So we left Australia after 3 months and we were very excited to make our way to Bali.

Upon arrival in Bali, we had been reccommended a hostel by some friends so we rocked up around mid morning, and began checking in. We had just paid when a girl came running into reception complainning that she had got bed bugs. We then stood and listened to the row between the staff and the backpacker until they decided that there were too many people listening to the converstaion and moved her along, the guy then turned to us and said "You dont want to stay here now right?" We then took this as our chance to run! As did some Auzzie girls also in reception and we headed off together to find somewhere else to stay.

That night, after finding some really nice accomodation, the Auzzie girls decided to show us a 'night on the town' and we headed to the notourious 'Alley Cats' for some double doubles (double double headaches if you ask us!)

After a day recovering we then headed out of Kuta, (thank god!) north, towards Mount Batur to climb the Live Volcano. We got up the next morning at 4am ready for our trek and us 5 (3 auzzie girls) along with 4 guides set off for our hike. You may be wondering why we needed 4 guides (actually we were wondering this ourselves at the time) but as soon as we started the ascent we quickly realised we will be needing a helping hand up and a strong man :) We finally reached the top around 6am and we were freezing! So wrapped in blankets, slleping bags and head scarves, we were given boiled eggs (supposedly to eat but we just held on to them) and drinks of coke. It was a cloudy sunrise but completely worth the experience and it was brill seeing the steam coming out the top! The climb down was a lot easier, (mainly because we could see) and we got back for around 8am to eat another breakfast! On the way back we went via Ubud for a bit of shopping and to eat the most amazing lunch of a traditional roast pork, rice and veg at 'Little Pigs'. Overall the day was brilliant and involved a hell of a lot of execise and even more eating!

A few days later we made our way to the Gili islands for some sun and diving (we hoped). So the sun is out and we are sunbathing on top of the boat, chatting to people about how this is paradise, until we a got a wave come up and splash us! Well it was fine a bit of water just cooled us down, then suddenly more and more splashing until we were completley drenched from head to toe (including the bags!) and had to crawl on all fours to make it down to the lower deck of the boat! By this point there are no seats and the smell of petrol was overwhelming! We hold our breaths and sit on the floor trying not to be sick for the rest of the journey! Well we make it to Gili Trawangan around 11am to cloud :( so after checking in to our accommodation we did the most British thing and went and had a nice cup of tea.The rest of the day was spent looking for our reccommended dive school Trawangan Dive, to sort out a dive for the next day.

It is probably best to tell you that we were in Indonesia for the rainy season. So the next day, fresh as daisies we went out for our first fun dive. Once again it a pleaseant boat journey out (as it always seems to start off in Bali) until the weather takes a turn for the worst and the waves begin! One of the dive instrustors jumps off the boat to check the current and the captain and all the instructors are murmuring about dangerous waves, it doesnt help that we are seeing other boats turning to go back to shore! (well thats what it looked like) after 10 mins of horrendous waves, Sam starts to feel sick and then you know its bad when the instructor turns and says he feels sick too! So the captain got us to the start of the dive site ready for us to float with the current and we were told we had to get in and down very quickly (it was a big panic ahhhhhhh!!) and so we had staff putting helping us put on our gear when the guy putting mine on (even with the waves) manages to say 'oh small feet hahaha' so we were then pushed off the boat to start the dive. It was so worth it in the end as believe it or not it was one of our best dives! We saw so much and once under we forgot about the horrendous weather. When the dive was finshed we returned to glorious weather and think that we will never had to endure another bad boat journey again.

After a few more days relaxing on the island, it was time to get the boat back to Bali (sob :() well we were waiting in for the boat back, when we are told there is a problem. All the boats coming to Gili have been cancelled due to bad weather conditions, however we had a flight booked to Singapore so we HAD to get back over to Bali. (Whilst this is happening, a girl we had made friends with decides to tell us that in 2009 10 people had died making this crossing! Not a great thing to tell us!) So we spoke to the staff and they said that they could get us on a boat to Lombok and then a bigger ferry back to Bali and he said it would take us 4 hours. So one rocky, packed boat over to lombok, a two and a half hour bus ride and a 2 hour wait for the ferry we were finally on boat. After a million local people asking us if we wanted bloody noodle soup the boat left the port :).

Sam had fallen asleep, but it wasnt long before we started to feel waves crashing into the side of the boat. It was awful! There were painting coming off the walls, objects falling on the floor, cars underneath crashing into each other, and people were being sick, crying and even going to pray! They even shut the blinds so you couldnt see the horrific waves outside but it didnt stop us feeling them! A distressed Sam asked me to go and find out where the life jackets were as we genuinley thought we were going to have to jump off the boat! 4 hours later we finally got into Bali and we had never been so relieved to be on land! We were desperate to get back to Kuta as we hadnt eaten since breakfast! And we were relieved to find out a taxi was waiting for us :) Yippee! However we all piled on to this bus and it was just our luck that the guy yells out "You have to get out and push!" So some of the guys got out and pushed the car along the street but no such luck, it wouldnt start, so we all piled out of that car into another one! An even smaller one! There were 3 of us sitting on the passenger seat looking out the windscreen, which looked like a cinema screen (how the diver could see is beyond me!) So we set off in Bali's number one rally car, ran over a few dogs and chickens and made it back and hour and a half later to Kuta, only to be kicked out the bus and left at the side of the road in the middle of nowhere at midnight! Grrrrrrr!!! We finally get back to the hostel and sleep. Ahhhh. We loved our time in Bali but we were more than happy to be catching a flight to Singapore the following day!

Well in Singapore we had a gorgeous little hostel called 'Sleepy Sam's' (very appropriate) in the Arab quarter. So for 3 days we went shopping in the beautiful little boutique shops (I bought the most amazing handbag!!!) and sightseeing and even caught a music festival (that was free) we ate some awesome food from little india where we had a traditional curry and we were the only westerners in the restaurant and we had the best ever pork dumplings in China town. Yum! We highly rate this lovely little city! We then got on a 8 hour night bus to Kuala Lumpar which only took 6 getting us to KL around 3am and then jumped in a taxi to get to the amazing Reggae Mansion (by far the BEST hostel weve stayed in!) After a lazy morning we set off on a day exploring, but its fair to say we got a little bit lost. However we were doomed for this fate as whenever we asked the locals for directions all they would say is "Go straight" although we were polite we walked away very frustrated as they are pointing left whilst saying 'straight'!!!!

We finally find the central markets to eat our worst meal in 5 months (not bad eh!) and go and have our feet nibbled by the fish and do a bit of shopping, for dinner we are very cultured and head to.........Nandos!!! :p

Previously we had met some guys in our first week on Koh Tao (Matt and Gaz) and we had been trying to meet up whilst in Australia at the same time but had never been successful. So the following morning we make our way down to breakfast only to find Matt and Gaz checking in to reception. What a lovely surprise so we meet up with them for drinks and a catch up!

Next day we went to the bus station to arrange our bus to the Perhentians, and that evening went to take pictures of the pertonas towers before going to catch the bus up north to Kota Besut. We travelled over night and reached the jetty at 7am to get the boat over to the islands.

After Sam's reccomendation of the islands (which didnt dissapoint!) we check in to our accommodation in Rock garden. Even though we are really tired we jump at the chance of a free dive to clear rubbish caught on the coral and we surprisingly found a lot of shoes. We enjoyed the free bbq at the dive shack and then hit the sack. The next day we enrolled on our Advanced dive course starting with Peak buoyancy control. Followed a Deep dive, a wrek dive, a navigation dive and our favourite a night dive we graduated as Advanced divers! We do have to brag as we got to see an eagle ray on our deep dive (very rare). We spend most of our lunches eating tuna sandwiches and mango shakes and most of our evenings at mamas eating the best bbq on the island, we were extremely sad to leave the island but we both know that at some point we will both be returning back to this beautiful place.

The next morning we left to make our way to Thailand. We got the boat back to the mailand, a taxi to the border, we walked from Malaysia into Thailand and then got a train to Hat yai (which was supposed to take and hour and half and ended up taking 5 hours!) We finally get to Hat Yai (which lonely planet describes as a dangerous place to be) so we take their advice and jump straight on a night bus to Phuket. After 3 days in the old town and the best street food weve had, we make our way to Kata beach for a stay in Asia Guesthouse (brilliant hostel that 100% reccomend) just in time for Sam to skype home for her mums wedding. Congratulations again to Sue and Gordon! Very excitedley we meet the parents, and Sam is given a brilliant surprise when Dan shows up! :D The next few days were spent lounging around the pool, catching up with the parents. One evening we were planning on watching a film and Dan had gone back to his room to get it when he fell on his ankle and twisted it. It was pretty swollen but lucky it wasnt broken and didnt have to go to hospital. Then my mum fell and hurt her ear and had to go to the doctors to have it looked at, meaning that Rob didnt make his flight.

The next morning we travelled to Koh lanta with the newly arrived Fiona, we spent the days chilling on the beach and took a trip to the lighthouse on the south part of the island. The next day we decided to go back to the same beach from the day before (Same, Same but different) we were having a brill day and then we decided to go back to get showered when the owner and staff of the restaurant started getting people in from the beach and in broken English we managed to get "Earthquake in Indonesia" and "Thailand Tsunami". We were obviously a bit scared and confused but the Thai people were brilliant they stayed calm and escorted us to high land despite not knowing much themselves. 6 hours later after the Thai people being brilliant and letting us stay in their house and giving us food and water we finally got back to our accommodation. We then had the dilema of knowing how much to pay the taxi driver who had just driven us around for the last 6 hours potentially saving our lives! We settled on a fair price and he was very grateful. After a dinner of 7/11 cheese toasties and a beer to settle the nerves of the days events we packed and got ready to leave the following day to bid farewell to my mum and Amy.

We wanted to say a big thank you to our parents for an amazing time, thank you for everything and we hope you had a brill holiday and honeymoon. It made the trip having Dan and Fiona there too!

To be continued....