Day 345-347: Ya'll wanna get legal? some more from LA...

Honestly I don't really know where to begin with this post; this past week has passed at a frenetic pace. Fast certainly in comparison with the laid-back lifestyle of the Pacific-islanders but, I get the feeling, not to the locals here. I mentioned in my last post that we are staying with one of my best friends, Natalie, and she has been an endless source of entertainment options. There's always options. “Guys” she'll say “tonight we have options” and then she'll reel off more things than could be done in a week that have come via invitations from more people we could possible hope to meet, maybe ever.

She has also gifted us the use of her car – not just any car of course, darlings, a convertible and so while she's been at work in the day we've been able to try and tick a few things off the ever-growing to-do list.

Our first excursion was to Venice beach, a beautiful strip of white sand that plays host to a busy boulevard and a whole host of outdoor sports facilities. There are basketball courts where guys in vests play to an audience of pouting girls and passers-by, an awesome skate park, crazy mini tennis courts where players use over-sized ping-pong bats (really need to find out the proper name for this sport) and a gym with the obligatory massive guy with arms equivalent to tree trunks.

There are street performers, street artists and lots of 'doctors'. As I'm sure you're all aware California has recently legalised the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes...and subsequently there are many men in green scrubs with infamous leaf motifs that wander the streets offering “walk-in appointments”. You won't go far before somebody will ask you if “ya'll want to get legal?” - so much more fun than a stroll past the Stables Market in Camden.

And so very different from our next must-see destination; Hollywood Boulevard. Yes! After much driving around in circles desperately trying to find a parking space we got to wander down the street that is lined with stars. And really there are so many more stars than you may imagine. In fact when we first pulled into Hollywood Boulevard we thought we'd read the sign wrong because it looks just like a normal suburban street...it is just around the famous Chinese Theatre that all the big names have their stars.

It's really funny to see everyone wandering down the street (sorry, sidewalk) looking at their feet, spinning 180 degrees every now and again to read the names on the stars that are facing the other way. But apart from star-spotting and the learning of important facts like Jack Nicolson has really small hands, there's really not that much on this famous road.

But that didn't mean we were out of options.

That evening Natalie has managed to bag us free tickets to see a screening of the new Foo Fighters documentary Back and Forth which was really really good and ended with a 3D performance of their new album. I would definitely recommend anyone who is a fan of the band, and even those who aren't really, to watch this documentary – it is funny and charming and seeing a band play in 3D from the comfort of a seat in a cinema is definitely an experience.

That evening it was back to Hollywood for a few drinks with some friends in a beautiful bar...and it was only Wednesday! There's more, much more to write about LA but in a bid to avoid overwhelming (boring?) you with any more in this post I'll leave it at that and write again soon.

Day 297-304: What's not to love?

Ahh Wellington, Wellington – where should I begin? Should priority be given to the beautiful architecture? Or the fantastic shopping that effortlessly mixes every-day necessities with high street brands, quirky designers and treasure troves of vintage clothing? What about the bars and little coffee shops that spill out onto the street at every possible opportunity, battling for pavement space with endless buskers, artists, hari krishnas, beat-boxers and magicians.

No, I'll begin with the first thing that really struck me about Wellington; it's diverse. Walk around town and you will pass people from every corner of the world; Chinese, Malay, European, Indian, Polynesian, African, Japanese, even a few Latinos – and they aren't tourists, they are people who call Wellington home. Now this may sound like a strange thing to notice first-off but, with the exception of Singapore, [Warning! wild generalisation approaching] everywhere we have been on this trip has been 95% local and 5% white-skinned tourist.
Get on a train in India and everyone you'll see will be Indian, apart from a few European tourists (us), go to a market in Indonesia and pretty much everyone you'll see will be Indonesian apart from a few (mostly Dutch) tourists (again, inclusive of us). I'm not saying this is a bad thing – but there was very little mixing in these societies, the local/tourist divide was as clear as the colour of our skin. But in Wellington, everything was all mixed up, and I loved it.
Maybe when you grow up in London, where ethnic diversity is a beautiful reality, you're naturally more inclined to notice it (or the lack of it) in other places you visit. That said, I don't think that it's a coincidence that Singapore and Wellington are the only places I'd really consider living more permanently in. It just feels more right here.

Maybe too because the “windy city” did not live up to this reputation at all – we enjoyed a week of glorious sunshine with often not so much as a cloud in the sky. Which was particularly good news for Emily [below], one of my oldest and best school-friends, who arrived from Sydney on the stroke of midnight with a rucksack that had been quarantined into a huge plastic bag and without her tent pegs which had been taken from her by a less than friendly customs officer under the absurdly stringent anti-contamination laws.

Not to worry though, actually the spot that Rob and I had found to camp up each night in was a glorified car park over-flow that climbed into the hill side at the tiny and incredibly scenic Scorching Bay [above] about 5km south of Wellington. So most of the ground was tarmac and not exactly peg-friendly anyway. After a few failed attempts in the dark (we would later become incredibly quick at this) we got the tent up, tied the guide ropes to Emilio and the railings and we were good to go. Like I said, it was really lucky that it didn't rain.

The morning brought the small matter of turning 25 for me and with it croissants and coffee on the beach for breakfast. A day spent perusing the shops was broken up only to eat a delicious lunch and in the evening we met up with a friend we had made in Thailand and she brought the kind of local knowledge that means $1 glasses of champagne for ladies on a Wednesday [thanks Yvonne.] Needless to say, I had an utterly awful time of it :)

Thereafter each day brought something new and exciting; well...at least one day was lost to the seemingly impossible task of obtaining an Australian working-holiday visa for Emily but even that ended in a feast of falafel...and eventually (days later) a visa too. We spent a day shopping, a day relaxing on the beach at Scorching Bay – which did live up to it's name - and even needed two days to wander slowly through the wonderful Te Papa museum [right], which features everything from geology to gay rights and has a fabulous exhibition on photographer Brian Blake on the top floor.

Emily and I also spent a day wine-tasting in the famous Wairarapa Valley region. Martinsborough is just an hour and a half away and it must surely hold the record for the most wineries per km2 – the place is packed with them! And tasting is the name of the game. We stopped in a few, all walking distance from the small high street, enjoying crisp Chardonnays, bold Pinot Noirs and some surprisingly moreish sweet desert wines. Our favourite spot, though, was the Vynfilds winery; a huge white manor-house type of a building surrounded by vineyards where you could taste a 'flight' of wines – 5 half or quarter glasses – with tasting notes and some great bread-and-dips to wash it down with.

Wellington has been one of our longer stays on the trip and it has definitely been one of my favourites; friends, sun, good food, great wine and even champagne on a Wednesday. What's not to love?

Day 288-295: Kaikaura to Nelson in fast forward

Well this is going to be a little bit of a ­mixed bag of a post – in the long wait for Rob's video that ensued after our Sky Dives (we have them both here now, hurrah!) we got a little behind in our postings...so today I'm going to zoom from Kaikaura to Nelson in one fall swoop so we are once again operating in real time.

Kaikaura is a sweet little town. When we arrived it was being slowly swallowed by cloud rolling in from the sea that made the Seaward Kaikaura Range look like it was floating Avatar-style on a fluffy white bed (right). The pebble beach was hot underfoot and the sea was freezing.

We passed the day wandering around a school fête and then along the long Beach Road that makes up the town centre. It is a hotspot for those keen on seeing whales and albatrosses – but when trips begin at around $140 dollars, we were priced out of the market and forced to settle for antagonising seagulls instead.

There is however a very photogenic and – most importantly – free to see seal population at South Bay just outside of town. We paid those funny-looking things (left) a visit and also began a walk that follows the coast for about an hour along the cliff tops. From this vantage point the divide of grey cloud from the coast against the blue sky inland was quite magnificent. You could literally walk in and out of fog into searing daylight – it's difficult to explain but this pic (below) shows what I mean.

The following day we continued north on Highway 1 to Blenheim where we stumbled upon a local Radio Station's Summer Sundays in a park. Basically there was just a DJ and a couple of More FM flags and the perfect reason to get a picnic together and chill out in the shade for the afternoon. A perfect Sunday (below)

After a few days of relaxing we made the longer drive to Nelson, definitely one of my favourite towns in NZ. It is set on beautiful coast line with jagged rocks and sandy beaches, the town centre is compact and charming with everything you could possibly need in one place and the enlightened council there have even allotted a small area of park land as designated FREE overnight parking for camper-vans. Every town everywhere should have this – heavens knows it would make our lives a lot easier. Yes, we knew Nelson was great almost as soon as we arrived, and it would turn out that it was lucky we felt this way...

But we didn't know then what we know now and so after a day we continued to the northernmost tip of the South Island for some spectacular views and some challenging walking. The plan was to spend a day in Golden Bay and then do a long walk in the Abel Tasman Nation Park on our way back to Nelson. We found a great place to stay with some lovely Dutch folk just past Collingwood and in the morning made our way to “must see” Wharariki Beach which lies down a dirt track, through green fields with grazing sheep and over gloriously white dunes – and it really is a must see.

We dropped our bags on a stray tree branch and went for a paddle, the tide was coming in so we decided against one of the walks but did not, crucially, decide to move our bags before a particularly big wave swept in swirling our flip flops and belongings up the beach. Why am I telling you this? Flip flops get wet all the time. Yes, but cameras don't – and shouldn't, but Rob's one did. And back at the van it made only a scary clunky noise and the lens didn't open. For the first time in 290 days threesixfive would be without images.

And that is why we decided to return immediately to Nelson – to buy a replacement. Why put ourselves through a days gruelling walking around Abel Tasman if we couldn't even show you guys what it was like. Spirits were low. And, it seemed, the cost of this error would be high.

That said, the following morning after a bit of fiddling and vigorous blowing out of grains of sand the camera actually took a photo and started to show signs of recovery. It is early days yet but the prognosis is looking good. This did mean that we had some extra days in Nelson and, though we possessed a working camera, we'd missed out the Abel Tasman National Park – but all's well that ends well and the extra days turned out to be so necessary for me. But more on that next time...

Day 241-245:Paradise Islands

Good afternoon all! Hope you had a fantastic white Christmas. Well with the festive feasting over (apart from the turkey sandwiches that'll be good 'til they become the turkey curry around Wednesday) and the return to normal working life imminent, thoughts will no doubt stray to 'getting away from it all soon' so I thought I'd get in there with a quick post about the Gili Islands.

They got a little shout-out on our Chrsitmas-day post but, to be honest, they're so so bloody amazing I think they deserve some more cyberspace.

We took the short boat ride from Lombok to Gili Air, the nearest of the 3 Gili Islands, and took up residence in a small hut on the beach on the "quieter" Western side of the Island. 'Quiet' is a relative term here since the island only has a total population of 1,800 and there are NO vehicles. At all. No engines. No car-horns. No motorbikes. The favoured modes of transport are walking, cycling or the Gili Ferrari which is, when it comes down to it, a horse and cart.

We were told that you could walk around the entire island in under 2 hours; whoever was conducting this experiment had not hired a snorkel and fins for the day. We spent the best part of a day burning our shoulder blades and that bit you always miss behind your knees in various spots around the island and seeing all sorts of beautiful fish and coral but, unfortunately, none of the turtles that were rumoured to be "over populated" in the general Gili area.

After a couple of days of pure relaxation and some fantastic food we jumped on the Island Hopper boat over to Gili "the party island" Trawangan. No doubt avid Ibiza-lovers or even, closer to home, Bali-fans, may turn their beach-party noses up at this suggestion, but Gili 'T (see? it even has a cool abbreviation) is definitely the busiest of the Gili Islands.

Here the water is crystal clear ("I can actually see better through the water than I can though the air here", thanks Rob) and the beaches a made of the purest white sands. There is everything from the most luxurious of resorts and restaurants to the cheapest of food shacks that opened their wagons and set out their plastic chairs for dinner every evening. And every night one of the bars is the bar to go to tonight. There's always something going on.

We met up again with Brian, of Lombok bike-day fame, and invested in some more snorkelling which resulted in out first spot of the thus-far elusive hawksbill turtle (hurrah!) and some more incredible fishes that I couldn't even begin to describe.

Diving is big business on the island, and we did indulge in our Christmas-Day-dive, but snorkellers are by no means unable to really enjoy the marine life that surrounds the island. Even those that prefer to just lie on the beach have been known to catch a glimpse of a turtle surfacing for air.

Despite big plans to do so, we didn't make it to Gili Meno, the middle and most rural of the three islands, for a day of - you've guessed it - snorkelling off beautiful beaches. We hear it's incredible and, given its two neighbours, I can certainly believe it.

The Gili Islands really are a perfect holiday destination and I would strongly recommend it to anyone with a couple of weeks that wants to relax, eat well, drink too much, see some turtles and/or be in some of the most spectacular scenery on this side of the globe.

Day 244: Merry Chrsitmas!

Massive hellos and lots of festive love from the Gili Islands!

Though no-one can accuse Team 365 of having a traditional Christmas, we are certainly having a very special one indeed...I'll keep this short because there is Bintang to drink and Nasi Goreng to eat and you probably have presents to unwrap and a turkey to baste.
This morning we started the day with a scuba dive through gorgeous coral and even swam with - not one but two - turtles, I even stroked one. I don't think any Christmas will ever be the same again.

We're thinking of you all and as our Christmas day come to a close and we know back in England it's just getting started, so have a wonderful day and a mince pie for us xx

Day 186-191: Underwater adventures

From the buzz of Bangkok we departed to tiny Koh Tao; covering about 20 square km it's famous for being one of the best - and cheapest - places to dive in the world. And that is exactly what we were there to do.

As proud holders of the PADI Open Water certificate, the first level of diving qualification, all we needed to do was get a refresher course to swim with the fishes but we weren't going to settle for that. Instead we opted for the next level; the Advanced Open Water certificate which meant five dives over two days including a deep dive (30m below sea level, baby!) and a night dive (here we are wetsuited and overexcited after the dive, below) as well as necessary navigation, buoyancy and fish identification skills.

We lived and dived with Coral Grand; a company that had not only an awesome team of divers but a beautiful pool (pictured) to learn in and a spectacular beach-side location.

The island itself is lovely; small enough to bike around in about half an hour, on the rare occassions that we were not diving, we explored the islands other beaches and snorkelling hot-spots.

But to the diving! Which was just incredible. We were so lucky to enjoy 6 days of clear blue skies and, most of the time, excellent visibility. We swam with beautifully bright fishes of all shapes and sizes and really got into trying to identify them and learn the hilariously-literal hand signs that are used to communicate under water e.g. angel fish = circle a finger above one's head like a halo, pipe fish = play an invisible pipe. All good fun.
We saw stingrays, hermit crabs and coral of every shape and size that you could imagine and more that you couldn't.
We also - most importantly - SWAM WITH A TURTLE; literally my dream experience. The gorgeous hawksbill turle was happy to swim with us near for a good 15 minutes, it was magical.

All in all we extended our five-dive stay by three extra days and 4 extra dives; we literally couldn't tear ourselves away and with every dive that passed Rob and I became more and more sure that diving is going to feature heavily not only in this trip, but in the future in general.

The next step in the dive-certification ladder is to become a Dive Master, and after hanging out with the guys at Coral Grand (thanks again Joe, Dave, Phillis, Nad & Co) it's become #1 on our ever-extending To Do list.

Koh Tao; we'll see you again soon.

Day 95 & counting: A warning from Team 365

In the interests of health & safety Team 365 would like to warn all readers that staying for "a couple of nights" in Mui Ne may not be physically possible.

Extensive research in the field can confirm that one's feeling of health, safety, happiness and all-round relaxation will increase dramatically on arrival, especially in the area immediately surrounding Ly Ly Guesthouse.

Offering a mere 36km of beach and a plethora of swanky resorts, chilled out eateries, multicoloured sand dunes and a high number of bicycles and motor bikes to explore them all on - it is the leaving that is proving difficult.

Ly Ly Guesthouse, for example, is ran by a friendly German/Vietnamese couple and is the kind of place that leaves it's fridges and kitchen open. Guests are asked to mark on a sheet anything they take. A few bottles of spirits sit on the bar in the seating area at the front of the guesthouse, right on the one and only road that runs through Mui Ne, and have not been taken - or even visibly touched in the...3...no...4 days that we've been here. It's that kind of a place.

We've been basking in the slow pace of life here in a climate that switches from sunny to stormy without warning, leaving the untrained tourist soaking and sweating - but always smiling - in quick succession.

And so we feel it necessary to provide ample warning for those considering entering this unassuming town; enter at your own risk and leave...only if you can.

Day 24: Things that go bump in the night

A day late, but a tiny bit richer, we made it to gorgeous deserted Agonda Beach and the coco huts that were to be our home for the next two days.

Our shack was #3, a lovely one-room shack on stilts with a bed, a bathroom and a verranda with a hammock and two deck chairs. All in all about 13 square meters of joy.
This is a town in post-high season deconstruction. Literally. Huts that would not withstands the monsoon rains were being taken down around us, so apart from the odd bit of banging, we had the beach to ourselves.
It was great to pass the day swimming and snoozing and seeing no-one else. I'm not going to lie and suggest that the past (almost) month has been difficult but if one was lookin for total relaxation; here would be the place.

These were our thoughts as we lay in bed watching the purple sunset turn gold and feeling the soft sea breeze through the double doors as we drigted off to sleep.

A loud crash from the verranda woke us suddenly. It was pitch black in our shack with only a thin shard of light cast from the moon crossing the room.
I reached for Rob - we were both instantly alert and before we could speak we became acutely aware that we were no longer alone.

As I mentioned earlier, the shacks are built on stilts - this means that any steps onto or inside the shack reverbarated in a comforting groan on the stilts. Now however, in the dead of night, these rumblings were anything but comforting.
We lay in silence.
Then into the moonlight, just a meter from the bed, a shadow emerged. First the outline of a head, and then two feet. Moving accross the room towards our rucksacks our guest paused, as if he had felt our eyes on him. The air was still for surely neither Rob nor I had breathed since the shadow had crept along the floor in front of us.
The intruder stayed rigid. What would he do? How could we stop it? What should we do? Panic had taken hold but it seemed our visitor was perfectly relaxed. Turning slightly, causing the softest of creaking in the floorboards, he tuned, sat, drew his tail around his neck and lay, motionless.

It is true that Agonda Beach, like all of India, is full of stray dogs. We hadn't undertaken three rabies jabs for nothing. But in that moment, as we lay behind a thin mosquito net staring at the outline of a wild and potentially rabid animal - the fear was tangible.

If there was one, how many more? Had they entered already without knocking over a deckchair? Was our floor lined with sleeping canine landmines? Would we be attacked if we left the safety of the bed? Should we make noise to scare it or would this provoke it?
The lightswitch was on the otherside of the room by the open doors, out of reach, and Rob quickly became convinced that there was also another dog directly below him, under the bed.

At length we passed a bottle of water that was nearby along the floor against the one exposed side of the bed. It made it from one end to the other without htting any obstacles but our intruder started to growl in a low and menacing tone. Deep noises that I imagined passing through foamy lips and ino our room.
Again we lay still and nothing moved.
We spoke in whispers: should we just leave him there til daylight? No. Then Rob, and I am sure no braver thin has ever been done with a water bottle, stamped the container against the floor. The beast flinched, obviously put out by the clamour.
Again our hero thrust the bottle against the floor, again and again, until with a breif growl we saw the skinny shadow of the animal step out into the moonlight.
Now to the light switch.
We surveyed the damage. Nothing had changed. Our room was as if nothing had happened but our hearts were racing.

Even with the doors closed, the howls of the dogs stopped sleep for me that night and when the sun rose the bodies of three dogs lay in peaceful slumber on our verranda.

The saying goes that a dog is a man's best friend. Let me tell you: this has never been said by an Indian.

Day 20&21: On the road again

Well it's been a while! Apologies for the gap between posts, readers, but truth be told we've been rather busy so I'm going to try and tell you a little bit about everthing.

Where did we leave you? Ah, yes, Baga - well we've been going further south to Palolem, which we'd heard was quiet and non-touristy but in fact was definitely not so after some more very pleasant beaching and eating we hit the road again - on scooters!
Needless to say - all of the driving was left to Rob.

On the first day we explored the Cotigoa Wildlife Reserve and got very lost, was very little life that was wild (they had a cool python, it was in an enclosure though) and some beautiful sights.
On bike day numeros dos we drove north to a town called 'Betul' (pronounces 'beatle', but only to us so we could sing "Back in the USSR" as we scooted along the highway) where the Lonely Planet (hereafter: LP) had told us a 'tin-tub ferry' crossed a pretty river to Cavelossim where pristine beaches lay. This was the LP's first error of the day.

The ferry (it was tin tub) actually left from Assolna - but driving to Betul and through the fishingport with all the bright boats, pungent smells and waving fisterman was a pleasure of a detour. We made our way on the free ferry and headed to Cavelossim beach which was, team 365 are sorry to report, is not pristine (LP error #2) We had a dip but it was nearing lunch so we hit the road south to Mobor (pronounced 'Mordoor' but only by us- much to the confusion of those we asked for directions, who apparently weren't well acquanted with the whereabouts of Middle Earth.) We were heading here because the LP had pronounced "The Blue Whale BeachShack" to have the most picturesque views in all of Goa.

Driving past all the 5* resorts we rounded the peninsular to see, finally, the sign we'd been looking for seemingly standing alone in the dunes. Dutifully we followed the arrow on the sign over the red hot sand to a deserted and downtrodden hut which sat by another sign informing us that this was "a gift to Goa: as recommended in the Lonely Planet..." Not quite. (LP error #3)

We stopped in Cavelossim for a long lunch and almost definitely outstayed our welcome trying to keep out of the sun. Back en route home we JUST made the ferry - actually driving on as it was departing and followed the coastal road back to Palolem.

First, however, we found Agonda. The beach we'd been looking for - no tourists, barely any locals, just miles of actually pristine sands. Here team 365 would like to note that we think we've got pretty good at spotting a hard-sell when we see one, but as we left our bags in an almost-closed looking restaurant and the man casually asked if we were looking for a hut: "oh no no no". That was fine - we could use one of his to change in: "really? oh, that'd be great..." we approached a line of beautiful doll-houses of stilts "sure - use the shower, leave your stuff, however long you like". We were hooked. "Why don't we live here?" Shortly after we agreed to stay for two nights in two days time. Best. Sell-in. Ever.

Before heading back to Palolem we made another LP-inspired detour to Patnem, in search of "the best coffee and brownies in Goa" at a place called Home. Unfortunately another sign but a closed venue. Which begs the question: why not take the sign down when you close? Either way, we had a drink on the beach and watched the sunset.

We drove back to Palolem and ended up watching the cricket with some friends we'd made in Baga and getting quite drunk on 2for1 cocktails before, absolutely shattered, going to bed.