sorry for us but had no idea where we trying to go. We no longer felt safe driving around endlessly on the scooter, hoping we might see somewhere we recognised, but luckily I saw a sign for a beach club that I knew wasn’t far from the surf camp. We headed for the beach club, making a wrong turn down a dark street where we asked again for directions. This time, the man we asked spoke English and told us roughly where to go. “But be careful”, he added. We sighed – we would try our best.

Eventually we managed to find the surf camp. I phoned my brother on Shane’s phone to ask for stolen-phone-related advice, and then tried to sleep, feeling an empty space beside me where my phone usually lives. It was a sad night.

—

Our time in the surf camp was just about up. Shane had a final (more successful) attempt at surfing while I did laundry, mourned the loss of my phone and considered a trip to the local police station to report the theft. This idea was swiftly forgotten when I discovered it would take all day and cost £25 to file a police report, and that we weren’t entitled to claim for it on our insurance anyway.

The next day we endured another terrible, traffic filled journey back to Kuta, where we had booked an upmarket hotel for three nights over Christmas (thanks to our friends for their generous wedding gift of a hotel voucher).

The hotel was an oasis of calm, but outside, Kuta was still Kuta. The beach was still full of rubbish, the streets were still full of people hassling us, and the traffic was still insane. We spent Christmas Day missing our families, eating chocolate and wishing we were somewhere else.

Thankfully, the day was saved by Shane’s decision to eat Christmas dinner at an all-you-can-eat buffet at the Hard Rock Hotel (where Christmas dinner includes spaghetti bolognese, a chocolate fountain and, of course, Indonesian fried rice, as well as the usual turkey and potatoes). The food was great, but what was even better was bumping into our friends from our Sumatra trip: Lucy and Sheree, who had had the same idea and were also making the most of the all-inclusive food.

—

With Christmas over and our stay in Kuta complete, I was overjoyed to leave Bali behind for a few days. The crazy traffic, disgusting beaches, sneaky phone snatchers and pouring rain were starting to get me down. I didn’t just want to leave Bali – I wanted to give up and go home altogether. But we had one more mini-adventure in store before we were due to arrive in Australia; a quick trip to the island of Flores and Komodo National Park, where we hoped to see something other than traffic and litter: perhaps a manta ray, a turtle, or a famous Komodo Dragon.

 

 

 

Touching down in Kuala Lumpur after two weeks in wild Sumatra was a bit of a reverse culture shock. From Padang’s “International” airport , which consisted of a few small rooms, one food outlet selling nasi goreng (fried rice), and barely-working air conditioning, we found ourselves transported to a city of gleaming skyscrapers, mega shopping malls and hectic street markets. For the first time in months, we used clean, reliable public transport to take us to a clean, comfortable hostel. It felt good to be back in a cosmopolitan city.

We spent our next three days in Kuala Lumpur. First we explored the nearby Batu Caves; a series of caves within a limsetone hill filled with Hindu temples and shrines. Despite the impressive statues and shrines, the numerous monkeys stole the show. There were monkeys everywhere, and many of them looked at us with expectant eyes, hoping we were some of the tourists who had ignored the many warnings and brought them food. Thankfully we didn’t have any food, so the monkeys largely left us alone, but not everyone around us was so lucky.

Next on the itinerary was a free walking tour around the city’s heritage buildings with a Kuala Lumpur history lesson. Shane was in his element, and despite the heat, the mosquitoes (who, as usual, treated me like a walking snack), and my general aversion to walking history tours, even I enjoyed it!

The remainder of our time in Kuala Lumpur was split between two very different areas: the extravagant shopping centres and iconic buildings of Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC), where we visited the famous Petronas Towers, and the more budget-friendly Chinatown, where we ate delicious Chinese food and slept in the simple Explorer’s Guesthouse without breaking the bank.

Wandering the shopping malls of KLCC was slightly surreal, as Christmas seemed to appear out of nowhere. Decorations filled the spaces, stores stocked woolly hats and fluffy jackets (despite the fact that the temperature outside was a consistent 32 degrees), and we even stumbled upon Malaysia’s largest Christmas tree.

Our visit to the Petronas Towers themselves was a little underwhelming. At 85 Malaysian Ringgits (£15) per person, visiting the towers was relatively expensive by Malaysian standards, and while the towers looked distinctive and impressive from the outside, the inside was a bit disappointing. We booked tickets for 6pm, hoping to see the view during the last daylight hours, the sunset and at night. Unfortunately, we didn’t realise we’d only be allowed to stay for about twenty minutes, so there was no sunset watching for us. As it happened, it didn’t really matter because the weather was so hazy that we couldn’t see much anyway. 

As if that wasn’t sad enough, as we struggled to look at the view, it began to dawn on me that something was missing. The iconic Kuala Lumpur skyline has the Petronas Towers in it, but of course we couldn’t see them, because we were in them. Epic fail.

After our short time admiring a hazy, uninteresting view, we left the Petronas Towers and walked a short distance to Traders Hotel, where we had heard it was possible to get a good view of the towers from their top-floor bar. Sure enough, as we reached the top floor of the hotel, we saw the view we had been waiting for (as well as the hotel’s swimming pool) and settled down for a drink, snack and a few photos.

From the glitz and glamour of city skyscrapers, enormous Christmas trees and rooftop bars, we headed back to the slightly grimier Chinatown. Overall, we enjoyed our time in Chinatown: our accommodation at the Explorer’s Guesthouse was cheap, clean and welcoming, and we found an amazing but very inexpensive Chinese restaurant close by. Unfortunately that wasn’t all we found. Chinatown seemed to be THE place to get a fake watch, and we also stumbled across some local wildlife which made us question our life choices:

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From Kuala Lumpur we caught a bus to take us all the way to our next stop: Singapore. Shane was a little sceptical about how long the bus would take, but I reassured him that this was a non-stop bus that would only take five hours, and that this was the quickest and simplest way to get from one city to the next. When the bus arrived, it was comfortable, air conditioned and there was a big sign outside that promised free wifi. It seemed that we had hit the bus-jackpot.

Unfortunately, once on the bus, we noticed a much smaller sign inside printed on a piece of A4 paper that said “sorry wifi not working”. Half an hour after after leaving Kuala Lumpur, our non-stop bus stopped to pick up more people. Then we got stuck in traffic. Then we stopped again for fuel. Then again. And again, for lunch. By now, five hours had been and gone, and we still had a significant distance to cover and a border to cross.

When we did eventually get to the border, another surprise was in store. If the queue at immigration is on the long side and you take too long to pass through it, it turns out the bus will leave you behind. Thankfully Shane and I picked a fast-ish moving queue, so we were through immigration and customs just about quickly enough. One of our fellow backpackers wasn’t so lucky. Despite Shane asking the bus driver nicely to wait for him (he was only a minute or two bit behind us), the bus drove off and abandoned him at the border.

When we reached our hostel in Singapore, the receptionist asked where we had come from. “We got the bus from Kuala Lumpur,” I replied. She looked surprised: “You must have got up early”, she said. “Usually that bus takes at least ten hours.” Good to know.

—

If Kuala Lumpur had caused reverse culture shock, Singapore took it to another level. The city was clean, modern, easy to navigate and full of beautiful, impressive buildings (including the extravagant Marina Bay Sands Hotel).

We conducted our own walking tours of Singapore’s Chinatown and Little India, which were like sanitised, fairytale versions of China and India – colourful neighbourhoods with interesting temples and delicious Chinese and Indian food, but with the addition of clean toilets, clean public transport and expensive shops. A particular highlight was the Chinatown Heritage Centre, where we learned about how the people who first settled in Chinatown used to live, and explored Chinatown’s interesting history.

Continuing our history lesson, we took a trip to the battle box museum – an underground bunker used during the second World War where the British generals decided to surrender Singapore to the Japanese. The bunker lay forgotten and untouched for many years and has only recently opened to the public, complete with an excellent guided tour.

We also visited the impressive Gardens by the Bay; a huge green garden in the heart of the city. We marvelled at the supertrees which light up at night and explored the huge cloud forest and flower domes. The gardens were amazing, and the night time light shows at both the Gardens by the Bay and the Marina Bay Sands were magnificent, but despite the ultra-cleanliness, efficiency and perfection of Singapore, somehow it all felt too good to be true.

Singapore is sometimes called a “fine” city; not just because it is a fine state, but because you can be fined (or worse – face prison or even the death penalty) for just about anything:

Action	Punishment
Improper disposal of chewing gum	$1,000 fine
Littering (e.g. dropping a small cigarette butt or sweet wrapper)	$300 fine
Annoying someone with a musical instrument	$1,000 fine
Spitting	$1,000 fine
Connecting to someone else’s wifi	$10,000 fine and / or three years in prison
Forgetting to flush the toilet	$150 fine
Walking around your own house naked	$2,000 fine and / or three months in prison
Feeding the pigeons	$500 fine
Jaywalking	$20 fine for a first offence ($1,000 and / or three months in prison after that)
Possession of drugs	Mandatory death sentence

 

With this in mind we did our best to stay on the right side of the law at all times!

—

While in Singapore, we visited Shane’s family friends Billy, Sonia and their daughter Sofia. Sonia took us out to see Singapore’s hot spots to eat and drink, including Potato Head in Chinatown, where we had the best burgers we’ve ever eaten. The next morning, Sonia cooked us a proper Irish breakfast in their beautiful apartment (complete with amazing pool, and despite the 31 degree outside temperature, a hot tub). It was lovely to get a taste of home, and to get the low down on life in Singapore.

From Billy and Sonia’s place, we headed straight to the airport to catch our flight to Bali, keeping our fingers crossed that Bali’s volcano Mount Agung would stay quiet for the next couple of weeks. We enjoyed our short city breaks in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, but by the end of the week we were ready for peace, tranquillity and Christmas dinner on Indonesia’s most popular island.

As we checked into our flight from Krabi (beach capital of Thailand) to Medan (gateway to Sumatra), via Bangkok, the Air Asia check-in assistant looked a little blank. “You’re going where?” she queried. It looked like she had never heard of Medan, so I clarified. “Sumatra…” (nothing). “Indonesia?” She then pulled an expression that said “OK, you’re a bit weird”, and proceeded to check us in.

We had never heard of Medan either, until we booked a two week trip around Sumatra with gadventures, which started in this little-known city. When I looked up Medan on Tripadvisor, I read some reviews describing the city as “more polluted, chaotic and full of traffic than Jakarta” (joy), and saw that the number one ‘thing to do’ was the train which runs from the airport to the city centre. One review of the train, written in October 2017, read:

“This is unexpected of Medan. When I first got in, I was shocked and really happy that finally Medan had such clean transportation. Lol #nooffence.”

With this in mind, I didn’t have high expectations when we finally landed in Medan’s international airport.

While waiting for our bags, we spotted one blonde head of hair, and the one and only backpack that didn’t belong to us. When the blonde hair and the backpack belonged to the same girl, we made a stereotypical presumption that she might also be on our gadventures tour, so we decided to check and see whether she wanted to travel with us to our hotel in the city centre. The blonde hair and backpack belonged to Claire, an animated and excited Australian, and together we worked out that yes, we were on the same tour, and that at 150,000 Indonesian Rupiah (£8) for the three of us, sharing a taxi would be the cheapest way to get to the city centre. Unfortunately, this meant we missed out on Medan’s star attraction, but we did get our first taste of Indonesian driving conditions instead.

Later that night, we met the rest of our gadventures group. There were twelve of us altogether, plus our guide, Hendri. Shane was grateful not to be the only man this time, but ended up standing out anyway as the oldest member of the group. There were also two other couples, one of which had only recently met on a gadventures tour in Thailand over the previous two weeks, cementing the idea that travel really can be a great way to meet people if you are looking for a relationship!

—

After a brief tour of Medan’s highlights (a very extravagant Mosque and a less extravagant Palace), we took a bumpy, windy five-hour drive to the jungle paradise of Tangkahan. We had been pre-warned that our accommodation for the next few nights would be basic, with no wifi, hot water or air conditioning, and when we arrived we discovered that to get to it we would need to cross a river using a slightly wibbly-wobbly hanging bridge.

Nevertheless, we enjoyed the peace and quiet and getting up close and personal with nature. We swung around in hammocks, swam in the river and sang songs while Hendri played his guitar. We looked like an advert for typical nauseating, hippie, happy backpackers… until I tried to sleep and found giant ants in my bed and hair.

The next day we continued our jungle adventure by tubing down the nearby river. Shane and I have been tubing before in Laos so thought we knew what was involved: a relaxing ride down the river, right? Wrong. Tubing in Tangkahan was more extreme in every sense: from the good (making way for a herd of Sumatran elephants to walk up the path to the river), to the bad (taking our shoes off to wade through squishy mud on our way to a waterfall), to the terrifying (who doesn’t want some white water rapids with the odd shallow rock to go along with their tubing?!). Thankfully, we just about survived the experience and made it back to our jungle lodge in time to scramble into a few 4x4s for a bumpy journey through muddy roads to the next stop on our jungle tour: Bukit Lawang, the only home of wild orangutans outside of Borneo.

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We woke up early to start our jungle trek and orangutan search, and despite being told our trek would follow a ‘trail’, it became clear that the trail was not well-trodden, or even particularly visible. This was not your typical forest walk – it was a very serious trek through the jungle, which involved climbing over trees, climbing through gaps, and sliding down muddy walls. It looked like a real life version of the Jungle Book: the most ‘jungly’ jungle I have ever seen.

It wasn’t long before we spotted two orangutans – a mother and baby swinging through the trees high above our heads. We craned our necks and glimpsed their orange fur amongst the green leaves, trying (and failing) to get a decent picture. While we continued to search for the best spot to get a good view, our guide beckoned us to follow him to another part of the jungle. He had found more orangutans, and this time they were much closer.

In total, we managed to spot nine orangutans in the jungle, as well as a handful of gibbons, dozens of thomas leaf monkeys, some macaques, a weird brown peacock (a ‘great argus’), and millions of mosquitoes. Trekking through the dense forest, falling in the mud and getting bitten to death had been well worth it. Unbelievably, the day got even better when we returned to the edge of the jungle and found an ‘ecolodge’ made entirely of bamboo, where we could sip a drink and take a nap in a hammock (or in my case, a swinging egg).

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From the jungle at Bukit Lawang, we headed to Berastagi, a small town with a large fruit market, in order to climb the nearby Sibayak volcano. This involved waking up at 3.30am and hiking in the pitch black up steep, uneven paths which were covered with various obstacles, including giant overhanging branches that we couldn’t see, and the odd bees’ nest. With an incredible stroke of luck, we managed to arrive at the perfect time: an instant after the sun started to rise over the surrounding mountains below us and around half an hour before we, and everything around us, were covered in a blanket of cloud and mist. As well as the view of our surroundings and the crater, we also got to see some live volcanic activity! Like the tubing and the jungle trek, a walk up such a steep path in the dark to the top of a volcano would never be on offer at home on the (admittedly, legitimate) grounds of risk to health and safety, so though these weren’t experiences I’d repeat, it was interesting to well and truly get ‘off the beaten path’.

On our last few days in Sumatra we travelled South and West, stopping at the beautiful volcanic Lake Toba, and Samosir ‘island within an island’, where we swam in the clear, fresh water, sampled the local nightlife, explored a real-life cannibal village and continued to bond with the rest of our group. We were starting to grow attached to many of the characters, especially Intisar who lived in Ealing, not far from my home town of Harrow, who hilariously stole Shane’s camera for a while (after he stole her shoe), Dr Georgina from the Netherlands, who unfortunately didn’t get much of a holiday as she was constantly called upon to solve various medical issues, and the most mature and sensible member of the group (despite being the youngest), Petra from Germany, who looked at us in disbelief when we visited KFC and ate the chicken using our hands instead of cutlery.

As the trip continued, the good luck which had helped us to spot nine orangutans in the jungle and catch a beautiful sunrise over Mount Sibayak seemed to evaporate. First, four members of the group realised they had had money stolen from a hotel room. In the case of Mollie and Carlos (one of the couples), it had been a very large amount of money, and neither the local Police nor their insurance company were particularly helpful. Then to make matters worse, Mollie sprained her ankle badly and had to miss out on several of the later trips.

Unfortunately, the new run of bad luck found me too.

One night, we were delighted to find a restaurant that served something other than the Indonesian staple (‘nasi goreng’, or fried rice). I excitedly ordered a Mexican burrito, but as I started munching away, felt that something wasn’t right. My burrito consisted of a large tortilla wrap, some chicken cooked in a tomato sauce, and lots and lots of hard, presumably undercooked beans. I did my best to eat it, but then started to feel a tingly sensation in my throat.

I suffer from a mild peanut allergy. When I eat peanuts, or bits of peanut (though food that has been in contact with peanuts seems to be OK), I usually get a tingling sensation in my throat and lips, and sometimes a slightly swollen and red face. As the tingling sensation I experienced when I ate the burrito felt a lot like the beginning of the peanut allergy symptoms, I stopped eating and tried to find out the cause. “Are there peanuts in here?”, I asked Shane, but he couldn’t see any. “The beans aren’t actually peanuts, are they?” I asked. He didn’t think so, but then Hendri stepped in. “Yep, those are peanuts,” he said, eating one just to make sure.

Shane rushed off to get me something else to eat and drink to take away any remnants of the peanuts, while I looked at my plate in wonder. “Who puts peanuts in a burrito?” I asked, to no one in particular.

It seemed as though I’d escaped the worst of any peanut-allergy-symptoms, and I went to bed happily.

Then, at 2am, I woke up with some serious vomiting and diarrhoea. Often at the same time. Morning came, and it wasn’t stopping. While Shane went out to explore the surrounding town of Bukittingi, I crept from my bed, to the toilet, and back to my bed. When it came time to leave and board a bus to Padang, our last stop of the tour, Shane had to pack and carry my bag, and help me on to the bus. Dr Georgina prescribed a concoction of medicines, which helped, but didn’t stop me needing to ask the bus driver to stop in the middle of the journey so I could use one of the worst toilets I’ve seen so far on our trip (and definitely the worst since the Pamir Highway).

‘Toilet’ was in fact a rather loose description. Unfortunately I was too busy trying to use the thing to take a picture for this blog, but you will have to trust me when I say it was a tiny hole dug into the side of a wall. It didn’t resemble a toilet in any way. I tried to find some examples online, and let’s just say it was worse than anything I could find.

After suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea for too many hours to keep track of, my symptoms finally started to improve, and I was able to sleep. The next day, I stayed in bed to rest, recover and eventually ate my first ‘meal’ in 48 hours (a delicious digestive biscuit, which I’d kept with me since England just in case the need for one should arise), while Shane went off to explore the beautiful beaches of Padang and the surrounding islands. He helpfully informed me that these were the best beaches he’s seen so far on our trip, with long stretches of empty white sand, crystal blue water, a myriad of marine species (snorkellers saw cuttlefish, lobster and a variety of other creatures) and absolutely no other tourists whatsoever.

I’ll have to take his word for it. 

—

On our final morning we said goodbye to our group, many of whom were off on another gadventures tour around Java and Bali, while we prepared to fly to Kuala Lumpur.

Sumatra is truly an adventurer’s paradise, which is barely touched by tourism. White-water-tubing, exploratory jungle treks and empty pristine beaches are all par for the course. Unfortunately, so are plentiful mosquitoes, questionable toilet facilities, lax health and safety standards and bizarre burrito ingredients. We were lucky to explore Sumatra with our gadventures group, who gave us support, laughter and all-important medication when we needed it, and made Sumatra a ‘challenging’ rather than ‘impossible’ destination to navigate.

For more on the benefits of independent vs group travel, see our blog post: what sort of travel is right for me?

“Travelling the world” means very different things to different people. Some might choose to hitch-hike, couch-surf and pot-noodle their way slowly from place to place all on their own, while others might prefer to hop on a giant round-the-world cruise with 2,000 other people. Different ways of travelling all bring different advantages and disadvantages, and one of the biggest factors which might influence your travel experience is whether you choose to go-it-alone, or to join an organised tour with others.

We have been lucky enough to sample a myriad of different types of travel, and travel companions. We’ve travelled independently, as a couple, with friends, with family, and with total strangers who later became friends. We’ve tried road trips, camping trips, overland trucks, cruises, small group tours and virtually everything in between, and in this blog post we each give our we thoughts on the pros and cons of different types of travel.

1. Classic backpacking

Definition:

The phrase “travelling the world” often conjures images of young people traipsing around South East Asia with large backpacks. Of course, you can backpack anywhere around the world and at any age, and for us “backpacking” generally involves travelling independently from place to place, catching local transport, and staying in hostels, guest houses or homestays.

Georgia:

If you want to stay flexible, independent backpacking is the way to go. You can choose to plan a detailed itinerary, or not plan at all. You can stay in trendy boutique hostels or airbnb apartments, or you can couch-surf at the home of a local resident and eat cup noodles and street food. Or you can do both, changing it up depending on your budget and mood at any given time.

The downside of so much flexibility is that you have endless choices, and you have to make them all yourself. When we travel independently, we tend to spend a significant amount of time planning every aspect of our trip – we try to track down cheap flights, accommodation bargains and the most efficient transport routes. There is no end to the amount of blogs, Tripadvisor reviews and guidebooks you can read, which can be very helpful, but also a little daunting. The paradox of choice is real.

It’s often assumed that independent backpacking is the cheapest way to travel, but that depends on the choices you make and the time you put in to finding the best deals. Happy to sleep on a stranger’s floor and hitch hike to wherever you end up next? Then independent travel is certainly the cheapest way to do it. Want to rock up at the best looking hostel at the last minute and take speedy flights when you feel like it? Then you might not save much cash, but you’ll be able to be spontaneous at all times.

If you’re worried about being on your own and want to meet like minded travellers, you’ll almost certainly be able to do so as long you’re staying in ‘backpacker’ hostels and not veering too far off the tourist trail. The downside? We’ve found that most of our interactions with other backpackers tend to be quite shallow and superficial, as by their very nature other backpackers are always coming and going. Once you’ve talked about the basics a thousand times (“Where are you from? Where are you going? Do you know if there’s a good supermarket near here?”), you might be longing for a few familiar faces where you can talk about something other than the weather or who ate the most authentic street food last night.

Shane:

Backpacking…hmmm. Makes you think of people in flip flops and braided hair carrying bags that look bigger than them. Often it just looks like a bag with legs. Wow, that turtle is standing up!

The advantages of backpacking are:

• Flexibility – if you find somewhere nice then you can stay there for longer. If you want to get out quick, you can! also the same goes for the opposite.
• Infinite options – you are able to create your own itinerary. You are not restricted to a route, a well trodden tourist path or an organised trip.
• Possibility for different experiences and interactions – you have the opportunity to experience the culture and people who live where you are travelling. There is no guide to act as a buffer between you and the locals, so you can be fully exposed to their way of life, different languages, and different foods. If you are travelling alone you are more likely to be invited into people’s homes, share a meal or even attend a wedding!

The disadvantages are:

• Planning – You can backpack without much planning, however this can result in you never leaving a country, area or even a beach as it seems like too much effort and you like where you are (this is not really backpacking though is it?) If you do decide to make plans last minute (for example, arrive in a new city and have to find somewhere to stay) this may be costly but can also result in you having to try lots of different hostels before you can get a room. By planning ahead you can select the correct location, facilities and also best value before you arrive in a boiling hot country carrying all your belongings on your back. Planning before you leave means you don’t have to take time out of enjoying the places where you are to search the internet or walk the streets.
• Loneliness – If you are forever on the road and moving from place to place it can be easy to meet people, but these people will only be around for a few days before someone moves on. You can try get to know them during this short window, but most of the conversation will start with “Where are you from, Where are you going, Do you know a good restaurant/laundry/bar/Atm around here?”
• Cost – Often backpacking is seen as the cheapest way to travel, but that might not be case. We have in the past picked group/organised travel over going it alone as you can get discounts and negotiate better prices in a group.
• Time – If you have a strict time-frame in which you have to travel and are not one for detailed planning, (luckily for me, Georgia is) then backpacking may not be for you. If you do not want to be confined by places and times then there is a risk you will end up spending too long in one place and not seeing everything you originally wanted to see.

2. Road-tripping

Definition: We love a road trip. With your own set of wheels, the world really is your oyster. You can explore areas no one else has even thought to visit, take a car-load of stuff along for the ride and you never have to worry about getting up on time to catch a bus. As well as small scale road trips in Italy, Slovenia and around Ireland and the United Kingdom, Shane and I have also embarked on an epic road trip across the United States, and of course, the ultimate motoring adventure: the Mongol Rally.

Georgia: When travelling across borders outside of Europe, road trips can end up being pretty difficult and pretty pricey, but within Europe or large countries, they are (in my opinion) the best way to see the world.

The main advantages include:

• Maximum flexibility with limited research required – all you really need is a map, the ioverlander app (which finds good places to camp or hostels to stay in), a tent and a vehicle. Outside of major tourist hot spots we’ve rarely needed to book a campsite, and wild camping spots can usually be found.
• Potential to save cash – if you are in a couple or in a group, travelling with your own vehicle tends to be cheaper than taking buses, trains and planes (even factoring in the cost of a vehicle / vehicle hire, fuel and insurance), and if you choose to camp (either often or occasionally), you can save even more. The more people you travel with, the cheaper your road trip will be!
• Ability to stop at destinations not easily reached by public transport, and have a whole host of fun (random) experiences – rather than taking buses from backpacker hostel at tourist hotspot to backpacker hostel at tourist hotspot, a road trip really does allow you to journey down ‘the road less travelled’. If you see an interesting sight (e.g. a strange horse shrine) by the side of the road, you can pull off and go for a look. If you want to venture down a non-existent path to check out some hot springs, you can!

The disadvantages of road-trip travel are mainly vehicle related:

• While you won’t have to worry about arriving at the bus station on time, you will have to worry about filling up with fuel, parking, obeying local driving regulations and coping with different (and potentially crazy) driver behaviour.
• It can be even more difficult to meet people if you’re travelling to off-the-beaten-track destinations and not staying in backpacker hostels, which is another good reason to consider travelling as a group of three or four.
• The biggest disadvantage comes into play when you’re trying to cross borders or continents. Difficult regulations, extensive paperwork and exhaustive bureaucracy can be enough to make you want to abandon your trusty steed.
  

  Wild camping in Mongolia

Shane:

Road trip yeah! Driving long distances cooped up in a car with people arguing over directions, what music we should listen to and where we should eat? Who wouldn’t love it.

Road tripping is similar to backpacking with the difference that you have your own transport. If you have limited time and an ambitious wish-list of destinations, then you still need to plan to make sure you see what you want to see. When we drove across the USA, Georgia worked out a detailed itinerary and booked accommodation in advance, so all we had to do was drive and enjoy. The perils of not taking this approach were clear on our most recent road trip – the Mongol Rally – where many teams had to skip over things they had really wanted to see (including skipping Mongolia completely) because they spent too long on earlier parts of the trip. This may have added to their sense of adventure, but had they planned at home before they left with the help of the internet, they would have seen the things they really wanted to see.

In addition to those above, the advantages of a good road trip include:

• Car Mates – On a road trip you will be with the same people for long periods of time (if you choose to go with other people that is). This means that while you may not get lonely you might get irritated after a few days or even hours, but ven your annoying car mates might be preferable to sitting in front of a screaming baby on a long distance bus or trying to placate a drunk Russian gold miner next to you on a train.
• Packing – With a road trip you may be able to bring more stuff without being restricted by having to carry your bag everywhere. You can fly to a destination and basically use the full baggage allowance and live out of the car.
• No waiting – For buses or trains! When you leave is entirely up to you or your car mates.
• Security – Having a car gives you some sense of security. You can be in your own bubble, unlike on a train or a bus, and you are completely familiar with it.
• Enviroment – This has affects Georgia more than it affects me, but if she’s not happy then I hear about it and that stops me being happy too. If you are on a public bus, it might be boiling or it might be freezing (we have been on buses in the Philippines where despite the outside temperature being over 30 degrees celcius, the air conditioning is turned up so high they hand blankets out). If you are in your own car you can control the temperature, and music is completely optional – you don’t have to put up with the driver’s favourite country and western CD on repeat!

The main disadvantages:

• Car mates – You can just imagine…snoring, music choice, smell, I could go on…                               
• Cost – Driving by car can be costly. Costs to consider include purchase price, rental, fuel, insurance and also smaller costs like tolls and parking. Divided by more than one person makes these costs easier to bear, and can make a road trip cheaper than the cost of public transport. A car or other vehicle an also allow you to travel to places where there is no public transport, so in some cases, a road trip might be your only option.

3. Overlanding

Definition:

While a road trip or backpacking is often a form of overlanding (basically, travelling over land rather than flying or sailing), we are referring here to more commercial overlanding: taking an overland tour in a large, specially equipped truck. These trips sometimes last for months and rely on the participation of paying passengers for food purchasing and preparation, as well as setting up camp. Shane and I actually met on an eight month overland trip of this nature, which went from London to Australia, and more recently we’ve taken a shorter overland trip from Nairobi to Victoria Falls.

Georgia:

Overland trips can be intense. The truck is your home, so you spend most nights camping out in the open. Sometimes these nights in the wild can be beautiful, breathtaking and memorable – camping on the Tibetan plateau is an experience I’ll never forget – but sometimes it can be downright miserable. Cold, wet, and dirty, or hot, sweaty and… oh yes, dirty!

This is a very unique way to travel, and it won’t suit everyone, but it is great if you don’t mind basic (and sometimes worse than basic) conditions, are happy to pull your weight by cooking, cleaning and keeping the truck secure, want to be surrounded by adventurous can-do people and form lasting relationships (Shane and I are third couple to get married from our first overland trip!), go places completely off the usual tourist route, and want to do it all for next to no money.

If you want to stay somewhere with a comfy bed (or just any bed) and a clean toilet (or just any toilet), want to feel like you’re on holiday, want complete freedom to determine your own schedule, and want a serious amount of alone time, this won’t be the trip for you.

Overland trips can be a good middle ground between completely independent travel and more structured ‘small-group’ travel. While ‘travel time’ will be spent on the overland truck with the people on your trip, and journeys will be broken up by camping together and eating together, once you reach a city or stop for a longer period of time, you can choose to get away from the group and even have a holiday away from the truck if you need a break from the overlanding experience.

Shane:

Who fancies being stuck in an uncomfortable vehicle with strangers for weeks on end? I do! It really isn’t as bad as it seems – overlanding is a great way to travel and to spend time with and meet like minded people.

Advantages:

• Meeting people – There seems to be more of a social aspect to overlanding than to other forms of group travel; it’s similar to a road trip, with just a few more people. You will normally be cooking, camping and spending long days with people from varied backgrounds with a common interest in travelling.                                                                                                                                
• Cost – Overlanding can be very cheap as many of the costs are divided among the group, and accommodation is mainly camping which is basically finding somewhere to park and camp, which is free! Cooking is a group activity, food is purchased locally and it’s cheap.                           
• 50% planning required – Once you’ve picked which overland tour to take, the tough planning questions will be answered for you. This means you can concentrate on researching the destinations and buying the equipment you need, rather than spending hours finding accommodation or planning your route.                                                                                                            
• Destinations – Like cruising, overlanding allows you to travel to many destinations on one trip, and often these destinations are remote. Luckily overland vehicles are often designed to tackle tricky roads or in some cases, no roads. As a result, the places you get to see will often be amazing and worth it.                                                                                                                                           
• No Airport security – Enough said, although border crossings on land can also be tiresome and time consuming.                                                                                                                                                 
• You feel safe – Travelling with a vehicle gives you some security, just like road tripping. You don’t need to watch out the window to check no one is stealing your bag when it stops, you don’t need to be afraid to fall asleep. Travelling in a group also brings some security – wild camping feels a lot safer when there are 20 tents rather than one.

Disadvantages:

• Meeting people – You will be with these people for long periods of time, often months. When road tripping you have the option of picking your travel mates, but with overlanding you usually just take a gamble and turn up. For Georgia and I this worked out it seems.                       
• 50% planning still required – Although many of the large parts of the plan have been planned for you, you will still need to organise visas, buy your kit, plan what you want to see in each destination (and how you are going to see it), where you will get money and what you will eat.  
• Short time in destinations – When backpacking or on a road trip you have the flexibility or at least the control over how long you stay somewhere. When overlanding, you don’t. Border crossing, illness and breakdowns can all affect your itinerary, but usually you will have a set number of days in each place. You may feel this is too long in some places or too short in others.                                                                                                                                                                               
• No guide – Although this is an organised trip (50% organised) there is no real guide on board. There is a representative from the company who may be getting paid peanuts or not at all who will try and help where possible, but overland trips cover large areas it would be impossible for them to be an expert or guide in all these places. They act as more of a leader to help the group make decisions or to share information with.

4. Small group travelling

Definition:

 Small group travel typically involves taking an organised tour with an adventure travel company, who provide an itinerary and organise transport, accommodation and maybe some meals and activities, depending on the type of tour you book. You’ll usually have a local guide, travel using a combination of public or private transport and you might stay in a few off-grid places, like local homestays. We have taken several multi-day and multi-week tours over the last few years with Intrepid, gadventures, Tucan travel and Hoi An Express.

Georgia:

Small group travel tends to be easy and stress free when compared to organising everything yourself, and feels more like a holiday than overlanding. The drawback is you have less autonomy and flexibility – you might love the beaches in Thailand, but if you’re on an organised tour you can’t just extend your stay without consequence. When we’ve travelled with the likes of Intrepid and gadventures, the local guides go over and above to help you – we don’t usually need help finding an ATM or a laundrette – but if you do, you can just ask.

It’s also an easy way to meet people, without the stresses and strains caused by long-term overland travel which can cause frustration and group friction. The groups Shane and I have travelled with have all been made up of between eight and 16 people, which is an easy number to get to know, and we have made some life-long friends on these trips too.

Small group travel can be more expensive than travelling independently, but the trips are often good value for money, and it isn’t usually as expensive as you think. In parts of the world with poor tourism infrastructure, it can be difficult and expensive to travel independently – you might have to spend three days taking buses or taxis to different places, and then another two or three days organising local guides to see certain sights. As well as time, individual transport and multi-day accommodation stays cost more money than simply hopping on your private minibus and going to the next place.

If you want to travel somewhere that’s difficult to navigate on your own (for example, our gadventures tour was definitely the best way for us to see Sumatra), want to have a ready-made like-minded set of friends, and want to take it easy, small group travel is the way to go. If you want more freedom, flexibility, and to save every last penny, then it probably isn’t.

Shane:

Small group travel can be a backpacker’s nightmare, as it means being restricted to a detailed itinerary with people you have never met. For others it can be a holiday or adventure where you don’t have to plan or even think from day to day. Small group travel allows you the freedom to just enjoy the countries and places you are visiting.

Advantages:

• 99% Organised: On a small group tour, you just have to follow the group and see the sights. The trip will have been pre-planned by the organisation and also any changes required due to transport issues or weather will all be taken care of. Often this is done without you having to worry or even know. You can relax in a little bubble and enjoy the trip.                                                 
• Guided: These trips are normally 100% guided with a local guide or a person with prior knowledge of the area. They are like a parent, and they will tell you when to get up, where to eat, what to eat and how much money you need to bring. They take all the worry and planning out of a trip, and make it more like a holiday.                                                                                
• Meeting people: Doing things as a group creates a strong bond and allows you to make friends quickly. It does also mean that if you don’t gel well with the group or guide this may affect how much you enjoy the trip.                                                                                                                                 
• Maximises your time: The itineraries for these trips are often shorter, allowing you to pack in a lot in a short space of time and then return to studying or work. As you don’t have to spend time planning where to go next or how to get from a to b, they are a great way to travel if you only have two weeks of leave from work and want to make the most of it.                                                    
• Tried and Tested: The trips and iteneraries are tried and tested over and over again, so you can get accurate information in advance about where you will be, what you’ll be doing, and what it will be like. There are often options to take trips with the same itinerary but different accommodation options depending on your budget and the level of comfort you are looking for.

Disdavantages:

• Limited scope for adventure –  As the planning is 99% done, there are not many unknowns before you go. Thousands of people will have done the same tour before you – the places where you eat and the places where you stay may be chosen for you, so you won’t get much opportunity to put your own stamp on the holiday. If you like going with the flow this is a great option, but if you’re looking for the ultimate adventure where no one else has been before, it won’t be suitable.                                                                                                                                                         
• Cost – All the worrying, planning and organising has been done for you, and this comes at a cost, especially when you factor in tipping tour guides and drivers. However, you can sometimes get better deals as a group than you can when you’re on your own, and when you factor in the time and cost involved in planning a trip like this yourself, they often start to look like quite good value.

5. Cruising

Definition:

Taking a luxury floating hotel to different ports of call around the world. A typical cruise ship will have a number of on-board amenities, such as one or more pool(s), a spa, several restaurants and eating establishments, a cinema, theatre and luxurious rooms and bathrooms. A cruise ship might stop at one or two ports of call, or might have a much bigger itinerary. One of the best cruises we have ever taken was a 12 day Disney Cruise to Scandinavia, which stopped in Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, St Petersburg and Tallinn, and we recently took a Celebrity Cruise from Tokyo to Shanghai.

Georgia:

If you are looking for an easy and luxurious holiday, nothing can be better than a cruise. By day, the ship will stop at a new and interesting city or beautiful tropical island where you can see the top sights, and by night you will be back on board, ready to eat as much as you like and sample some great (and, let’s be honest, some not so great) entertainment. Forget cramped overnight buses, on a cruise you can go to sleep in one city and wake up (in comfort) in another. With hundreds if not thousands of other passengers on board, it isn’t hard to strike up a conversation and make some new friends. Equally, if you’d rather not, it’s not hard to stay anonymous amongst such a large group.

If the advantages of a cruise are ease, comfort and the possibility of making new friends, the disadvantages have to be the cost, the rigid itinerary and the horror of having new friends thrust upon you.

While cruises can be very good value for money (we would usually budget about £100 per day for a cruise, which includes all your travel, accommodation, food and entertainment), they are undoubtedly more expensive than any of the other options above, so unless you’re made of money, they’re not a sustainable way to travel. Unlike solo backpacking or even small-group travel, there is pretty much no flexibility whatever – while you can spend your day doing whatever you want (lounging by the pool, or independently exploring a new location), you can’t be back onboard the ship late, or it WILL leave without you. When it comes to making friends with you fellow passengers, we haven’t had much luck on the cruises we’ve taken. The clientele tend to be older, and weirdly competitive (“this is my 28^th cruise! How many have you been on?). I’m sure there are some nice cruise passengers out there somewhere though!

Shane:

When you picture a cruise holiday, you immediately probably picture old people in Hawaiian shirts and crew in pristine, white uniforms touring the seas on large floating milk cartons.

These images are true somewhat accurate, but as a holiday cruises have a lot to offer. I am not a beach, pool or sunbathing person, and prefer to be seeing sights, learning new facts and staying active when I’m on holiday. Even so, I love a cruise, and it’s not just because of the food.

Advantages:

• It’s a floating hotel! You don’t have to keep packing and unpacking – you can fully settle into the environment of the ship, get to know the best pool, the best restaurants and the best place to watch the sunset, while travelling effortlessly from one amazing place to another.
• The food – you can have whatever you want, whenever you want. Breakfast is the best – continental, American, Full English or all three!
• Luxury – when you come back from a long day on shore, a crew member will be waiting for you with a cold towel (or, if it’s cold, a hot towel) and a refreshing drink. The accommodation, food and entertainment is all top quality.
• No airport security! Sometimes cruise passengers don’t even need to deal with visas, immigration or customs because they are only on shore for a short time and are granted special status.

Disadvantages:

• Short stops only – generally you will only be a port of call for one (or if you’re lucky two) day(s). Sometimes those days are actually quite short (e.g. 8am until 4pm), which doesn’t give you much time to see the sights. Cruises are a great way to test out places that you think you might want to visit on a longer holiday.
• The other passengers – apart from on our favourite cruise line (Disney), the stereotypical view of cruise passengers being older is unfortunately often true. While there are plenty of people to socialise with on board a cruise ship, you might not find you have much and common if you aren’t a) old, b) rich or c) obsessed with cruising.

As I write this blog post I am sitting on a sun lounger by a beautiful pool, a few minutes’ walk from the beach on the spectacular island of Koh Phi Phi. For the last two weeks we have replaced long distance buses and cramped aeroplanes with leisurely ferries and swashbuckling long-tails.

From Hanoi in Vietnam we flew to Krabi in Southern Thailand via Bangkok. This was our first experience of Air Asia (Asia’s low-cost version of Ryanair), and just like Ryanair, it was cheap but a little annoying. When we landed in Bangkok we had to collect our luggage and check-in again, and when we tried to check-in again, we discovered that our 2pm flight to Krabi didn’t actually exist. It wasn’t listed on the departures board, there was no check-in area for it, and none of the staff knew anything about it. Thankfully, we were put on another flight leaving a couple of hours later, but of course this flight was delayed, and so despite getting up at 5am, we didn’t reach Krabi until late that evening.

Landing in Thailand was like landing in a home away from home, albeit with cheaper prices, better weather and no Brexit. This was partly because we had visited parts of Thailand before (I found myself wandering around Koh Phi Phi, thinking “why does this seem so familiar? Where does this remind me of?… of course…Thailand!”), but it was also because the area is full of tourists and ex-pats, so you don’t have to move very far to hear an English accent or find an Irish pub. At first the hustle, bustle and number of tourists was a little overwhelming, but as soon as we reached our first island destination – Koh Lanta – we found peace, tranquillity and empty beaches. We also found numerous diving schools, and signed up for the PADI open water course on our first day.

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Learning to scuba dive has been a feature on my bucket list for as long as I can remember, and reasonable prices, high safety standards and world class dive sites made Thailand the obvious place to give it a go. The course consisted of one confined water dive in a swimming pool, where we learnt to use the equipment, practised breathing under water and performed various exercises such as learning what to do if you run out of air (!) This was followed by four open water dives in the sea at some amazing dive sites.

The first time we stepped off our boat into the sea with our cylinders strapped to our backs and our masks on our faces, I started to feel anxious. Although I’d been fine in the swimming pool, suddenly scuba diving in the sea deep down under the water seemed like a terrible idea. I had read the first chapters of my diving theory book, and scuba diving sounded dangerous. If I came up to the surface too fast and didn’t breathe enough, I would get decompression sickness and die. If I ran our of air and couldn’t find my buddy, I would probably die. If a shark came, I would probably get eaten and die. I was worrying about every possible scenario, and death seemed a likely outcome.

As we headed down under water with our instructors (Daniele and Valentina), my mask kept filling up with water, I forgot how to equalise (release the air from trapped pockets like my ears) and I started to panic. I thought I might get trapped down deep underwater, not be able tobreathe, and not be able to reach the surface quickly enough. I didn’t want to scuba dive any more. In fact, I had a full on meltdown.

Shane on the other hand, had no qualms whatsoever, and took to the water like a fish. He was gone in an instant, and Daniele went with him to explore the underwater world while Valentina stayed with me as I panicked on the surface. I wanted to go back to the boat and give up on scuba diving – I was too scared, and it just wasn’t for me. Valentina was very patient and understanding, and was happy to take me back to the boat. “But”, she said, “Why don’t we just give it one more try, just to be sure.”

After a few “last tries”, I finally made it down into the water. Valentina held my hand the whole time and led me around the water, while I concentrated on breathing and not panicking. We saw some really cool fish, and I started to wish I could enjoy scuba diving rather than continually imagining everything that could go wrong. At this point, I wasn’t sure I could ever get back in the water and dive again, but I was glad I had given it a go.

Before long it was time for our second open water dive, and after a motivational pep talk from Valentina (“never give up”), I was back in the water for another attempt. This time was better. I didn’t panic, I went down really deep in the ocean and saw some amazing fish, and once again Valentina held my hand the entire time. At one point I did get scared again, but I was so far down under water that I couldn’t go back to the surface or do anything about it, so had to just calm myself down and keep going.

Things continued to improve on our third and fourth dives – I managed without Valentina holding my hand, I performed the exercises needed to pass the course, and we saw some amazing aquatic wildlife, including a yellow box fish and several moray eels. At one point I found myself trapped in a school of yellow snapper fish, while later on I swam past a giant clam. Life under the sea really was better (and wetter), and I started to actually enjoy the scuba diving experience.

Back on dry land, we completed a short exam, and that was the end. Somehow, despite my tears and trauma, we are both certified open water scuba divers! I might even do it again.

 

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Our next few days on Koh Lanta were filled with walks along the beach, dips in the sea, splashes in our hotel’s very own swimming pool, and exploratory scooter rides around the island. Koh Lanta was the perfect place to unwind and enjoy a luxurious honeymoon without the luxurious honeymoon prices. We had a large and beautiful room in a hotel equipped with all the essentials (air conditioning, TV, fridge, private bathroom) with it’s own beautiful pool just two minutes from one of the islands’ best beaches… all for £12 a night (£6 each).

It was paradise, and yet it was also so peaceful. It made us wonder: why don’t we live here? Why doesn’t everyone live here?! We could stay here for a year for the same price that we could live in London for a couple of months, and we’d have wonderful weather, a lovely swimming pool and our very own amazing beach! With flights from Heathrow starting at around £250 return, a holiday to Thailand could easily be cheaper than a couple of weeks away in Europe, and it’s so warm and so beautiful.

(I promise I haven’t got a new job with the Thailand Tourism Office – I just think Thailand is great, and have written more about it and why travel doesn’t have to cost the earth here).

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After a week of under-the-sea-adventure, rest, relaxation and beach fun, we took a boat to the legendary island of Koh Phi Phi, which had a different atmosphere altogether.

Having read various travel blogs and guidebooks on Koh Phi Phi, I was fully prepared to have a horrible time. Described universally as a “party island” where under-21s come to drink buckets of vodka, I was expecting the island to be crowded, noisy and full of drunk people. The main reason I wanted to come was to visit the supposedly breathtaking neighbouring islands and see the beautiful scenery, but having read that the island has been ‘destroyed’ by drunk backpackers, I wasn’t feeling too enthusiastic and nearly skipped it altogether.

Thankfully, it was nothing like I expected. There was a bit of a party atmosphere – there were lots of bars, places where you can by a bucket of vodka, and at night people do go out and have fun. It’s a lot livelier than Koh Lanta, but it is still charming and beautiful in its own way.

From Koh Phi Phi we’ve hopped to various neighbouring islands for snorkelling, relaxing and watching the amazing scenery. Particular highlights were snorkelling at night with glow-in-the-dark plankton, ‘shadebathing’ on bamboo island, an island completely covered with the whitest sand I have ever seen (so white Shane and I had to get away as the sun was reflecting off it and burning our skin!), visiting monkey beach, and paddling in Maya Bay; the setting where Leonardo DiCaprio filmed ‘The Beach’.

For the last two weeks as we’ve lazed around on beautiful beaches, watched the sunset over spectacular islands and snoozed in the sunshine, it has well and truly felt as though we are on our honeymoon. While we could stay here forever, there is a big world out there that we want to keep exploring, so tomorrow we are taking our last boat back to the mainland in preparation for the next adventure that awaits us: two weeks in the Sumatran jungle.

 

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In case you are inspired by our tales of Thailand, we have two additional blog posts which go into more detail on what it’s like learning to dive, and why seeing the world can be cheaper than staying at home.

 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by life under the sea. This may be partly because of Sebastian the crab from ‘The Little Mermaid’ and his claims that “down here it’s better, down where it’s wetter”, and the image of a colourful world deep down in the ocean where starfish, angelfish and mermaids sing songs and dance around happily. As soon as I was old enough to understand what a bucket list was all about, I made one, and ‘learn to scuba dive’ was high on the list.

I looked into learning to scuba dive in the U.K. but it was expensive, and as my Auntie once pointed out “you wouldn’t really get to see much”. Much better to learn abroad, somewhere warm where the sea life is more inspiring, she suggested.

When it came time to planning our round-the-world honeymoon adventure, I knew we would need to learn to dive somewhere along the route. With its warm weather (and warm water), spectacular dive sights, reasonable prices and excellent safety record, Thailand was the obvious destination to learn.

Originally we planned to go to Koh Tao, as this island is the renowned diving capital of Thailand, and there are many dive schools offering very competitive prices. Unfortunately, we arrived in Thailand in Koh Tao’s off season (around November to April), so we headed to the islands on the other side of Thailand, Koh Lanta and Koh Phi Phi, instead. As the diving in this area is meant to be world class, it still seemed like a good place to get our open water certification, and there were still numerous dive schools to choose from.

In the end, we chose to dive with Phoenix Divers on Koh Lanta. Their online price – around 12,000 baht each for the open water course (£275 GBP or $365 USD) – was slightly cheaper than others in the area, and they had 5* reviews all round on tripadvisor. We contacted them online, arranged a time and date via whatsapp, and went to their office on the island to sign the paperwork, get fitted for our equipment (wetsuit, fins and buoyancy control device) and pick up our PADI book which we used to learn diving theory.

Our instructors from Phoenix Divers (Daniele and Valentina) took us to pick up another couple who were also learning to dive on the same days, and together we went to a nearby swimming pool for our first scuba experience. First of all, Daniele showed us the equipment we would be using and how to put it together, and we then took turns trying to remember how to set it up and trying to put it on in the water.

During the pool session we got used to breathing underwater and practised various exercises, such as what to do if you run out of air, what to do if your buddy runs out of air, what to do if your mask fills with water, how to control your buoyancy through breathing and the position you should adopt in the water while scuba diving. Everything was going fairly well for us at this point – it was easy to come up to the surface and ask the instructors questions, and none of the exercises were too difficult. So far, so good.

—

The next day we were picked up at our hotel on Koh Lanta and taken to the pier at Saladan. We boarded a medium sized boat with several other divers and headed out towards Ko Haa, a group of five tiny islands with a central lagoon full of amazing marine life. We strapped on our equipment and stepped off the boat in a giant stride.

As we swam out into the lagoon, I started to feel anxious. Although I’d been fine in the swimming pool, suddenly scuba diving in the sea deep down under the water seemed like a terrible idea. I had read the first chapters of my diving theory book, and scuba diving sounded dangerous. If I came up to the surface too fast and didn’t breathe enough, I would get decompression sickness and die. If I ran our of air and couldn’t find my buddy, I would probably die. If a shark came, I would probably get eaten and die. I was worrying about every possible scenario, and death seemed a likely outcome.

Daniele held on to me and tried to get me to go down underwater. First I forgot how to equalise (release the air from trapped pockets such as my ears), and had to come back up. Then my mask kept filling with water and I couldn’t remember what to do. I came up to the surface again, and Valentina stayed with me this time. After a third attempt to go underwater, I started to panic. I didn’t want to learn to scuba dive any more, and had a full on meltdown.

Shane on the other hand, had no qualms whatsoever, and took to the water like a fish. He was gone in an instant, and Daniele went with him to explore the underwater world while Valentina kept me company as I panicked on the surface. I wanted to go back to the boat and give up on scuba diving – I was too scared, and it just wasn’t for me. Valentina was very patient and understanding, and was happy to take me back to the boat. “But”, she said, “Why don’t we just give it one more try, just to be sure.”

After a few “last tries”, I finally made it down into the water. Valentina held my hand the whole time and led me around the water, while I concentrated on breathing and not panicking. We saw some really cool fish, and I started to wish I could enjoy scuba diving rather than continually imagining everything that could go wrong. At this point, I wasn’t sure I could ever get back in the water and dive again, but I was glad I had given it a go.

After a shaky start, we went back to the boat and had about an hour’s break while the boat travelled to a different site at Koh Haa. I still wasn’t sure whether I would give diving a second try, but after a motivational pep talk from Valentina (“never give up”), I was back in the water for another attempt. This time was better. I didn’t panic, I went down really deep in the ocean and saw some amazing fish, and once again Valentina held my hand the entire time. At one point I did get scared again, but I was so far down under water that I couldn’t go back to the surface or do anything about it, so had to just calm myself down and keep going.

Once we came back to the boat I was feeling a bit better, and there was a delicious Thai curry served for lunch on board as well as unlimited soft drinks, which also helped 😉

—

The next day we were picked up by Phoenix Divers bright and early and headed back to the pier and onto another boat, which also came with free food and unlimited soft drinks. Perhaps the diving lifestyle wasn’t so bad after all.

This time we went to Koh Bida, another well known diving site not far from the popular island of Koh Phi Phi. I read my scuba diving book on the way there, hoping to calm my nerves which were once again starting to get the better of me. As I stepped out in the water, I felt my heart rate rising and my brain starting to panic again. Thankfully, Valentina saw me and managed to get me to calm down. Once I was calm, we went down underwater again, and I managed to swim without Valentina holding my hand, and was able to do some of the exercises that we’d practised in the pool.

By the time it came to our fourth dive, I was getting more confident. I saw some amazing marine life – a yellow box fish and several moray eels, amongst other things. At one point I found myself trapped in a school of yellow snapper fish, while later on I swam past a giant clam. Life under the sea really was better (and wetter), and I started to actually enjoy the scuba diving experience.

—

Back on dry land, we completed a short exam testing the material from the scuba diving book and that skills we had learnt in the water, and that was the end. Somehow, despite my tears and trauma, I became a certified open water diver, and went from petrified of being underwater to actually looking forward to doing it again.

We have recently booked our next dives with Blue Marlin Komodo on Flores island in Indonesia, where they have a special boat (called Hugo) which is perfect for learning and newly certified divers. We are looking forward to refreshing what we learnt in Thailand and seeing some more fish, hopefully without having an underwater meltdown this time!

—–
Special thanks to Valentina from Phoenix Divers, without whom I might have given up, gone back to the boat and forgotten all about scuba diving forever more.

One of the most common questions we get asked while on the road is “how do you afford it?”, closely followed by “Are you loaded?”.

While we have saved up some money to help us fund our travels, we are by no means millionaires and the main way we afford to travel is because it actually doesn’t cost as much as you might think.

Of course, if you stay in five star resorts every night and fly first class between cities, then expenses add up quickly and being a millionaire might be necessary to sustain that kind of lifestyle. But if you are happy to ‘rough it’ a bit (or a lot), you might be surprised how little you need to spend to see the world. In fact, travelling the world is often cheaper than day-to-day life back in home in the U.K.

Shane and I have now visited over 60 countries each, have spent a combined total of roughly three years living on the road at different points in time and have undertaken a wide variety of different types of trips. Some have been super cheap, and some less so, but they have all been cheaper than renting an apartment in London and commuting to work everyday. We have put together a quick list of some of different trips and scenarios and how much they cost, to try and show that you can travel on a budget without resorting to living in a tent and eating cold pasta (though, of course, we’ve done that too):

 

1. Average monthly expenses for a twenty-something year old living in London: £1650

Rent: £750

Bills and council tax: £200

Travel: £200

Food: £250

Entertainment and miscellaneous: £250

 

2. Average monthly expenses per person on a road trip across the USA: £900

In 2012, Shane and I hired a car and drove from Miami to Los Angeles. The trip took about six weeks, but this is how much we spent on average in a month:

Accommodation: £300 (we spent an average of $15 a night per person on decent hostel accommodation, cheap motels and the odd campsite.)

Car Hire: £120 (this included a one-way drop off fee).

Gas: £100 (we had a very fuel efficient Toyota Yaris, and gas in the USA is significantly cheaper than in the U.K.)

Food: £225 (we spent around $10 each per day on cheap food, including a few $1 McDonald’s snack wraps for lunch!)

Entertainment and miscellaneous: £150 (most days we didn’t spend much on ‘entertainment’ but this included national park fees and admission fees to important sites)

 

3. Average monthly expenses backpacking in South East Asia: £750

South East Asia is a backpacker’s paradise! Cheap rooms, cheap food, cheap travel and stunning scenery make this a destination where you could stay forever without breaking the bank. As we’ve travelled here on our honeymoon, Shane and I splurged a little here and we have stayed in nice places and eaten out every night. Even so, it’s an inexpensive way to splurge!

Accommodation: £150 (£5 per person, per day is actually quite a generous budget in South East Asia, and gets you a private room in a hotel with air con, a private bathroom and in some cases even access to a swimming pool!)

Travel: £150 (again, £5 per person per day is around average assuming you take a few tuk tuks, hire a scooter and take cheap long distance buses from place to place).

Food: £300 (we have spent a bit extra on food eating out a lot and indulging in pizzas and ice cream which are more expensive, but you could easily half this figure if you are happy to eat more street food and forego the Western-style snacks).

Entertainment and miscellaneous: £150 (there are so many cheap and free activities – from renting snorkel gear and exploring nearby islands in Thailand to climbing across rice terraces in the Philippines, £150 is a generous entertainment budget!)

 

4. Average monthly expenses per person on the Mongol Rally: £1,475 (the full breakdown available here, while the costs below are proportional for one month for comparison purposes)

Despite the fact that much of Central Asia is relatively inexpensive, high entry fees, costly insurance and major bureaucracy makes driving across 20 different countries to get to Mongolia significantly more expensive than driving across the USA. Definitely worth it though!

Entry fee: £135

Deposit / shipping cost: £140

Insurance: £165 (I haven’t included this elsewhere as the cost is usually minimal, especially if used for more than one trip. However, for the Mongol Rally we had to buy more expensive insurance as we were driving so much).

Visas: £270 (mostly Russia)

Ferries: £100 (mostly crossing the Caspian sea)

Fuel: £180 (fuel in Asia is much cheaper than fuel in Europe!)

Accommodation: £200 (we camped around 50% of the time, but mostly in campsites)

Food: £165

Bureaucracy: £100 (car insurance, various taxes, tolls and other dubious charges)

Entertainment and miscellaneous: £20 (the open road was free!)

 

5. Average monthly expenses on a month-long African safari: £1,400

A 32 day overland safari trip from Nairobi to Johannesburg with Africa Travel Company costs around £800 per person and includes all accommodation (camping), all transport (overland truck) and three meals per day. You could expect to spend an additional £600 per person (approximately) on activities and entertainment, such as game drives, national park fees and other safari related fun. Shane and I went on a 21 day safari with Africa Travel Company from Nairobi to Victoria Falls in 2015, and it was one of the best experiences we’ve ever had! All for less than the price of your average month in London.

 

 

“Happiness is only real when shared”

These were the last words written by Christopher McCandless, a 24 year old American hiker and traveller who graduated from university in 1990, travelled across North America and headed out into wild Alaska in 1992. He escaped society and sought out the freedom and beauty of nature and the wild, only to realise (as he starved to death in the Alaskan wilderness) that wonderful feelings and experiences are best when they are shared with someone else.

As Shane and I continue our travels around South East Asia, we have started to meet other travellers everywhere – they are in hostels, at airports, on day trips and on buses. Most of these encounters are short and sweet but also a little superficial.

“Where are you from?”

“How long are you here for?”

“Where are you going next?”

These exchanges might lead to us sharing a quick drink and a few hints and tips with other travellers, but rarely anything more significant.

While Shane and I are lucky that we have each other, we miss our friends and family and having more meaningful conversations and experiences with others. Our favourite parts of the Mongol Rally were when we were able to share the journey with other people, whether that was by camping with local families on the Pamir Highway or convoying with our Kiwi friends through Mongolia. While I am not generally a ‘people person’, it is good to have someone to talk to (apart from Shane) about life and the universe, and to share the adventure with.

It was partly the wish to travel with others, and partly other factors (mainly value for money, organisation-fatigue and overnight-bus fatigue) that led Shane and I to book a ten day organised tour of Vietnam, rather than roughing it on our own.

—

Our flight from the Philippines to Vietnam was delayed, so we ended up landing in Ho Chi Minh City very late at night. We were exhausted from a long day of travelling, and having done no research whatsoever since we booked our tour (one of the advantages of a tour being that very little research is necessary) unsure about what lay ahead. But as soon as we were off the plane, the benefits of having someone else organise our lives for us made themselves clear. We were met at immigration by a man holding up a sign with Shane’s name on who had been tasked with helping Shane to get hold of his Vietnamese visa. While we could have managed this bureaucratic detail on our own (it wouldn’t be the first time), with this man’s help, the process took all of five minutes. Once we had collected our baggage, we were met at arrivals by a lady with my name on, and we were delivered us straight to our hotel. Thanks to our tour company (Hoi An Express), we escaped the trauma of navigating Ho Chi Minh City at 2am and didn’t have to resort to another night of ‘sleeping’ in an airport.

Ho Chi Minh City proved to be an interesting introduction to Vietnam. We arrived a day before our tour started, so visited the main sites on our own. The Vietnam War Remnants Museum was a particularly harrowing experience, with photographs of beheaded Vietnamese children, pictures of nasty conditions caused by the release of chemical Agent Orange, and detailed descriptions of torture. The photographs from both sides were fascinating, although many of the photographers involved were killed in the war. While we thought we had seen the worst of humankind when we visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki, somehow what we saw in the Vietnam War Museum was even worse.

We also spent our first day struggling to navigate the roads, as they were filled with endless streams of motorbikes and scooters that didn’t worry too much about the road / pavement distinction, or the red light / green light distinction, leading to a number of hairy moments where someone (usually me) almost ended up squashed.

The next day we met the rest of our group and travelled together to the Mekong Delta and Cai Be Floating Market. While the floating market was a bit of a let down, with a very small number of trading boats and not a lot of atmosphere, our group was a completely different story. There were ten of us altogether, and (apart from Shane), we were all female. I thought this was great, Shane was less sure at first:

“So here I am in minibus, eight women and… me. The guide is also a woman. Luckily the driver is male but he is too busy concentrating on driving to care and notice me looking nervous in the back. Is it too late to leave this tour, maybe we are picking up some more people somewhere? But our guide starts to introduce herself, and it is clear that we are all here…”

The first people we spoke to were Gretta and Kayla, a mother and daughter from Australia who were like the real life versions of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore: beautiful, adventurous, slightly off-the-wall (in a good way), and very funny. Instantly, Shane and I were relieved, and as we chatted to more and more people, we realised we weren’t going to be travelling with a bunch of old moaners, but a group of interested and interesting people who we could actually see ourselves making friends with. When our tour guide offered us a drink of ‘snake wine’ (made from infusing whole snakes in rice wine), pretty much everyone was willing to give it a go.

We also learnt a valuable lesson from our first tour guide: how to cross the road. “The rules are simple”, she told us. “You give way to anything bigger than you.” In practice, this meant we shouldn’t walk in front of cars, but that we didn’t need to worry about motorbikes or scooters. “Don’t run, don’t stop, just walk slowly”, Ann said. “The motorbikes will go around you.” It was a helpful strategy that I continually repeated to myself as we wandered around Ho Chi Minh City and walked straight into oncoming traffic, and it did seem to work.

On our last day in Ho Chi Minh City we visited the Chu Chi tunnels – a network of underground tunnels that the Vietnamese used to live in during the Vietnam War to protect them from the outside world. Most of our group decided to venture inside the tunnels for a quick look, and while they seemed dark and narrow to us, the artificial lights and ‘widening’ that had taken place since the war meant the real thing would have been much darker and smaller – hard to imagine, let alone to live in. While Shane and I went a grand total of about 40 metres before coming up for air, Gretta and Jackie went much, much further, through even darker and narrower conditions.

Later that day we caught a flight to Da Nang, a modern city in Central Vietnam with an amazing light-up bridge shaped like a dragon (which even breathed fire at the weekends). Da Nang was awash with police and military ahead of Donald Trump’s visit and the APEC conference, which made it hard to get around as so many roads were closed to the general public. But that wasn’t the only reason it was hard to get around in Da Nang. We discovered that two days before we arrived a typhoon had hit Central Vietnam, huge areas had been flooded, and over 60 people had died. The rain was constant and the sea was rough, meaning we couldn’t stay in the pre-booked hotel or visit the historic temple My Son Sanctuary as planned.

This is where the benefits of our organised tour really kicked in – an alternative tour to the spectacular Marble Mountain was arranged, and an alternative hotel was booked, all in an instant without us having to worry or do anything. If we had been travelling on our own we would have had a difficult time working out exactly where we could go, where was flooded and how to move around. Instead of panicking, we (well, I – Shane would never panic) could relax and continue to enjoy our trip.

When we reached Hoi An, we saw some of the flood damage for ourselves. Streets were underwater, belongings were drying by the side of the road, children dragged their bicycles through what were now rivers. Despite this, the worst of the typhoon and flooding had passed, so we were able to take in the main sights and tastes as we cycled around the dry parts (and some watery parts) of Hoi An tasting different Vietnamese specialities on a foodie tour. As Shane notes, trying to enjoy our trip wasn’t easy when we were surrounded by terrible flooding and the consequences:

“During our stay a typhoon hit Vietnam. This did change our itinerary slightly but this didn’t matter when compared to the number of lives lost in Vietnam as well as the number of business and families affected by the flooding. It was a difficult to visit and enjoy visiting places when you could see the damage and difficulties that the people were having to work with. There are two sides to this, one  option is to stay away from the area and allow people to get back on their feet, while the other is to visit, support the economy and encourage others to continue coming by letting people know that it is safe to continue travelling there. As tourism is the number one income in the area, we wanted to help protect people’s livelihoods but equally didn’t want to be in the way.”

When not underwater, the town of Hoi An was very picturesque, with lanterns hanging up all around, quaint architecture, historical Chinese temples and a spectacular Japanese covered bridge. But as we enjoyed walking around the market on our final day in Hoi An there was an announcement: a dam further up-stream had been opened, and the town was likely to flood again. We stood on the side of the road watching the water rise back up, wondering when it would stop, and feeling increasingly worried for those whose homes and possessions were at increasing risk.

—

From Hoi An we took an early morning flight to Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam, and enjoyed a tour of the main sights. In the evening we walked to a lake in the city centre and found the area completely pedestrianised (no scooters to dodge!), and a huge region teeming with activity. Teenagers were singing karaoke, families were playing games, and large groups of people were skipping in the streets. We walked through a hustling, bustling night market and to Uncle Joe’s Irish Pub where we met a few of our tour-mates for drinks before bed.

Our last stop in Vietnam was the spectacular Halong Bay. A four hour bus ride brought us to a small-but-perfectly-formed boat, which took us on a 24-hour cruise around the bay. We indulged in delicious seven course meals on board, kayaked through caves, swam in the sea and lounged on deck watching the world go by. Long after the sun went down we found ourselves still up on deck playing games of cards with our new friends under the stars. While Halong Bay was a definite highlight of our trip so far, what made it extra special was being able to share it with the people whose company we had come to enjoy in just a few short days.

While I don’t agree with Christopher McCandless that happiness is only real when shared, I can’t argue with the fact that (even as someone who is generally happy in their own company), sharing our journey through beautiful Vietnam with some wonderful women definitely added an extra dimension to our experience. As well as memories and photographs, we left Vietnam with a bunch of new friends. Even Shane enjoyed it in the end:

“I am writing this after our tour has finished so I have survived. It turned out that as a group we gelled well and even during a challenging time for the tour company we had a great time in Vietnam.”

—

Thanks to:

Hoi An Express – our fantastic tour company who did their best to give us a fantastic taste of Vietnam. From picking us up at the airport on our first day to dealing with the aftermath of the Hoi An typhoon, Hoi An Express provided a great tour at a great price. If anyone is looking for a ‘budget’ (budget in price but not in quality) tour to Vietnam, check out Groupon for an absolute bargain of a voucher with Hoi An Express

Our new friends – especially Gretta, Kayla, Jackie, Àine and Lydia for being so friendly, funny and entertaining at all times

For more information on the pros and cons of organised vs independent travel, we will be writing a blog post on different types of travelling, so keep an eye out!

 

 

 

How long do you need to travel around the Philippines? How long is a piece of string? Two weeks should be plenty of time to get a taste of the Philippines and see the main sites, right?

Wrong. Two planes, two overnight buses, four six hour van journeys, one metro train and twelve tricycle rides later, and we’ve visited a grand total of two the Lonely Planet’s recommended ‘must see spots’ on this collection of over 7,000 islands. The places we visited were beautiful and virtually empty of other tourists, but there were reasons. One: it’s a serious challenge to get around.

—

We took off from Shanghai at 1am and landed in Manila at 5am. It wasn’t the greatest choice of flight timing that I’ve ever made, and Manila wasn’t the easiest or most welcoming city to arrive in. We had heard conflicting opinions about the merits of spending time in Manila – some people felt there was lots to do, while most others reported a polluted, congested, dirty experience, and suggested skipping Manila altogether. Having spent a little (albeit limited) time in the city, I have some sympathy for both views. The traffic was terrible, the city wasn’t particularly attractive and the poverty (and inequality) was evident, but I’m sure that with a little time and perseverance, Manila contains some diamonds in the rough.

As we didn’t have a lot of time, and I wasn’t in a ‘persevering’ mood following our night flight, we opted to spend our day in Manila getting some much needed sleep in an interesting ‘pay-by-the-hour-hotel’ (which, despite reviews to the contrary, was pretty much as seedy as it sounds), and eating at a nearby Pizza Hut, where a large pizza cost just 140 pesos (£2). At around 9pm, we left our hotel / brothel behind, and took a 10-hour night bus up North to the small town of Banaue, nestled on the edge of some spectacular rice terraces.

We spent three days in Banaue and the surrounding areas, and despite the town having a bit of a backpacker-vibe and plenty of local people offering us tours of the area, we often felt as though we were the only tourists around. One day, hiking to a rice terrace nearby, we asked our guide why it was so quiet:

“Is it low season?”, we asked. “No, actually this is the start of our peak season”, he replied.

“Is it the weather, maybe?”, we wondered (it had rained pretty much every day since we arrived, although the green countryside made us suspect that rain was a common feature of the area). “No, I don’t think so”, he answered.

He looked thoughtful, and finally said: “It’s because of the war. People don’t want to visit the Philippines at all because of the war, and all the travel warnings.”

Shane and I looked at each other. There was a war on? We didn’t ask too many more questions for fear of sounding like complete idiots, but when we inevitably googled the Philippines later, we found that, yes, there is a war taking place between the military and insurgent groups, and yes, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office does advise against all travel to certain parts of the Philippines, with specific warnings relating to Manila (where we had just been), and Palawan (where we were going next). Still, at least it was quiet.

We put the war and potential terror threats to the back of our minds, and enjoyed our time in the leafy, rainy North. We visited hanging coffins in Sagada, and went spelunking in a cave. Spelunking involved discovering an underground water world, rappelling down the wall of the cave, accidentally grabbing on to a pile of bat poo in order to stay upright (more than once), and putting a great deal of trust in our guide to help us through the narrow passages and down the sharp drops. We also spent two days trekking through the rice terraces to villages nestled in the middle and cooled off by swimming in the Tappiyah waterfalls. While the walks were hard, the scenery was stunning and the villages were idyllic.

—

After three days of hiking, it was time for a change of scene. We were going to the island of Palawan for some relaxation at some of the most beautiful beaches of the Philippines. The only problem was that we had to get there first.

First we took a tricycle from our homestay to the bus stop. We were told that although the bus was due to leave at 6pm, it often left early, so we should be there at 4.30pm, just in case. Of course, the bus was late, and when it did arrive, it was different to the bus we had booked. I had splashed out an extra $2 for the ‘super deluxe’ bus (with a toilet, reclining seats and various other amenities, which I felt were worth it as the trip would last for ten hours), but the bus that arrived had none of these features. When I queried the (lack of) facilities on board, I was told that “we don’t have” the super deluxe bus, and was eventually given 110 pesos – the difference between the price of the ‘super deluxe’ bus I had already paid for, and the ‘semi deluxe’ bus which had turned up.

Our ‘semi deluxe’ (ordinary) bus had other differences. Rather than being a non-stop service, it stopped frequently for people to get on, get off, get on to try to sell their snacks and souvenirs, and get off again. Sleeping went from difficult to impossible, and we resigned ourselves to staying awake all night.

When we arrived at the bus station in Manila, we found it easier than expected to find a taxi, despite it being the middle of the night. In fact, there were about twenty taxi drivers waiting for our bus to pull in, and two ended up having a fight over who would take Shane and I to the airport. Eventually, we had a winner, and within half an hour we reached Manila airport, and shortly afterwards we caught a plane to Puerto Princesa on the island of Palawan.

In Puerto Princesa we found an air conditioned van going to El Nido, our final destination. We boarded the van on the understanding that we would be transferred to our hotel, and tried to get comfortable and relax on what would be another long journey.

A few minutes after we set off, we stopped. For an unknown reason, we were required to change vans, and then we set off again. Five minutes later, we stopped again. Altogether we stopped nine times on the drive to Puerto Princesa, ensuring a four hour journey took closer to seven hours:

Stop #1: Unknown reason for stopping after driving around the airport car park

Stop #2: Stop to change vans

Stop #3: Stop at the tourist office in Puerto Princesa to pick up two more people

Stop #4: Stop at the side of the road to pick up two more people, though despite the best efforts of all involved, only one would fit in the van

Stop #5: Stop for petrol

Stop #6: Police stop

Stop #7: Stop to check no one brought mangoes onto the island (at this point Shane and I were woken up from a very brief sleep, so this coupled with the fact that no one had brought any mangoes on to the island made this a particularly annoying stop)

Stop #8: Lunch stop

Stop #9: Stop to let someone out in the middle of nowhere

The van brought us to El Nido bus park, and from there we had to take a tricycle to our hotel. We reached our final destination at 4.30pm, a full 24 hours after we first set off from Banaue. It would have been quicker to fly back to Europe than it was to travel from one island to another within the Philippines.

—

We spent five days in El Nido, touring some of the 45 nearby islands and inlets. We lazed on the beach, snorkelled in the sea, kayaked through some beautiful lagoons and even took the longest zip line in the Philippines from the main island to a nearby smaller island. The beaches were filled with white sand and green palm trees, the water was warm, clear and teeming with life, and no doubt due to the travel warnings about war and terrorism, we practically had the place to ourselves.

Yet, El Nido wasn’t quite paradise. The town itself was crowded with tricycles trying to sell you a ride, and shops trying to sell you a tour. There were frequent power cuts – one lasted 14 hours – which caused everything to black out, including traffic lights. Apparently this was all considered normal, as 24/7 electricity only reached the island of Palawan in 2015, and even then, it clearly still doesn’t work all the time. To really experience the beauty and wonder of island life, visiting El Nido and bearing the frustrations involved wasn’t enough – we had to venture off on a boat to the some of the nearby beaches and islands. Thankfully, there were plenty of them.

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While the sights and scenery were truly spectacular, backpacking in the Philippines hasn’t been easy. Long bus rides, power cuts and even longer bus rides make it challenging place to travel, although as Shane notes travelling through the countryside was beautiful. Looking out of the window we saw mountains, villages, farms and wildlife. In another country, such long journeys might become tiresome, but in the Philippines, the green luscious unspoiled landscape is a destination in itself.  It turns out that two weeks in the Philippines doesn’t get you very far, but is just enough time to experience plenty of buses, beaches, blackouts and beauty. 

As we approached the port of Yokohama in Japan, we saw what looked like a big ugly milk carton floating in the sea in the distance. In fact, it was a cruise ship, and it would be our home for the next 12 nights.

First impressions and ugliness aside, we were glad to experience some luxury after three months of roughing it, and were very happy to spend time with my Mum, Dad and brother Tom who joined us in Tokyo and would stay with us all the way through the 12 night cruise around Japan and South Korea to Shanghai in China.

The cruise ship stopped at eight different ports of call in Japan and South Korea, which we had great fun exploring. While my Mum opted to join organised tours in most of the ports, Shane and I needed to preserve our finances as much as possible, so took various “self-guided” tours with my Dad and Tom. This invariably meant we spent hours navigating buses, metros, street cars, trains, boats and any other type of public transport you can think of in order to reach different points of interest. Thankfully, Japanese public transport was easy to use, instructions were often in English, and no matter what type of transport we took, it was always, always on time.

The downside of this approach was that it could take a long time and / or several different connections to get to where we wanted to go. Most of the time, though, it was worth it. The only exception was at our first stop, Shimizu, where we embarked on a five-hour round trip to see a good view of Mount Fuji. Unfortunately, all we saw were a lot of clouds.

At some of the next ports of call (Kobe, Hiroshima and Nagasaki), we delved into the history, geography and after-effects of some of the various disasters Japan has faced over the years. First we visited the Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution (this was the actual name, but we referred to it as the “earthquake museum” for short), where we learnt all about the 1995 Kobe earthquake, which killed over 6,000 people and left many more homeless. I was impressed that the museum didn’t just focus on the after effects of the earthquake, but aimed to prevent future disasters, both through changing the environment and improving the way buildings are constructed and educating the public about what to do in case of an emergency. We weren’t allowed to leave the museum without a disaster reduction pack, which told us what supplies we should get hold of and how we should prepare for an emergency.

From learning about how natural disasters have affected Japan, we moved on to Hiroshima and Nagasaki where we saw some of the effects of two atomic bombs which were dropped on Japan in 1945 at the end of the Second World War. The bombs killed around 200,000 people in total, most of whom were civilians. The museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki displayed harrowing images, accounts and items from the bombings. It was incredibly sad to see the impact close-up, but just as the Disaster Reduction Institute aimed to prevent damage from further natural incidents, both museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki aimed to try and prevent future atrocities through calling for a world free from nuclear weapons.

But our 12 days on board the ugliest cruise ship that ever sailed were not all disaster-related. Particular highlights were our visits to Hemiji Castle near Kobe in Japan, and to Jeju, a large volcanic island in South Korea. In Jeju we walked inside a giant lava tube (a cave made of lava), and saw some hilarious lava-constructions, such as a lava turtle, lava toes and a giant lava column. We also visited a huge maze which happened to be nearby. When we entered the maze we were given some helpful statistics, which left us with the impression that the maze would be quite challenging. According to the maze-stats, over a third of people who enter the maze never make it to the finish-point. Of those who do make it through, 15% take more than an hour to do so.

As we had to make it back to the ship on time, Shane, Tom, Dad and I decided to have a go at the maze as one team, so that no one got lost and stranded inside. Dad quickly suggested we use a ‘maze strategy’, which involved turning left at every opportunity (unless this led to a dead end, in which case we took the next left, and so on). This proved effective, as we completed the maze in around 20 minutes, but it did somewhat take the fun out of the maze experience…

 

 

 

Life on board the ship could also be fun, although our definition of ‘fun’ frequently seemed to be at odds with everyone else’s. One night there was a silent disco on board. “Great, that will be fun!”, we thought. Then we discovered the “different choices” of music on offer were all from some years (well, decades) before we were born. Some of the passengers who did participate had never heard of a silent disco and had little idea what was involved. This probably gives you a clue as to the age demographic of our fellow passengers.

Determined to have fun regardless, one night Shane, Tom and I decided to make the most of the free (yes, that’s right, free) alcohol on board the ship. We stayed up late and decided to try and experience everything that the ship’s nightlife had to offer. We went to the on-board nightclub and encountered the worst DJ in history (thankfully we improved the standard of music by requesting Taylor Swift and Shakira at regular intervals). As we were the only people actually in the nightclub, we could at least do some incredible / terrible dance moves without anyone watching or judging. Around one o’clock in the morning we decided to see what was going on elsewhere and found, to our surprise, that although there were 2,100 passengers on board, not one of them was still awake.

Despite the relatively luxurious surroundings, we weren’t too sad to leave our ship when it reached Shanghai.

Unfortunately, once the time to disembark came, we found ourselves still stuck on the milk carton in the sea, five hours away from the port of Shanghai. The port had been closed due to poor weather conditions and we had been stopped well outside the city. Thankfully, although we had plans for our first day in Shanghai, we didn’t have a plane to catch, so could make the most of the free food, drink and entertainment on board while we were stranded. The situation was slightly reminiscent of our Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan ferry experience, where we ended up stuck outside the port in Turkmenbashi, and made us thankful we weren’t still on that boat instead.

Eventually we pulled alongside a smoggy-looking Shanghai, and after a lengthy wait to pass through immigration, we made it to China.

We may have missed out on our first day in the city due to poor weather conditions and a painfully slow immigration system, but we certainly made the most of the rest of our time… the first stop had to be Shanghai Disneyland! Shanghai Disneyland only opened in 2016, so everything about it is new and exciting. It is also the final piece of the Disney park puzzle for my brother, my parents and I, as we have now managed to visit every single Disney park in the entire world. Shane has just one more to cross off his list – Hong Kong Disneyland – which we hope to visit at some point in the future. Shanghai Disneyland was quite different from Tokyo (and the other Disneyland parks), but with a new and shiny feel as well as some excellent rides (Tron and Pirates of the Caribbean in particular), we had a magical time.

 

After plenty of Disney fun and a day taking in the views of Shanghai, we waved a teary goodbye to Mum, Dad and Tom who are now back in the U.K. While it is great to see the world and we have no particular desires to return home any time soon, we do miss our families and friends every day L

From Shanghai, Shane and I flew to Manila for the next stage of our adventure, as we explore the wonderful world of South East Asia, starting with the Philippines!