Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
You'll be glad to hear that we found Gary the sea turtle and his pals, Spongebob and Patrick and survived the deathly current of the Balinese sea. Sadly, the underwater current didn't so we have no photos to show for it but promise it happened! The desperate, dutch, clingy, traveller (who also happened to be a freakishly able swimmer?!) can vouch for that after he invited himself along to our two man snorkle trip searching for turtles.. we don't actually remember saying yes but this clearly didn't phase him. The rest of Bali was cracking, despite being 24 hours shorter than apparently planned when flights were booked. We slept a lot and basically avoided making friends with anyone, besides Jimmy (the over hyper 5 year old trapped in the body of a 21 year old Balinese waiter) but really enjoyed the break from the almost impossible life of Thailand's beaches where we drink by the bucket and have loads of fun doing it. All too soon (LITERALLY) it was time to fly back to Thailand - this time we got the right day and the transition was breezy, back to our motherland. Yes guys, we do now refer to Thailand as our homeland, and 7/11 our local.
Landing in Phuket, we were excited to meet up with the Hill sisters (and Steph) and skipped into a taxi at the airport. This journey went progressively downhill and ended with the taxi man throwing our bags on the side of the street and driving off before we'd even closed the doors. Apparently he wasn't a fan of Meg shouting in his face 'SHUT UP AND TAKE ME TO THE DESTINATION I'VE PAID FOR!!!!'. This entrance caused quite a show at the 5* resort Clare was staying at, where we 'dropped'. This only got worse when we asked the hotel staff where cheap hotels in walking distance to theirs could be found. We are suprised they let us sneak in and use all their facilities, and free ice lollies, every day for the following week.. or maybe we just looked the part?! After being told the closest was a fifteen minute drive away by both the staff and our trusty lonely planet guides, we decided to ignore all advice and begin a stupendously hot, uphill, treck carrying a total of 40 kilos of luggage in midday Thai heat on a dual carriage way in search of some ourselves. You said it - we're pretty smart! Like Christopher Columbus discovering potatoes (and Australia?!) we stumbled across Keeree Resort, probably the best value for money we've found so far. We felt like Chris himself as it was our greatest discovery yet. We had a lovely week with the girls, chilling round the pool, going on outings, catching up and exchanging stories - ours obviously being funnier, more extravegant, more life threating, more exciting and generally better in every way possible because we can only be compared to Gods (or maybe Chris C at a push). JOKESSSS - Meg and Steph your trip sounds alright, and Clare, well.. your at home, but we hope you had a lovely holiday in our company! :)
Karma for that last paragraph clearly hit us early as upon leaving the group we unknowingly entered a 54 hour journey on 3 different buses (each one getting less comfortable than the last). Access to real food (apart from pistachios) was cut after 24 of those horrific hours. At desperate times we considered eating the clucking chicken that someone had brought on as hand luggage, but were convinced otherwise by the monk we befriended. This was a distant and restricted friendship as no physical contact is allowed between monks and females. We enjoyed seeing his crib/monastry though when we shared a taxi with him, and now regret not securing him as a facebook friend. It was a strange journey, but we made it to Laos in two pieces (piece one being Meg, piece two being Eli).
We can't actually remember all that much about our week in Laos, but we do know that piece two left with a broken nose, we all left with a new love for whisky and all made it out alive and unscarred (jokes - Eli only has to look in the mirror to be reminded of Vang Vieng). Having escaped the 'black hole of the world', the four of us (did we mention we picked up a piece three called Mike and a piece four called Lee?) headed towards Chang Mai in search of some tigers on Valium ready for a snuggle. After 24 hours of Eli's newly broken nose swelling up and down on the bus, we arrived and questioned whether we'd left Eli in Laos and picked up her boxing alter ego Mohammed Eli. Many strangers obviously agreed as for the next two weeks she was asked repeatedly if she'd been practising Muay Thai Boxing. Chang Mai forced Meli to be torn apart for a whole 36 hours, whereby Eli went trecking to an elephant camp, but Meg's 'phobia of snakes' or lazy personality left her chilling happily by the pool. Eli meanwhile completed the most challenging treck - similar in many ways to Everest - and rode and washed elephants. It was a tough two days for both pieces. The cruelty to animals theme was continued upon being reunited when we visited 'monkey camp' and paid to watch monkeys ride bikes and slam dunk basketballs - we can't deny being impressed, but felt being kissed by a massive walking monkey a tad unnatural?! We ended the day peer pressuring piece three to throw himself off a ledge 50 metres above a small pond attached to a bungee. What a lovely day had by all. After a final night out in Chang Mai, watching many middle aged white men boost their ego's at the expense of many Thai girls, we felt it time to get away - all be it to Bangkok (creepy white man central) where we currently are before our flight to Hong Kong in a few days time.
Blog # 7 Stats:
- Number of times Eli has knocked herself out cold by running into a reasonably obvious low hanging wooden beam - 1
- Number of people seen stripping off on a 12 hour bus journey - 26
- Average temperature of that twelve hour bus - 42 degrees
- Number of working air conditioning units on that 12 hour bus - 0
- Number of times our bags were clearly broken into and searched through as we slept on that twelve hour bus - 1 each
- Number of items stolen - 0 (mwahaha)
- Number of bags repacked even neater by the Thai mafia who CLEARLY do this a lot more than us - 2 (#WINNING)
- Number of jokes cracked towards piece two about wooden beams - 114237614876412789
- Number of jam jars still travelling in Megan's bag back to Nanna Simpson - 0
- Number of jam trails created to someones pillow from outside their room - 1 (sorry Lee..)
- Number of fried scary chicken feet claws stategically placed in an obsessively clean persons sink - 1 (sorry Lee again..)
- Number of Lee's and Mike's that we think are super gay for having to go back to England - 2
- Number of giggles had so far - 41867109487109847014298741208712409871209821470149827041289742109821789
Lots of love as always,
MELI XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
P.s Enjoy that rainy hose pipe ban thing you've got going on in England - sounds like heaps of fun suckeerrrrzzzzzz...
- comments
lee Dont worry meg i will still get you back for the chicken feet and the jam on my floor :L
Mum Cat Glad to see you are once again sober enough to write the blog! Quite eventful! If a broken nose and scarred face the only damage having been in the black hole for a week...result...I have seen the you tube video! Seems you took one for the team Eli ( re snozzle) ...proud of you for putting friends first!! Fab blog, keep on living the dream ,will toast you on wednesday nite with Meph's return!! Love you team Meli xx
Mum Mel Love, love, love the blog. After one of the most difficult weeks teaching I have ever had it has just made me laugh out loud and realise that someone at least is having fun! Hope Eli is continuing to heal well and you don't miss the boys too much! Will be having a large cider to toast your continued happy travels...love you both, keep safe and living the dream xxxxx
irene love the blog so nice to hear all your adventures.am with meg on the snakes no way hose would have liked the elephants wekk done eli have a safe journey to hong kong love you both meli think i can be your adopted granma am listening to adele on tele amazing
rich RAJ I'm so envious of your wonderful journey and looking foward to the book when it comes out. The tiger photos were great, can't wait for the next episode. Enjoy Hong Kong. xx