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 145-150: River + Tyre = Good Times

Apologies for the delay in posting; for 5 days now we've been in Vang Vieng; where the internet is outrageously expensive and the booze is far far too cheap.
It is, admittedly, not the culture capital of Laos but there is much partying to be done so we figured it'd be rude not to get stuck in...the name of the game here is tubing and the rules are as follows;

1) Get a vest with the word 'tubing' printed on it at least twice
2) Take this vest and a tube - an inflated inner-tyre (massive rubber ring) - north up the Mekong River to the aptly-named 'Bar 1'
3) Receive your first free Lao Lao whiskey shot of the day (note with shock that there are wasps in the bottle from which you are drinking....this will cease to matter later on)
4) Buy your first bucket / beer of the day
5) Mingle on the decking in the sunshine with some newly acquired friends
6) Slide down a flume with your tube (drink is optional here - but recommended) into the river and sail onto the equally-inspired-named 'Bar 2'
7) Receive another free Lao Lao whiskey shot...or three
8) Swing off a trapeze into the river, get hauled back in by grabbing onto a rope thrown out to you
9) Drink more, dance more vigorously
10) Sitting in your tube, float down to...yes...you've guessed it 'Bar 3'
11) Receive more free shots, better still; just cut the sting off one of the afore mentioned wasps and eat the wasp [equivalent to 2 buckets of alcohol, so we hear...]
12) Play drinking games with your new best friends
13) Drink more, jump of more trapezes and dance with less and less regard for the rhythm of the music
14) Locate your tube and set sail to 'Bar 4'
15) Eagerly receive another free shot of Lao Lao...
16) You get the picture
...
Try to make it back to the finish point (Bar 10) by 6pm to return your tube and continue the party well into the night

That's right dear readers; tubing is a day time activity but the fun does not stop there! When we weren't too hungover to party (roughly every other day) we were out and about meeting all sorts of wonderful people - Rob even bumped into a course mate from uni! - and dancing to what could have easily been a Saturday night in Bournemouth.

We were really lucky with the weather too and had glorious sunshine and blue skies all day, every day. Team 365 is happy to have left with everything (if not our livers) intact* and to have avoided the dreaded pink eye (conjunctivitis) which spreads through backpackers here faster than the Mekong does through the town.

All in all - it was awesome; everyone should tube!


*due to the responsible and safety-conscious matter in which we tubed, Mums, this was not a surprise

Day 14: P A R T Y?

...in the infamous words of Billie Piper: because we want to, because we want to.

And party we did - but the sight of russian girls dancing on tables with a mixture of sunburnt tourists and professional local gawkers looking on in a club that resembeled a great glass elevator was not the best thing to come out of our night out in Baga.


Let me start at the beginning: after arriving and checking in at our lovely seafront hostel we heading to the beach to watch the cricket (that's right readers; thanks to the T20 I am now an avid fan) since India were playing. To get further into the spirit of things we first decided to order Goan's very own liqour Fenny (pronounced feee-nny), available in the inviting coconut or cashew variety. We opted for coconut and were greeted with a large measure of, honestly, one of the worst smelling things I have ever smelt (this from someone who hasn't washed a single of item of clothing since the trip began.) We washed it down with dinner and as India lost we made our way to Tito's - a street of bars and clubs owned by Mr. PartyKingofGoa, apparently.

In a bar we got talking to an amazing ex-Mumbian, now Canadian, mother and daughter duo Peggie and Jihan - who would have guessed Jenga could have been the start of something? Well it was! And after some competitive play we hit the club - yes with a mum, coolest mum ever? (don't worry els, trish - you're still right up there) and danced the night away to some seriously average hip hop. Well, you can't have everything.

Happy to have got our party on we exchanged email addresses and, with talk of a day trip on Sunday, we said our goodbyes and headed back over the river and by the sea to bed.