Lucy and Greg's Travels

Hi everyone!

We've just arrived in Padang Bai, a little seaside town in East Bali where we will get the boat to the Gili islands on 24th March. We've had an amazing time in Bali so far! It true what people say - Bali is a very beautiful and spiritual place to be. Even as we sit in an internet cafe here, there are women walking past with offerings for the spirits, which are little baskets made out of leaves and filled with colourful flowers, food parcels and burning incense. The people here are very chilled out and friendly, even more so than in Thailand. Everyone says hello on the street (although a lot of them are trying to sell us things) and everything you can see is bursting with art and hand crafted with amazing precision and creativity. Art is such a huge part of their culture - even their pavements are covered in little pebble mosaics.
First, we started off in Kuta, which is known as the party town and isn't everyone's cup of tea. Although it has a lot of beautiful buildings and a lovely beach, it's full with tourists, rubbish (even on the beach) and loads of rats! However, it's the best place to learn to surf, so we had a lesson with one of the many amazing Balinese surfer "dudes"- it was so much fun! We managed to stand up and ride some of the waves right to the beach by the end and although I'm not about to start calling myself a "chick", wearing Billabong and calling anything that looks like a wave "rad surf", I think I will be partial to some surfing off the exotic shores of the UK this summer.
Kuta is basically a party town, and there's a really cool reggae bar there called Apache. On our first night we ended up jamming outside a shop after the club had closed with some Bali reggae lovers and the next day I had a guitar lesson from an amazingly talented, self-taught music shop owner who calls himself the "Bali Ukelele Club" (it's just the one guy, haha). He was playing Spanish guitar, but he is also expert at the didgeridoo, the ukelele (obviously) and every other instrument he sold. He was amazing at cyclical breathing, although when he tried to teach us we just ended up looking like we had heartburn or something. His passion for his instruments meant that I ended up leaving with a miniature guitar (trust me, it sounds so nice!), John with a kalimba (which sounds slightly less pleasing, in my opinion ) and Greg with a bamboo flute, which will give you a migraine.
We left Kuta after a few days and went to Ubud, probably the most cultural city I've ever visited. It really is like they say - little street ceremonies everywhere, traditional Balinese dances every night, and the smell of incense is everywhere! The first day we went to the sacred monkey forest, and we didn't really know what to expect. It's a beautiful forest right in the middle of the city, with a stream running through it, where literally hundreds of monkeys run completely wild. They were everywhere - climbing up the trees, chilling on the path, jumping into the water and throwing themselves onto tourists' heads. It's amazing because they're completely free, and treated as sacred by the Balinese people - nothing like the ones you see on the end of chains in other parts of South East Asia. I loved it here (as you can imagine), even if one did try to attack me. I got it on video and have shown it to some of the locals, they love it! Other than that crazy monkey, they were all really calm, happy and friendly. Another one just climbed onto my head for a bit, although Greg was terrified that it was going to rip my face off.
After the monkey forest, we went to our first Balinese dance. This one was called a fire dance and they had a chorus of about 40 half-naked Balinese men beat boxing throughout the whole thing - pretty impressive! The crescendo was when a man dressed as a horse ran through fire and kicked it around with his feet. Yeah, it was as mental as it sounds. I got this on video too.
We also went to see another dance called the Barong dance. We went to see a completely female cast, and they played instruments in this one. The dancers were amazing and the rhythm that the musicians kept throughout the whole performance was mind-blowing. After this we went to the Havana club, where we saw a Balinese band playing latin music, and again, they were all self-taught through YouTube. All the staff could dance the salsa as well - Bali is full of very talented locals!
The next day was one of my favourites so far. We did a tour of two temples, the volcano viewpoint and the rice paddy terrace. The first temple was almost completely deserted, and it had a river running through the middle. It was carved out of the stone around it and was so beautiful. The second was where you can bathe to rid yourself of evil spirits (it was a bit weird standing around watching people do this) but both of them were stunning. After this we went to the viewpoint to see a volcano and the lake next to it. You could see all the black dirt where the lava had run when it last erupted. Lastly, we went to the rice paddy terrace, and it amazed us how they can even make agriculture beautiful here. I'll put up all the pictures when I have a chance.
Our last day in Ubud was also our last day with Naila, who has gone home now. We're going to miss her loads and are so grateful to have had her company for the last eight weeks. She's going to read this thinking 'soppy cow' so I'll stop now, but thank you so much for the thoughtful present - sneaky bitch! We arrived in Padang Bai yesterday to a HUGE monsoon, but we've decided to stay here till after Nyepi (festival of silence where we're going to have to stay in our hotel room with no light for a whole day!) and leave for the Gilis afterwards. It's really lovely here - we're going to check out the white sand beaches, chill out and we might do classes in wood carving or silver work. It's also a lot cheaper here than in Ubud or Kuta, which is better for the budget. The rain's stopped now and the sun has come out in full force, so I'll get off the computer and go and enjoy the day!
So much love to everyone at home. Will be back soon - can't wait to see everyone. Take care and enjoy yourselves, loads of love Lucy and Greg xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi everyone...We've finally arrived in Bali!
We got a boat to Phuket from Koh Lanta, which involved jumping from one boat to another one AT SEA with our luggage - terrifying. We didn't want to stay long in Phuket because it's really expensive, since it's mostly big resorts. We planned to spend one night there and then hang around until 4am the next day, which was when we were supposed to check-in for our flight at 6.20am. We spent the day galavanting around a shopping center, perusing various shops selling identical wooden artifacts, sarongs and fake sports clothes. At 10pm we got a taxi to the airport and waited to check-in. I found some seats where I could assume the log position and slept for the whole time, but Greg just ended up wandering around and taking pictures of me sleeping. I'm surprised security didn't pick up on this and take him out for questioning.
When we got in the queue for check-in, I realised we were at the airport on the wrong date. It was the 9th and our flight wasn't booked until the 11th. The first reaction was laughter but then stress when we realised that we would have to pay for another taxi back to somewhere in Phuket where we could afford to sleep (everywhere near the airport is expensive), then pay for another night's accommodation, then pay for 2 more days of living in Phuket (expensive and a bit crap) then another taxi back to the airport, another day of waiting till 4am...etc etc. To make matters worse, we'd both over spent on our budget because we had bought rasta hats (no fake dreads but nearly as bad) and a portable speaker that day. Rash.
After running around the airport for 20 minutes (nothing was open at 4am), we eventually found a woman who told us we could maybe pay to change our flight. We did end up doing this but we'll pretend this didn't happen and continue with the journey.
Greg slept the whole plane journey but I ended up chatting to the type of crazy person you can only meet on a plane. I think he is best described as a conspiracy-theorist dancer (or as John says, 'fruit loop'). He was old (didn't ask his exact age - didn't want to be rude) but I can tell you he had thin grey hair slicked back into a ponytail, rose-tinted glasses and kept needing to go to the toilet whenever they put the seat-belt signs on, which meant climbing over me and Greg because he had the window seat. We did have a brilliant conversation about when the world is going to end, whether there is going to be a spiritual awakening during the next 5 years, solar storms that could bring planes down which wasn't so fun when we were going through turbulence. Most prominently, he talked about dancing. He told me straight away that his favourite thing is to dance - he dances any style, and can dance both the female and male parts of the Balinese dances. He even gets up and dances in their parades! He also has the part of the carnival clown in the California carnival. Definitely a character! It was good though because he's the first person in a long time who has allowed me to talk about my all-time idol, Cesar Millan, without giving me freaked-out looks (or at least I couldn't tell if he was beneath the rose-tinted glasses). He certainly seemed interested in my theories about dogs, so all I can say is I liked the guy.
We were lucky enough to get through customs really quickly but we stepped straight out of the airport into the clutches of the taxi touts... 'You want taxi?', 'Hey mate, where you go?' 'Hey boss, 200,000 rupiah to Kuta'. As usual, Greg befriended a couple of them and then had to break their hearts by walking away. We'd been warned about these and spent a while trying to find the legitimate "blue bird" taxis, which we eventually did, and got to the hostel to meet our friend for a fraction of the touts prices - a small victory after our airport fiasco, yay! Prices are a bit higher here than we were expecting, but we've managed to meet some locals who will help with surfing, and we've found some cheaper places to eat so we should survive! The shop and restaurant owners rival those in Bangkok when it comes to getting customers... they use lines like 'Hey, Jessica, why you not write me back?' and 'Hey boss man, you Aussie?' in an Australian accent. I feel sorry for whoever this Jessica girl is. She must be getting messages from all of them. Luckily for her though, they clearly can't remember what she looks like. They even grab your arm and drag you in. Greg nearly became a victim of an unexpectedly strong terminator woman who had his arm in her iron grip.
We've got a surfing lesson booked for tomorrow, then we're going to Ubud to see the monkeys and the temples etc. After that we're heading to the Gilis. We have found a lot of Djembe manufacturers, as well as a shop that sells John's favourite instrument, the egg shaker. We are all really enjoying Bali so far - so excited to see more of it.
Got to go, but sending lots of love home and to everyone hopefully we'll come back from surfing in one piece! Only a month left now so we've got to make them most of it. Take care, loads of love xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hello everyone.

We're currently sitting in an internet cafe during a monsoon storm in Koh Lanta! We finished our advanced diving courses on Koh Tao (which included night diving, a deep dive to 30m and going out on our own (we got horribly lost)) and stayed a few extra days on the island. Koh Tao is really nice but there's a sense that a lot of rich westerners have taken over the island with their dive schools - there's hardly any Thais on the island, only western people and the Burmese boat men that work for the dive centers. Because of this, at points Koh Tao seems weirdly built up for such a small island, and I got annoyed with the way the western residents treated tourists (we met quite a few who could only really be described as "pompous", which is luckily one of my favourite insults). Our friend, Naila, rented a moped and explored the island on one of the days that we were diving, and she found some much quieter beaches. Greg and I ended up not getting peds, mainly because we were too lazy to leave the beach we were on. We're definitely going to explore Koh Lanta more though.
The journey to Koh Lanta was typically long-winded - we crammed onto an open-backed pick up truck in Koh Tao which took us to the ferry terminal. From there we got on a night ferry two hours early, because we had been warned that there are normally around 100 people to a boat with only 40 beds. Luckily we managed to get a bed each, and the ferry dropped us back at Chumpon (mainland) at 4 in the morning. We were picked up by a mini bus that drove about an hour to the travel agency depot, where we were all told to get off and wait for the connecting buses, which turned out to be the bus we had just gotten off. Then we had a 6 hour journey to another travel agency depot where we waited for "the ferry" which, it transpired, was actually another mini-bus, this time horribly full with sweaty people and luggage, and which we had to sit on for 2 hours while it went on 2 vehicle ferries and then drove us to the beach of our choice. The people at the last travel agency seemed more like the type we met in Bangkok than on the islands - ridiculously pushy and lying - very charming! Luckily we didn't listen to their stories about their being no accommodation for less than 800 baht a night (more than double what we've been paying so far), because we went to what they deemed to be a "VERY expensive" beach and the first hostel we asked had rooms for 300 baht.

HOWEVER - this is one of my more exciting blogs because we have since spent our first day with the police, because our hostel was one of five that fell victim to a midnight robber last night I woke up looking for my camera because I could only find the case, and I never leave it out of its case. Then I realised our passports, my iphone and all my cash had gone missing. Having been burgled quite a few times at home, I know that I am a bit paranoid and always jump to the 'burglar' conclusion too quickly, so I spent about 20 minutes looking round the room saying. 'I'm sure it's in here, I'm just being paranoid,' and blaming Greg for losing stuff. Then I heard Naila saying '...my passport, my camera, my phone, everything,' and it dawned on me that yep - we'd been done (dun dun dun).
The owner of the hostel came up and we told her what had happened, and she was genuinely really upset. She went and asked her partner (a Thai rasta man) who came upstairs and tried to convince us that we must have lost it all on the boat, 'because never has anything been stolen from here in 12 years'. We were obviously adamant that it had been (Naila's phone had been on charge next to her when she went to sleep) and the couple rang the police. We went downstairs and found the bank card and wallet of someone who hadn't been staying at the hostel on the floor. By this point a Thai policeman had shown up, and he said 'NOBODY MOVE IT' then proceeded to take some very professional-looking pictures on his iphone. The rasta owner said he recognised the guy's picture and he rode off on his moped with the policeman on the back to another hostel, which, it turned out, had also been burgled during the night.

The plot thickened further when Naila and my money belt was found under a cushion downstairs in the hostel, with no money in it but the passports still there - THANK GOD. We had heard that it would have taken at least 3 weeks to replace them and we would have had to go back to Bangkok. This caused a lot of commotion though, as you can imagine, because the rasta owner guy now thinks someone is trying to frame him for the burglaries. Anyway, one of us had to go to the police station and Greg volunteered because someone told us it's better for a guy to go. However, Greg had nothing stolen by that point, having found his passport, so his statement was a bit redundant and the police accused him of lying to cover up for the rasta man who they then believed must have done it. However, more reports from other hostels came in and the police realised it couldn't have been him, and some official-looking proper policeman came round to speak to Naila and me. These guys were actually quite scary and wanted to take pictures of me pointing at random areas of the 'crime scene' (really random!) and we have to go back in on 1st March so they can give us an update and a crime reference number for the insurance.

On a lighter note, I did actually find my camera...Greg had taken it out of its case and put it in his bag after taking photos, so for once his forgetfulness has paid off because it meant the thieves couldn't find it! Hurray! But I would have rather had lost mine than Naila's - she had loads more photos which were much better than mine, and since her bank cards, ID etc were in her camera case, her camera was a lot more valuable than mine

After such a stressful few days, we moved hostels (not because we suspect the owners of the last one anymore - they were really nice in the end and helped us with the police etc.) and are looking forward to enjoying this beautiful island. It seems a lot less built-up than the other islands we've visited, so it will be good for chilling out before our flight to Bali on 9th March.

Also, we've noticed a trend for reggae fans in Thailand - a particular type of trouser that they all seem to wear. Get ready for it - these trousers are flared, corduroy AND patchwork, all at once! I'm thinking of getting Greg a pair for when we're back in England. Please anyone let me know if you'd like me to find some and bring them back for you.

Don't worry about us after reading this blog - there's four of us here and we're looking after each other. It's only material things at the end of the day.

Most importantly, we want to send our love out to Chaz, his family and all of The Drop family. We're so sorry to hear this terrible news - our thoughts and love are with you all. RIP Chaz xxxxxxxx

Lots of love to everyone xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi! Sorry for the last blog - was short and a bit miserable but difficult to follow up the Khmer Rouge stuff with 'Next we sunbathed' without sounding very shallow, so I've saved most of the Koh Chang info for this blog! Well we stayed in a beautiful hostel called Magic Garden which was just off Lonely beach. The hostel was like a tiny village of wooden huts on stilts, with plants all around it and coconut and papaya trees everywhere. You could even watch the staff pick the papaya for your lunch, which was pretty cool. It turns out that Lonely beach is the party beach (so it wasn't particularly nice - the water wasn't very clear and the beach was quite small) but it was still good enough for us to go and roast ourselves on our first day, so now I'm peeling beautifully and Greg is somehow still red. A lovely french man we met called Fabrice put it well when he said to Greg: 'You go in the sun, you are red. You stay out of the sun and you are still red. You are red!'
The red man and I rented mopeds, and on our first day ever driving them, these 3 men that we had just met led us round the whole island to this beautiful beach called Long beach right on the southern tip. When we realised we'd gone the whole way round, we were really relieved that we were nearly home - until we found out that there was no road along the tiny southern coast and we had to go all the way back round, and it was dark! The road was ridiculously bad as well - thick, rocky gravel in some places, steep hills with holes in the road in others and in some parts you couldn't even call it a road. It was fun though, even though I managed to drop my moped at the beginning (they're much heavier than they look!) and we went out again on them over the next 2 days to explore more of the islands beaches, which were really pretty. There were so many monkeys on the road, just chilling, but we were all quite scared that they might decide to hitch a ride with us if we stopped long enough to take a photo!
We went out a few times and Greg managed to get very drunk on the last night and got carried to our hut by this tiny Thai security guard. Very funny. He can't remember it though so I'm waiting for Fabrice to upload the photos so he can see what the night was like!
We left Koh Chang at 8.00am yesterday and got a mini bus to Bangkok. We were only there for a few hours but we met up with Greg's old housemate John, who is coming to Indonesia with us and might meet us in Thailand before Each time we return to Bangkok, it goes up in my estimations; I genuinely think having a tan (/burn) makes you less of a target to tuktuk drivers and the people selling those croaking wooden frogs (although their exotic croaking noises could still be heard everywhere you went). Even the street sellers on Koh San road were easy to deal with this time, despite their use of stealth tactics - wondering past you like a regular pedestrian and then whipping out their book of tattoos right in your face and saying 'WANT TATTOO?' as if, of course, that's exactly what you're looking for, yes!!
We then got a sleeper bus to Champon, except this one didn't have proper beds - disappointing at first until I realised that you could put the seats right back and the leg part came up, perfect if you were good at sleeping in the log position, which, luckily, I am! Greg found it a bit more difficult though so he's having a nap now before we start out PADI course this afternoon. After the bus, we got an open backed truck to the ferry point. Since it was 4 in the morning and the ferry wasn't till 7.00, we managed to eat our way through 3 hours with Mama noodles, crisps, cookies, and milk (which was a bad choice. I think the Thais put salt in their milk?!) When we finally got on the ferry, I managed to sleep some more despite being harrassed constantly by reps for different diving resorts, and a cat that looked like Sharkey constantly running over my feet. We had already had recommendations for Big Blue dive resort, which is where we've ended up, and we're doing the 3 day Open Water course. I'm terrified about having to breathe through my mouth for however long underwater and Greg's scared about the price so we're making quite the confident team at the moment.
So currently, Greg's asleep (and very red) and I'm in an internet cafe where there's a squirrel in a cage, and I've just realised there's another one in a laundry basket next to me... very strange. The first caged squirrel is giving me the death stare and they're actually really creepy up close so I'll say good bye for now and try to upload some pictures at some point! Lots of love to everyone, Lucy and Greg xxxxxxxxxxxx

Hello everyone! Sorry it's been a while, have been busy! Went to the killing fields and S-21 which was the torture camp where the Khmer Rouge tortured and killed innocent prisoners simply for being intellectuals, or being able to speak a foreign language, or anyone that they suspected to have opposed Pol Pot's tyrannical regime. It was really horrible to see the photos of all the inmates who entered the camps, and next to them the photos of the same men, women and children after they had been tortured and/or killed. We went to the killing fields afterwards, which I was really nervous about. These are the fields where the Khmer Rouge killed thousands of Cambodians as quickly as possible without bullets. I was really unsure about going as a tourist to such a place but when we got there i was surprised at how beautiful they have made it. It's really green, with plants and wildlife everywhere, and although they haven't changed much (there are still teeth, bones and clothes coming out of the ground) it really felt like a beautiful memorial to those that died there. You get a really good audio tour, so everything's silent, and there's a huge memorial stupor built to commemorate the victims, and it's filled with their skulls so that people can't forget the horrible things that happened there. We didn't go up to see it but you could go if you wanted. Overall I'm glad we went there, especially because the cambodian people think it's important and respectful that the world knows what happened there only 30 years ago, to remember the dead and to try to ensure that it doesn't happen again.
It's crazy how little we knew about the Khmer Rouge before that day but if you want to learn more then this site is good - http://www.killingfieldsmuseum.com/index.html, especially interesting because they're only just bringing some of the main perpetrators to justice. The UN even funded the Khmer Rouge for 12 years after the genocide, when they weren't even in the country anymore. Crazy.
Anyway, we left Phnom Pen the next day and were sad to say goodbye to such a friendly country. It's crazy that they are so kind and welcoming when 1 in 3 Cambodian people died under Pol Pot's regime. The average age in Cambodia is only 22.
The next day we arrived in Bangkok and saw Simon again, who kindly let us stay in his RIDICULOUSLY nice flat, and then we got the bus to Koh Chang. It's beautiful here and we've met some brilliant people. I was persuaded to ride a moped for the first ever time, and rode round the whole island, up mountains and rocky roads to this beautiful beach. I did manage to drop mine once (oops) but other than that everyone was impressed that we managed to stay aboard. Will put up pics soon! There are wild monkeys everywhere and both of us are ridiculously sunburnt. Have to go to dinner now but will do a proper blog when I have more time - just keeping you all updated! I hear it's snowing in England. Hope everyone's keeping warm love Lucy and Greg