Where Have You Been

Arriving back into Singapore, excitement hit us, we couldn’t believe this was our final weekend after 7 months together! We pulled up to the Marriott on Orchard Road for another couple of nights of luxury. The hotel was certainly lovely, but not quite as nice as Bali, we had really been spoilt by that one! However, the breakfast in Singapore was delicious! (stuffing ourselves each morning so full that we didn’t eat again till dinner!) Singapore is certainly a very wealthy country… everywhere you looked on Orchard road you saw the top deisgner names one after another. (we pretended to be rich and window shop) There were so many malls to wander round you didn’t know which one to go in! With funds at a very minimal, we headed to the food court for our first night to pick up something cheap, and cheap it definitely was, but it was so delicious too! Opting for another early night to get into our dressing gowns and chill out infront of the tele. (i think all of our partying and exploring had come to an end!) The next day, the sun was shining, so the pool was calling our names! Not realising how hot it was, we managed to go a bit pink even with such a good tan already! That evening we headed to Raffles - the famous hotel and bar where everybody goes for a Singapore Sling cocktail. So we put our ‘poshest’ travelling outfits on and headed there for a rather nice cocktail! Followed by dinner in another food court afterwards…

For our third and final night in Singapore, Steph and I had been treat to a night in the Marina Bay Sands hotel, with the highest inifinity pool in the world on top of it! It certainly was a treat! It was beautiful. As soon as we got there we headed to the 57th floor to lie by the most photographed pool for the afternoon.And seeing as it was our last ‘full day’ it would have been rude not to have a beer or 3 whilst lying there! We weren’t sure what to do for our last night, but we found a movie on tele we had been wanting to see for aaaages. So with that in mind, we popped out for dinner in the mall attatched to the hotel. Wandered around it only to find an iceskating and a river with gondalas! After that, we headed out to the lake to watch the water and light show, which was pretty cool. Finally we headed back to our room, opened a bottle of rather nice champagne from the mini bar, toasted to the last 7 months of this incredible adventure and ordered the movie (think we might be getting old, or just poor!) ! It was a lovely last night!

I am writing this last entry from the airport, where we are both sitting waiting for seperate flights. I can’t believe how fast the last 7 months have gone, and how many incredible places we have been to! We have both loved every minute of it and certainly have millions of memories that will last a life time. Feeling a mixture of excitement, nerves and sadness to be leaving each other and starting on new adventures! We hope you have enjoyed reading about our travels. It has truly been incredible. Lots of love Laura and Steph.xo

Arriving in Bali, it was super hot and super humid! Grabbing a taxi from one of the hundreds of taxis that were there, we headed to Seminyak for our first 4 nights in a hostel before we moved on to our last week of luxury! Our hostel turned out to be pretty nice and the beds were really comfy! The only thing that it needed was a pool as it was soooo hot during the day, you felt as if you were melting. Having had no sleep the night before, we were flagging a a bit, but knew we should keep going. So we headed into Seminyak square for a bit of an explore. Stopping for a very cheap Bintang beer and then grabbed some lunch/dinner. We both had the local cuisine of Nasi Goreng, which is fried rice with chicken and prawn with skewers and sauces. Really tasty! Steph ordered it without hesitation, I’d like to think I’ve opened up her taste buds on this 7month trip and that she wont go home and go back to chicken nuggetts and plain rice! After this, we gave in, headed back to the hostel, watched tele and went to bed. Waking up feeling pretty fresh we headed into Kuta for the day as we had heard there was a Topshop. We thought it couldn’t possibly be the same Topshop, but when we got there, to our surprise it was, and there were two of them! Kuta itself, isn’t the nicest of places, with every second step you take, you get shouted at for a taxi or asked to buy something! But we are glad we went to see it. After a few hours shopping we stopped in Hard Rock Cafe for a beer and to cool down in the aircon before going for dinner in a very typical western bar - Bubba Gump for some amazing shrimp.

The next day we got up early as we were heading to the Elephant Safari park in Ubud. It was about a 90 minute drive away, up into the jungle, so we got to see the real Bali on the way. The elephant park was amazing, so many elephants in beautiful surroundings that you could get so close to! After feeding a few of them and taking a million pictures, it was time to get on our elephant for the safari ride! Our elephant’s name was Petri (the same as one mum and dad had been on a couple of months earlier!) she was the oldest elephant in the park and the only one that could make a trumpet noise! The ride was a little bumpy in parts, but pretty amazing as we headed around the park, finishing with a dip in the water pool! After a buffet lunch and an elephant show we headed back to Seminyak for dinner and a bit more shopping! Our last 2 days in Seminyak were pretty much the same as the first two, bit of shopping and a bit of relaxing. We even treat ourselves to a bit of a Spa day (as it costs pennies over in Bali) we had a manicure, pedicure, foot scrub (much needed after 7months of living in flipflops!) and an all over body massage. Slightly uncomfrotable when told to strip down to your underwear, only to have your knickers pulled down when your masseuse enters the room! But it did feel good afterwards (although it was quite stong in parts, especially when they mounted the table to apply full pressure!).

After 4 days in Seminyak it was time for us to start our week of luxury, so our first stop was the Marriott in Noosa Dua. A very exclusive complex, we felt right at home! The hotel was beautiful, the room was beautiful and the pool was gorgeous! We didn’t move from the pool area for 3 days, topping up our tans and lapping up the luxury. Moving only for dinner in the evenings then an early night curled up on our massive king size bed in front of the tv! (oh and a long overdue bath!) It was then time to head back to Singapore for our final weekend in our adventures!

Arriving into Singapore after a pretty cool plane ride on a big airbus! (however, not sure if we have become plane snobs, but the service was terrible and we were only offered one alcoholic beverage the entire 9 hour journey!) We arrived pretty late, so decided not to find accomodation for the night, and opted for a nice set of hard chairs in the airport for a few hours until check-in opened for our flight to Baliiiiiiii !

After getting a bit too comfortable living in Sydney for too long, we eventually booked a flight to Melbourne to finish our Oz adventure. Going with the cheapest of the cheap airways… we landed at Melbourne airport and were ushered through to an outside baggage claim, dedicated to Tiger Airways. We felt a bit like gypys, but it had got us there for £35! We decided to only do 2 nights in Melbourne, as 1. we had really run out of cash by this point and 2. the Australian Open was in Melbourne, doubling all hostel prices (which leads us back to point one) But on saying that, we managed to fit a lot of things into two days! Getting to the hostel late morning, we dropped our stuff off in the 12 bed dorm ( it was a real shock to the system sharing with other people again!) and headed to South Yarra, a bit of a Soho esque district in search of another Topshop. A bit of window shopping later and an excellent deal for lunch (plus a bit of time being lost on the trains!) we headed back to our hostel, where we bought a bar of chocolate for dinner and settled in the movie room for the night! On our second day in Melbourne, we headed out early to the beach. Thinking we had got on the right tram, which turns out we had, but in the wrong direction so we had to wait until it turned around. Finally arriving at the beach stop, we were freezing due to the ridiculously cold aircon so headed for a coffee before hitting the beach. After a few hours of sun we headed to a bar with swing chairs to chill in and yes, have a beer of course! For dinner we headed back to near our hostel to find a place that we’d been told sold $4 pizzas! Not doing well on finding things straight away ( we had clearly got out of traveller mode) it took us a while to find ‘Bimbo’s’ the pizza place, but we eventually did and it was so good and cheap! leaving us to head back to the hostel to shower and sleep after a busy day out, ready to catch our flight back to Sydney then on to Singapore the next day!

We got there about 9pm and Pete came to meet us and we went to Cheeky Monkeys where Rach had a job behind the bar. We waited for her to finish work then they drove us back to their camp site so we could begin our camping experience. Although Byron is a pretty cool town it’s not so fun when it rains everyday. Especially when your’e camping and have to sleep with your 70litre backpack in the tent with you too. We also had bush turkeys to tend with. They stole Laura’s top and my new hat so there’s one trendy looking turkey strutting around that camp. On our best day weather-wise we’d gone to a local town for the day so couldn’t even make the most of the sun on the beach. One night it rained pretty much the entire night so much so that the awning we were sleeping under collapsed on top of our tent and we had to wait until Pete and Rach woke up to set us free. Our next stop was Bex’s flat in Manly so the camping was getting a little tedious when we had that to look forward to. After a week in Byron we caught a plane down to Sydney to stay with Bex and Rachael.