Sawasdee Thailand - A Week in Phuket

Phuket: 22/11/16 - 28/11/16

From 2 weeks in Indonesia to a month in Thailand...

After a pretty hectic 2 weeks in Bali and Java, we flew to Phuket (Thailand's biggest island - south Thailand) to relax. This was pretty exciting for me for 2 reasons: I love Thailand and we were meeting up with my two most favourite friends for a week. We arrived on the 22nd of November '16, and met up with Sam and Beky on the 23rd. On arrival in the airport we were a bit annoyed to find that every ATM in Thailand has a 200bhat (approx 5gbp) ATM charge, which was annoying because it meant we had to get a lot of money out at once. Apart from this, Phuket airport was pretty nice and we managed to get a metered taxi to our condo. 

Reunited

Now we'd been travelling on a pretty tight budget up to this point (forgetting Europe, because Spain in summer is crazy expensive), so we were used to staying in 0 star hostels, on mattresses I'm sure were made from brick, in the loudest part of town (see: India) for about 3-5gbp a night. However, obviously because it was a proper holiday for Beky and Sam it wasn't really fair to them to stay somewhere like that. So Sam had booked us a pretty nice condo on Air BnB for about 60GBP each for 5 nights. Bob and I arrived a day early so got to check it out first - it was very nice. Huge living room/kitchen, 2 bathrooms and 2 bedrooms. The bed was amazingly comfy (in comparison to others; see: India) and there was a swimming pool. Only downside was it was located a bit far away from the attractions. 

The week we spent in Phuket was pretty amazing, albeit expensive. We rented a car for a few days as it was the easiest way to get around (props to Beky and Bob for driving the pretty crazy roads, and to me for navigating. And to Sam for the top quality conversation). We also got to chill on the beach, swim in the sea (which for some reason is mad in Phuket - waves are crazy huge), see some temples (standard) and enjoy the local markets. Some things we did in Phuket:

Yeah it's pretty big

> Big Buddha (Karon, East Phuket) - lives up to it's name, it's pretty big. We got a taxi from our condo to the Buddha. It was pretty touristy at the top but the views were impressive and the Buddha even more so. We made the mistake of not asking the taxi to wait for us at the Buddha, so we were pretty stuck when it came to getting back down to the town. The winding path to Karon was quite long, but we were informed that there is pretty much no way to get down if you're not on a tour/have a taxi waiting. Also no WiFi to order a Grab. We started to walk down and made it to a viewpoint cafe where we had some food/Margaritas. The taxis from there were waaay to expensive so we started to walk again, when we were picked up by a truck, and the driver said he'd take us down to the town. We were then able to get a taxi from the town.

Lesson: Make sure the taxi waits for you, else you have the 3k trek back down to look forward to! 

>The Gibbon Rehabilitation Project & Bang Pae Waterfall - both located in the same national park. The project was really interesting, and if you're lucky you can see some gibbons in their cages. It looks after gibbons who can't live in the wild due to illnesses or being captured previously by humans and made to entertain tourists. You can adopt a gibbon or make a donation, as none of the entrance fee to the park goes towards the project. 

Waterfall life

We also walked up to the Bang Pae waterfall, which was beautiful. There are a few different parts in which you can swim, which we did. It makes for some great photos - which I could post here, but our GoPro decided that it would delete all our photos from this trip, which was really useful. Apart from this, it made for a nice day out. 

>Coconut Island - I don't think we did this trip right, but we drove to a pier in east Phuket where you can get a boat out to the island and to the floating restaurants. It was a nice little journey, but I'm pretty sure we got off at the wrong side of the island. We got to the pier on the island and walked for about 35/45 minutes up the road in the sweltering heat, only to see a lot of trees, dead frogs and the occasional bus full of construction workers. There was a little village and a couple of resorts, so we walked back to the pier. There were a lot of little crabs that we found on the beach, but I think that was the highlight of the island. We went to the floating restaurants which were very nice and offered some lovely views. 

So excited for meatballs

>Phuket Weekend Market (Phuket Town, close to the Public Park) - my favourite place. Okay, maybe not favourite but it was a pretty cool market. Filled with the obvious tourist tat, we did buy some elephant pants (standard Thai tourist attire) and had a look at the many stalls on offer. At the end, we discovered the fantastic food hall, filled with an insane amount of street food (Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese...). We had to try everything, obviously, so we started with some skewers (or as we like to call them: random 10 bhat meat on a stick), had noodles, fried sweet potato balls and Thai cakes. Could have stayed there all day. 

We also visited Kamala beach a couple of times, which is full of cafes/massages/people selling you things. It was a lovely beach, but as I said the waves were huge (like, if-you-just-stand-there-you-will-drown kinda huge). It's all overpriced for the tourists too, but that's to be expected really. If we came with a bit more money it would have been perfect. Beky also did a para sailing type thing where you're connected to a speedboat and it lifts you into the air, which was very cool! 

So yeah, Phuket was pretty awesome. It was great to see my girls (as always), and we came away with some cool memories, a bad sunburn and a craving for White Almond Magnums (well, I did anyway). 

Ciao, Sarah :) 

For more photos -- Instagram: wheres_halliday

Surbaya: Assaulted by Cabbies

Surabaya: 10th Nov 2016 - 11 Nov 2016

My original plan to travel from Denpasar in Bali to Jakarta in Java overland was immediatey thwarted when we discovered the total lack of public transport available in Bali. From what I found the route was possible but the public bus went once a day from Denpasar to the ferry port on the western tip of the island but it neither seemingly had a specific route or timetable. The other option was an expensive organised tour which we didn't fancy so we flew instead, which turned out to be the cheaper option, like 20quid or something.

Not a bad view for a short flight

Welcome to Java. The flight was just a quick hop to Surbaya, we landed safely, collected our bags and headed out the doors. We had arranged our second Couchsurfer here, Rendy, who told us to take an Uber to his house because it would be far cheaper than any of the airport taxis. Taking his advice we arranged for a pick, all the while trying our best to ignore the increasing loud and agressive "taxi! taxi! Where you going?" calls from the nearby by cabbies - standard practice in Asia. On the third attempt the Uber driver found us and saying 'hi' he helped us put the bags in the back. But this is where things got messy:
As our driver began to pull away three men came sprinting down the road and stopped dead in front of the car fully blocking its path. Our driver suddenly became visibly nervous. These guys then proceeded to walk round the car opening all the doors, including the boot where they began unloading our bags onto the tarmac, shouting aggressively in Indonesian. We stood our ground and refused to move but seeing the way our bags had gone we decided it best to leave the car of our own volition rather than being dragged out too. - which seemed like a genuine possibility. As soon as our feet were on the ground, the others hopped in behind us, slammed the doors and demanded the drivers to leave. The car then disappeared off around the corner and off the Uber app. To make matters worse as we were picking up our bags from the middle of the road a gang of cabbies behind us laughed and offered us a ride into town for literally 10 times the price. We replied with a swift personal insult and left.
At first we had no idea who these arseholes were. They were wearing plain clothes so perhaps they were just very angry people, in a massive rush to leave the airport. No. Obviously not. They were cabbies themselves too who didn´t like Uber. Because of course assaulting people whilst offering them overinflated prices in the best way to gain and maintain a loyal customer base.....
In Bali there had been lots of warnings, signs and pleads not to use Uber which is technically banned on the island. As such we didn´t. In Java however this was not the case; the app is allowed, there are no signs and we were advised to take it by a local.
Shaking with anger we were definitely not going to be getting an airport taxi now so we took a breath and ordered another Uber. This time we were ready. We moved way down the carpark away from the taxi rank and kept the bags on our backs ready to jump in as soon as it arrived. The plan went perfectly. We were in and safe with the doors closed before the car had barely stopped. We had just enough time to breathe a sigh of relief before we spotted the same men come running at full speed down the tarmac with a bloody aiport trolley to blockade the car. This time round they left the other doors closed but dragged the driver out of the car who shaken, with signs of tears in his eyes, begged us to get out. It was terrifying. These guys weren't messing around. It was clear that no matter how long we stayed in the vehicle they weren't going to let the driver back in and so eventually we reliquinshed our seats and got out. Once again we saw our Uber disappear around the corner without us.
We had encountered taxi mafias before in India but the extent of the issue there had been the price: all agreeing to charge ridiculous amounts and refusing to lower them. This was a whole other story. People have since told us that we should have threatened them with going to the police. We toyed with this idea at the time but after only being in a country for all of 5 minutes we knew little about it. The police may have sided with the cabbies or not been any help at all, or the threat may have even made them violent towards us for all we knew.
Stranded at the airport, defeated and utterly enraged we tried to leave on foot. As with all airports it was in the middle of nowhere with one road in and out. It was also almost 40 degrees C and it was the middle of the day. We got all of 10 metres before we had to return to the incessant noise of "TAXI! TAXI! WHERE YOU GOING?". I had to use all my power to restrain Sarah. We headed back inside the airport to cool off.
This infuriating Saga ended with us taking an airport taxi - our only option - but an official metered one, where the drivers wore uniforms and one where we were only charged 3 times the Uber prices rather than 10. .....Welcome to Java.

Damn tasty!

Perhaps good things have bad beginnings because everything we experienced in Java from that point on was great. The Indonesian island definitely helped us fall in love in Couchsurfing too, where we encountered excellent host after excellent host, including of course Rendy and his sister.

We didn´t have much time in Surbaya as we had our flights booked out of Jakarta (on the 22nd of November) and we had a lot of ground to cover in between but what we did have was good. Rendy gave us a tour around the city explaining the way of things. We got our introduction to Java's love of malls which seem to be on every corner of every city centre - how else are you meant to go shopping when it's too hot to be outside. We had a nice dinner of chicken, red pork and noodles at his favourite warung before heading back to his for the evening to chill out and talk about travelling and work. After a crazy week of tourists in Bali and the morning we had had at the airport we slept so well that night! We originally planned to stay two days but on Rendy´s advice that we had seen on his tour everything Surabaya had to offer, we got the bus the next morning to Probolingo after breakfast with our two excellent hosts.

Until then.

Bob

Bali: surfers, scooters and Aussies

Bali: 4th November 2016 - 10th November 2016

After the nightmare that was the flight to Indonesia (me dying of the worst traveller's sickness I've ever had), we finally arrived in Bali. I was still feeling very rough, but was able to walk on my own, and we got to our hotel in the evening. We were meeting Yael & Bruno (my Suisa who I met in Peru), who met us in the hotel and brought me a energy drink to replace all the fluids that had left my body. It was lovely to see them, but as I still wasn't 100% they left us in the hotel so I could die some more. 

This was the first place that we hadn't really planned or researched anything to do, so we were looking forward to discovering the town. We were originally going to stay a few nights in Denpasar, the capital and the location of the airport. However, we decided to stay where Yael was, and where all the beaches were; Kuta. In retrospect we were glad we did this, as Denpasar was just a city with not much in it, whereas Kuta was more (maybe too) lively and had a lot more going on. The hostel was a nice place a few streets away from the beaches and the main strip, with a really awesome pool, but lacking in fan power so the room was quite warm. 

Loving the pool in Kuta

After rehydrating in the room, we met up with Yael for dinner, buying some antibiotics on the way (well, buying two packs as Bob dropped the first pack somewhere...). They worked pretty well and within 2 days I was pretty much better, and able to eat something.  The main (read: cheapest) food that we ate there was rice and stir fry, which wasn't too bad! The first full day we had in the town, I was still feeling rough so we just did something safe which was going to the cinema (Bob had to see Dr Strange - it was good!), hit up another Hard Rock, and walk along the beach. 

Throughout our week there, with me getting progressively better, we saw Yael some more - Bob had a great surfing lesson with Bruno, visited Ubud, relaxed, and had our first experience with a scooter!! Kuta was a nice place to relax, but as we'd previously been in really chilled, small places (like Weligama which was pretty much just us and the beach), it was very overwhelming. We soon learnt that it's like the Magaluf for Australians, which meant it was packed with overpriced souvenirs, people selling drugs, and lots of drunk teenagers. Not a place I'd recommend really, but it's not bad if you like to drink, sit on the beach and party.

Ubud day trip

So as not much else was going on in Kuta, we decided to have a day tour to a local town called Ubud, which is surrounded by paddy fields and forest. As we quickly found out, Bali/Indonesia doesn't have a great public transport system as most of the population owns a scooter. Bruno told us how easy and cheap it was to rent a bike, so we decided that would be the best option for a day trip to Ubud. Bob had a quick practice on Brunos (which was...kinda successful), and the next day we hired our own from our hostel, for about 5 pounds for the day (and another fiver to top up with petrol). We were going to take the trip with Yael and Bruno, but sadly Yael caught what I'd had, so they couldn't come with us. 

I loaded Google Maps, and we were off. Our first fun part was crossing the highway, which meant crossing 3 busy lanes of traffic twice. I was holding my breath for most of it, but we managed to get across alive, and the rest of the 1 and a half trip was pretty uneventful as Bob's a pretty good driver. 

We did a few things whilst in the town (and the bike made it so much easier to do what we wanted, when we wanted). We started off at the Monkey Forest. This was pretty awesome, and was literally a forest filled with monkeys running around and stealing your food. You could buy bananas at the entrance to give them, and we saw many tourists fighting with the monkeys over the food, as there were hungry, grabby monkeys everywhere. There were signs everywhere that said not to annoy or mess with the monkeys, but we were entertained when an American woman and her daughter blatantly ignored this sign and tried to wrestle with a monkey and got annoyed when it took all their bananas. 

After the entertainment at the monkey forest, we continued our bike trip and checked out a couple of temples. As we were getting hungry, we decided to make a trip to a close by rice paddy, which promised food and good views. It had both of these, and also lots of tourists (standard), and fairly overpriced food. We shared some tasty noodles whilst overlooking the beautiful paddy fields. After having lunch, we set off again for another little bike ride. However, as we found out, the petrol tanks in scooters aren't very big, and we ran out of gas halfway up a hill, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We knocked on a few doors to ask about petrol, but it took about 15 mins for anyone to answer us. Finally, we were told that there was a man selling petrol a few houses away, to we went there. This was petrol, in a bottle, probably filled half with water, but cost about 80p, so we filled it up and promised to go to the nearest station. 

On the way back to Kuta, we stopped off at a Luwak coffee farm, which was really interesting. It was a small farm with a few cages of Luwak (an animal whose poo they use for the coffee). We had a short tour around the farm and were told briefly how they make it, and what other coffee was produced there. After that, we were taken to the coffee tasting area where we could try lots of different types of coffee and tea (including ginger, chocolate and lemon). We didn't try the Luwak one as it cost quite a bit interesting, and I don't really care about coffee enough to try it in the form of animal poo. It was a nice way to spend an hour, and as an added bonus there was an amazing view of some more paddy fields that we looked over. 

We made our way back to Kuta, sunburnt but happy we survived our first scooter trip (although Bob did nearly take my toe off going around a corner). We'd planned to make our way to our next stop, in Java, overland, but after finding out there were no buses there, we booked a fairly cheap flight from Denpasar to Surabaya, and headed there a couple days later (after relaxing in the pool for a day!).

Ciao, Sarah

(Nearly) Private beaches and surfing in Weligama

Weligama (and Colombo): 26 October 2016 - 3rd November 2016

Our last beach stop in Sri Lanka was in the southern town of Weligama. We got a bus from Ella to Weligama, which took around 5 hours, and during which Bob consumed a share packet (so like, 30) of custard creams. We found our way to the Air Bnb, which was beautiful. We had a lovely (albeit warm) room, and were able to cook in the kitchen. We were sharing the space with a Russian woman and her very cheeky 4 year old daughter, and the Sri Lankan Air BnB owner. 

On the first day we decided to check out the local beach. Our host had given us directions to a beach not far from his house, so we went for a walk there. Following some windy dirt roads and some steep steps, we soon discovered one of the prettiest beaches I've ever seen. It was a small alcove, where the tide hit pretty much right up to the rocks, and with a small section of beach towards the end. There was noone on the beach when we first arrived, which made it even nicer. We had got there at just the right time to see the sunset, which was incredible. All the sunsets we'd seen up until that point didn't seem right. We took the next day to sit on the little beach, have a swim, and soak up some more sun (after being fairly cold in Ella).We also had some tasty Kottu Rotti (a Sri Lankan speciality of fried vegetables and rotti bread sliced up - and which Bob couldn't get enough of).

Beautiful deserted beach!

We had about a week in Weligama, so we managed to see quite a lot. Another day, we took a walk further away from our house, to the main part of the town. It was a lot more touristy, and we walked along the beach watching the surfers and the brave swimmers who were trying not to get knocked out by the boards. We had dinner (another Kottu Rotti) in the town a couple of times as well. The first time, we got caught in a rain shower whilst waiting for the bus, and the second time I asked for no spice so was given a plain tortilla with plain roast chicken. They're not very good at using no spice in Sri Lanka, as we discovered! 

About halfway through our week, we took a day trip to the nearby town of Galle. It's a popular destination as there's a big fort surrounding the main part of the town, with a huge lighthouse in one of the corners. It offers lovely views of the town, as well as of the sea. We took the bus there from Weligama, and spent the day walking around the fort and looking at the views (as that was all there was to do really). 

Galle Fort

The most eventful part of the day was when a Sri Lankan man decided to befriend us. He asked us where we were going, and as we were a bit hesitant (as we had no idea), he said there was a nice local market. Apparently, he was on his way there, so could take us. By this point (after India) we felt like most locals only wanted us to buy something from them, or give them some money, but this man was nice and didn't seem threatening so we decided to follow him. He was telling us stories about the markets, as well as about the tsunami that hit the island around 13 years ago. He told us how the town had been affected, how it had been built back up, and how he sadly lost his daughter and her husband in the disaster. When we arrived to the 'market', we found out it was actually a small shop filled with expensive spices, where I guess people get some sort of comission for bringing tourists. There was a picture of an article in The Guardian (from 2010) praising the shop, and a few men ushering tourists into it. We had a look around, butdidn't want to buy anything. Although, I actually looked at some spices and asked the price. They cost about 2gbp but the man wouldn't sell them to me as he said they were bad quality, and tried selling me a packet that cost 4 times the price. Nope. 

On the walk away from the shop, our new, unwanted tour guide told us he wasn't actually going home, but to the hospital, where his grandson was. Apparently his grandson was very ill, and as both parents died in the tsunami, doesn't have any money. He asked us for some money which was very awkward as previously he'd been repeating that he wasn't trying to sell us anything and just wanted to help us. I wasn't 100% sure he was telling the truth about it, but still felt very bad and awkward. We didn't want to deny him the money, but it did feel a lot like he was scamming us. After a lot of umm'ing from us he eventually just left, leaving us feeling like terrible people, but also annoyed that this kept happening.

Anyway, apart from that, Galle was very nice.

One of our last days in the town, we checked out a bar called Tiki Cliff Top Bar, which was recommended on Google and Trip Advisor. It was a bit of a walk to get to, up a pretty steep hill and we did manage to get lost a couple of times. People had said the sunset and view was nice, so we decided to have a look. It was a little bar at the top of a hill, which started to get a bit clubby, but had a nice vibe and nice views. They had food (only one choice), which was chicken, salad and some chips. It was a bit more expensive than usual, but we went for it as the reviews had said it was good. I think we waited for about an hour for the food (as we saw that they had to go out and get more ingredients), but when it came it was so worth the wait! 

Towards the end of our time in Weligama we were also able to meet up with Sam, a friend we both know from college and who we hadn't seen in about 5 years. He was there on a surfing trip, and helped us get surfing lessons from someone he knew, which was fun! Bob was pretty good at it, and I enjoyed it but didn't really manage to get up on the board. I'm pretty sure I inhaled most of the sea as well. We had a nice day with Sam surfing, and getting some lunch. Afterwards we went back to his hostel with some beers (from the licensed liquor shop, as they're pretty strict on alcohol rules), and chatted for ages, about everything. It was nice to see him, even if it was for a short while as we were off to Colombo the next day. 

Colombo:

Colombo was our final stop in Sri Lanka, as we were flying to Bali from the airport there. I haven't written a full blog post about the city, as to be honest we didn't spend a lot of time there, and due to me getting very ill, we didn't do a lot. 

The bus trip from Weligama was pretty dire - mainly because we were pretty hungover from the previous night with sam (we only had beer, but as we hadn't drunk anything in about 2 months it hit us pretty hard). We were thankful to get to Colombo and find the place we booked was lovely. It was very comfortable, and the man who ran the hostel was really kind. We decided to treat ourselves to Indian takeaway on the first night, and then pizza the next. The first full day we had we didn't do a lot, as the neighbourhood we were in wasn't very lively. We took a walk to post some parcels, grabbed some food to make lunch, and went back home. 

Halfway through our 3 days in Colombo I started to feel very ill. I won't go into all the details, as even thinking about it makes me feel ill again, but as we found out a week or so later, I had a bad bought of traveller's sickness. I was pretty much either confined to the toilet or doubling over in pain for the next 4 days. This wasn't the best timing, as we were taking 2 flights to Bali (stopover in Kuala Lumpur). I didn't think I'd make the flights at one point, but with sheer determination and the help of my lovely boyfriend (who probably suffered more than I did), we managed to get to Bali. 

So that's how Sri Lanka ended. It was such a lovely place to visit, especially after the madness of India, and had everything you could want from a country: incredible mountain views, sandy and beautiful beaches, and huge tea plantations. The added bonus was you could see most of it comfortably in a month!! 

Ciao, Sarah x