Siem Reap and Battambang

Siem Reap is a relatively large and attractive Cambodian town, which has benefitted from its proximity to the Temples of Angkor; the vast majority of visitors use it as a base for touring the historical sites.

After our three days of intensive temple sightseeing, we decided to have a quiet one around town before heading off to our next Cambodian destination, Battambang*. I was especially keen to take it easy, as I'd started getting some quite nasty headaches and feeling really tired.

We began our more sedate day with a trip to Artisans d'Angkor, where they teach local people how to create traditional arts and crafts and thereby provide them with a vocation and income, and preserve the skills of Khmer craftsmanship that could otherwise be lost. It's free to show yourself around the small workshops and we saw wood carving, lacquering, silver work and stone carving. The tour ends up at the gift shop where there were so many beautiful things we had to be really strict with ourselves not to spend our whole holiday budget! It was absolutely full of gorgeous clothes and homewares that are only sold there and at a couple of other choice locations (i.e. not in the markets selling the usual tat) and the proceeds from sales are sunk back into the Angkor Artisans project. 

There's also an outlet of Blue Pumpkin there, so we sat down to treat ourselves to coffee and ice cream while we wrote some postcards home.

Even after all that culture, shopping and ice cream, I was still feeling under the weather so we headed to a pharmacist for some paracetamol. While chatting to the lady behind the counter, we found out that the former king of Cambodia had passed away. He'd been in China receiving medical treatment and died there of natural causes. Even though he voluntarily abdicated in 2004, the 'King-Father Norodom Sihanouk' was still held in very high regard and it was during his reign that Cambodia gained independence from the French. We noticed that there were signs of a more subdued atmosphere amongst the local people of Siem Reap, who were clearly saddened by King Sihanouk's death.

That evening we went to the Temple bar on Siem Reap's infamous 'Pub Street' for dinner and to watch some traditional Cambodian dancing. One of the first things we noticed was that many members of staff were distracted by the TVs mounted on the walls, which were showing rolling coverage of the arrangements for having the King's body flown back to the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.

The dance performance we'd gone to see was really entertaining. It lasted for a good couple of hours with half a dozen different styles, performed with skill and energy by a troupe of young local dancers. Luckily, there were English introductions to each one explaining their history and meaning so we could understand what was going on. 

Towards the end of the show, the party crowd obviously cranked it up a notch in the bar downstairs as the Big Phat Bass started drifting up the stairs and drowning out the traditional music, which added a whole other aspect!

Here are a couple of videos that Dave took during the show: one is the coconut dance where the performers drum out a rhythm with hollowed out shells and the other is the peacock dance which shows young lovers courting in the park and then watching two peacocks doing the same.

You can also find the videos on our YouTube page.

We were due to leave Siem Reap over the next day or two, and on top of my tiredness and headaches I'd also broken out in some painful red spots, which I assumed were insect bites. So as I was feeling less than 100%, we decided that in Battambang we'd opt for accommodation that was a little more plush. We went online and booked ourselves into a proper hotel and our guesthouse helped us organise our bus to leave early the next morning.

It was a challenging journey from Siem Reap to Battambang; the majority of my 'insect bites' were down the backs of my legs and I found it very difficult to get comfortable on the bus' vinyl seats. After a four hour journey of trying to arrange myself into a position that wasn't extremely painful - the best seemed to be for me to poke Dave with a combination of at least three elbows/knees/shoulders at a time - we arrived in Battambang relieved and resolved to find the nearest English-speaking clinic as soon as possible.

We easily found the Asia Hotel and after a small mix-up over our reservation  - the 'deluxe' room we'd booked for $20 per night for some reason wasn't available, but they cut our room rate and agreed to include breakfast - we moved into our new comfy digs. Our room had a big bed, aircon, a fridge, plenty of storage space, a hot shower in a clean bathroom, cable TV and free WiFi. Flashpacker alert! 

Before getting too settled though, we headed out to find the polyclinic listed in the Lonely Planet guide, which was luckily just round the corner. I was feeling increasingly rough and realistically needed to have myself checked out. 

A couple of days after the event, I had an IM conversation with my friend George and I don't think I can better describe the Cambodian clinic experience better now than I did then. So here's the transcript:

"I rock up, all sick and in pain and shit, after a 4 hour bus ride from Siem Reap. And I show them the spot on my arm but try to explain that's not the worst of it while she peers at it/me slightly dubiously. And there's a kinda stern female doctor who doesn't speak much English. Then I'm ushered to a room with a man in a medical gown - dragging Dave with me - [where I really struggle to get up onto the hospital bed because the spots on the backs of my legs are so sore] and the man in the gown and a lady take a look, clean it all up with alcohol/iodine etc. Me: lots of pain and slightly freaked out that they don't really speak English either and it's not as bright white sterile as UCL. But they were really nice and gentle and kind (in Cambodian). And then I get taken back to the stern doctor who prescribes me drugs and I ask her what's wrong with me... but she doesn't know what it's called in English [only Cambodian and French] so I'm none the wiser. And even though Dave's french is good he doesn't know many random medical terms. But she smiles at me kindly/sympathetically, then there's minor confusion over my diabetes medication while I'm trying to make sure there's no problematic cross-overs with what she's prescribed. And I'm saying "diabetes" and "insulin" a lot and she doesn't seem to understand, so we pull out the phrasebook, which doesn't have 'diabetes' in Khmer but does have it in Thai and show her that and she's like (in ENGLISH) "Oh! You have diabetes? You take insulin? No problem." So we leave pretty happy with how it's all gone and head back to Google what she's scribbled down in French. And it was shingles! So I went back to bed. THE END."

The consultation, ministrations and anti-viral meds cost us about $30 and I finally knew that the painful blisters weren't insect bites and the headaches weren't caffeine withdrawal. I guess it also went some way to explain why I'd not been feeling my best in terms of dealing with things like the border crossing a few days earlier. 

We figured the shingles had probably been brought on by us overdoing it, paired with my slightly compromised immune system. In hindsight, although it didn't really feel like it at the time and even though in a lot of ways we'd had a very relaxing few weeks, once we got to Bangkok we were spending hours and hours walking round the city, then we had that hectic day travelling into Cambodia, then the few very long days looking round the Temples of Angkor - including the accidental 55km bike ride and the early start for sunrise.

The thing with shingles is that you just have to rest, so it was lucky we'd gotten ourselves such a comfortable hotel room. I basically spent the next week lying in bed sleeping, reading, watching TV, and receiving Skype sympathy from loved ones at home. Poor Dave found himself playing nurse and delivery boy - dressing my boo boos and fetching takeaway pizzas and curries as I was too sick to go out for dinner. 

The staff at our hotel were incredibly nice and even though they didn't technically do room service, they'd bring our breakfast up to us each morning until I was well enough to go downstairs for it. The breakfasts were really good too - Dave was tucking into omelettes and French baguettes and I was trying to keep my vitamin levels up with fresh fruit and muesli. And they served seriously good coffee; one of the lovely ladies kept checking if we liked it or not and when we emphatically told her that yes, it was excellent, she told us the hotel manager had specifically sourced the best he could find.

It was a frustrating time. Dave was really bored and climbing the walls, and I felt trapped and angry with my body for letting us down and interfering with our honeymoon adventures. But we both knew that taking it slowly and making sure I recovered properly at this point would mean we could get on with our travels sooner rather than later and hopefully with no further setbacks.

After a few days I was in less pain and feeling a little more energetic, so we decided to try a trip out to dinner. We found a place called the Gecko Cafe, which turned out to be perfect - so much so that when I still felt better the following evening, we went back for dinner a second time! It's a great little restaurant with outstanding food, which supports its lovely staff and their families by paying higher wages than a lot of places and gives them opportunities for training etc. The restaurant is on the first floor and we took a table overlooking a junction of the road, which gave us some interesting activity to watch during dinner! On our first visit it was 'Martini Monday' and after a week in my hotel prison I wasn't likely to say no to $2 cocktails. We also treated ourselves to some Cambodian comfort food over our two visits: vegetable soup, spring rolls, wantons, sweet and spicy chicken, lemongrass chicken, basil fried rice, stir fried fish with lime sauce. And for dessert: warm apple crumb cake with huge scoops of vanilla ice cream. I'm sure our indulgence had a significant impact on my subsequent rate of recovery!

As part of our Cambodia travels, we'd planned to visit Kampot and Kep before moving on to Phnom Penh. But after having to extend our stay in Battambang, and conscious of not wanting to overstretch ourselves again, we made the tough decision to skip them and head straight for the capital.

So even though we hadn't had a chance to see a lot of Battambang, once we decided that I was well enough to travel again we were keen to move on. We were delayed another day by huge sky-splitting storms, but the following day it was clear and dry and I was ready to hit the road. 

We checked out of the Asia Hotel and humped our bags over to the bus depot, where we bought our tickets to Phnom Penh. As we were waiting, a couple of lovely things happened. 

Firstly, we suddenly spotted the lady from our hotel trying to get our attention. She hadn't been at the desk when we were checking out and had therefore been unable to give us our leaving gifts, so she'd followed us over to the station hoping to catch us before we left town! We received two lovely scarves and exchanged some very fond farewells. 

The second thing was that some local girls were buying sticks of bamboo from a seller at the station (on the left in the photo above) and out of curiosity I went over to peer at what was inside them. The girls caught my eye, gave me two huge smiles and proffered one of the sticks, splitting it open so that I could see the contents. It was filled with a sticky concoction of sweet rice and red beans and I was encouraged to pull some out to try it. When I made gestures of 'yum, this is delicious' they then gave me one of the sticks they had bought to take onto the bus with me. People can be so very kind.

And so, after a bit of a hiccup in our plans we were on the road again, excited and delighted that our travels were continuing.

* Pronounced BATTAM-BONG. Although as lovers of marzipan-covered-cake we do struggle not to call it 'Battenberg'.

Thailand to Cambodia

We'd booked ourselves onto a bus from Bangkok to Aranya Prathet, where you can cross the border into Cambodia (country number three!)

We said goodbye to our guesthouse after filling up on fried eggs, toast and coffee to fortify us for the trip, and hailed a cab to the Ekamai bus station. Once there, after not too long a wait, we were ushered over to what was little more than a people carrier and squeezed in alongside about 10 other people and their baggage. 

Once we'd fought our way through the Bangkok traffic and out of the city, things really got interesting. We seemed to have found ourselves in the care of a man who wasn't just willfully reckless in his driving, but appeared to have a full-on death wish. For all of us! 'White knuckle' just doesn't go far enough; he sped, weaved, braked, honked, zoomed, dodged, screeched and tore along the roads for two hours like a true maniac. 

In many Southeast Asian countries, it's common to see spirit houses outside of homes and business and alongside roads. Apparently these are to house mischievous spirits that, if they didn't have anywhere to go, would be out causing chaos - like making people crash their cars or fall off of their bikes. Funny, I would've thought that drivers having a little knowledge of road safety, a modicum of patience and some general regard for the sanctity of human life would have its own protective effects.

The spirit houses protecting us from calamity. PHEW!

The border crossing was one of those experiences that the Lonely Planet seemed to spin up into a stressful obstacle to be endured and powered through with one's head down. The book basically tells you to go straight to Cambodian immigration, not to speak to anyone as they're all scammers who work for local 'cartels' who'll harass you onto their buses and sting you for way more than a taxi driver would charge to get into town, and that you'll likely be charged extra exorbitant fees by officials for your Cambodian visa. Following our harrowing roadtrip to Aranya Prathet, I was feeling a little on-edge and the guidebook's warnings weren't helping any.

Luckily, Dave kept a very cool head and took the lead. Once we'd gotten through the Thai exit formalities, the first thing he did was to start talking to someone (!?) who ushered us over to a building where we were to purchase our visas, while I lagged behind generally panicking and cursing under my breath that it was all already going horribly wrong. We filled out our forms, only paid an extra 200TBH backhander on top of the official $20, and were then ushered on again by Dave's new best bud to the border crossing. By this point, paranoid me was convinced we'd been shafted and that whatever had been stuck into our passports resembling a Cambodian visa was actually some piece of expert forgery scrawled on the back of a napkin. 

Standing slightly stressed in the short queue of tourists waiting to clear Cambodian immigration, I overheard two English lads behind us who'd taken the guidebook's warnings to the extreme; they'd indeed completely bypassed the visa office and headed straight to the crossing - just as I'd probably have done if I hadn't had a calm, sensible Dave with me. 

Then it was our turn up to the counter, where they stamped our visas with a smile and digitally took our fingerprints. Then we were through! Into Cambodia! Without being arrested or laughed at or bankrupted! Sighs of relief from me. Sighs of mild irritation from Dave at my lack of faith. And yes, the the hapless guys behind us did have to go back to the office and buy their visas before trying again to enter the country!

So don't trust the Lonely Planet in this instance if it's whipping you up into a frenzy of apprehension about how tough the crossing will be; it's really not that bad.


Next step was to board the bus from Poipet (the Cambodian side of the border) to Siem Reap, where we'd be staying in order to spend the next few days taking in the ancient temples of Angkor Wat. New best bud had shadowed us through to the other side of immigration, and fair enough he did work for the 'cartel' on duty that day and did usher us onto their bus into town, but it only cost us $9 each and it was there and going in the right direction, and we were tired, and he was really nice, so hey, no harm done.

The bus journey took about an hour and a half and gave us a good opportunity to see a bit of our new destination speeding past the windows. The landscape was incredibly flat, with green fields stretching off as far as the eye could see. Alongside the road, water channels fed the crops and provided bathtime and recreation for the locals, with people swimming and even kids playing in rubber rings. Pale, saggy-necked cows and black bulls with huge horns plodded the water's edge, and white cranes frequently spread their huge wings to take flight over the scene. The roads were also dotted with more of SE Asia's ubiquitous roadside ‘shanty shops’ and the soon-to-be-very-familiar baguette carts. We shared the road with people cycling on rickety old bikes and whole families crammed onto scooters - dad up front, mum at the back, with at least three children of varying ages and usually a pet in between them. 

We had a brief pit-stop at a roadside cafe for a much-needed can of the local Anchor lager.

The roads got a little more nail-biting again as it began to rain and darkness fell (no streetlights!) but soon enough we arrived in Siem Reap and new best bud (let's call him by his real name - Lowk Barang) was ready for us in his other guise as rickshaw driver. So we got in - trying not to get too wet - and off we went to Garden Village, a guesthouse/hostel we'd found online, to find ourselves a room. The whole journey, from leaving Bangkok to getting to our accommodation in Cambodia, took about nine hours.

We got a large room with air conditioning and hot water for about £6.50 a night. They only had a twin available, so we pushed the beds together! The place also had a big rooftop bar and restaurant which served draught lager for 30p a glass and decent meals for about £1.50 a head. They also had a free pool table, free jukebox with great music and free WiFi. It was understandably full of backpackers! 

We planned to take it very easy the next day, taking a wander around Siem Reap to get our bearings, and then the following day we'd start exploring the temples of Angkor Wat. But until then it was time to kick back, drink some cheap beer, fill our bellies, listen to some good tunes, and get a good night's sleep.

Our first stop in Bangkok

After seven weeks in Indonesia it was time for us to move onto mainland South East Asia. From Gili Air, we used our magic piece of paper to get us back to Bali, via Lombok, and stayed in Padang Bai for a couple of nights (at Beach Inn 1, which was quieter and cheaper than Marco's) before catching a bus up to Denpasar for our flight to Bangkok.

The plan was to stay in BKK for 4/5 days to run some errands. We needed visas for Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos; more malaria medication; and various essentials we hadn't been able to get hold of on our tiny island. Even though leaving the Gilis was a little traumatic, we were actually looking forward to being back in a proper city for a few days... massively shallow and probably immoral, but all I wanted was to eat Maccy D's and go to the cinema!

Our flight, via Hong Kong, was a piece of cake and we landed in BKK in the very early hours. So it was straight into a taxi from the airport to our guesthouse, Baan Hualamphong. When we arrived, dropped off by our very cheerful female driver, we were told that the room we'd booked was full so we'd be put in an aircon room for no extra charge. Fine by us! Especially considering the weather, even at 2am, felt like being in a steam room.

We paid 520THB per night (about £10.50) and got a big room with two double beds (incredibly hard mattresses), A/C, fridge, private bathroom, towels and loo roll provided. Breakfast was included too and was good, provided you like toast and fried eggs (the only option). Also, we soon discovered that the location of our guesthouse was excellent - not too close to the crazy tourist part of town but really near the Hua Lamphong Metro station, so it was a perfect base for exploring the city.

And what a city it is. One thing I was beginning to learn on our travels was that preconceptions are pretty much useless. I've never been interested in visiting Thailand, least of all Bangkok, which I was under the impression was some sort of unbearably dirty, seedy slum. As far as I was concerned we'd get in, do the necessary jobs, and get out as fast as we could. What did I know?? It's a fabulous, vibrant, thriving, modern metropolis. I fell madly in love with this place and, mainly due to my enthusiasm, we ended up staying for 10 days.

It turned out, after much internet research (with WiFi pilfered from the cafe across the road from our room), that we didn't need to organise our three visas ahead of time and would be better off just getting them all at the respective borders. So we threw ourselves into our other missions, namely: shopping and eating.

One of our first stops was to the MBK mall (one of about, oh, a MILLION!) We founds Boots - an exciting reminder of home - and bought the rest of the malaria tablets we needed to get us through Asia. We also purchased our first pot of Tiger Balm, which we soon realised is an absolute essential; great relief from mosquito bites and various other ailments - although we're still to figure out how it can cure flatulence, as it claims on the label... just rub some under your nose perhaps?? MBK was also our first encounter with the glorious phenomenon of 'Asian tat' - shops and stalls full of coloured plastic, grinning cartoon characters, cutesy animals, and unironic bling. Plus on the sixth floor, they have a great foodhall where there's a huge variety of cuisines available for bargain prices. You buy vouchers and then swap them for a meal; the best we found was the vegetarian stall where you choose three delicious dishes for 50THB (about £1).

We ate very well in Bangkok. The area called Siam is full of hip young things (BKK is so much more fashionable than I would've expected too!) and we had some good food around here (between my bouts of drooling over the shops and market stalls full of clothes I couldn't afford to buy). 

We treated ourselves one night to the Hard Rock Café, gorging ourselves on meat and various deep fried accompaniments. We also went to Som Tam Nua for the eponymous green papaya salad, plus excellent chicken wings, fried fish and sticky rice.

We took the extremely cheap and fun river taxi down to the Khaosan Road area where we bought a knock-off copy of the Lonely Planet guide to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos & Northern Thailand, and stopped off for a lunch of som tam, tom yum kung (a hot and sour prawn soup), chicken noodle soup and spring rolls. Most of what we ate in BKK was supremely spicy (after all that bland Indonesian food, everything we ordered in Thailand had to be swimming in chili) and when we told the waitress we wanted our dishes 'Thai spicy' not 'tourist spicy' she agreed, but kept coming back to our table during our meal to check we were ok!

Even though I came travelling with grand ideas of eating street food everywhere we went, the multitude of stalls lining the pavements were rarely all that appetising once we'd considering how long the edibles had been sat in the open or how much diesel fume had choked them. So we didn't really delve into that culinary adventure.

We did push our boundaries with some stuff that was kind of odd though: raw prawns and sun-dried beef (both really delicious) at a place called Heap with our friend Toby. This was also when we discovered that pork fried rice in Thai is pronounced 'cow pat moo', so we'll never go hungry as we'll never forget that! We also had dinner with our friend Josie, who introduced us to pomelo, a big citrus fruit that we had as a yummy salad.

Also, bubble tea, which comes in all kinds of flavours but is basically flavoured milk with chewy balls in it and an extra wide straw so you can suck them through. I had a chocolate one. It was awesome.

The Paragon Shopping Centre is the high-end mall where all the posh designer stores are: Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Mulberry, Chanel, H&M. Yep, you read that right. We were accidentally there for the grand opening of the first Bangkok H&M store and it was a frenzy! Hundreds of people queuing out of the door, mums taking photos of their kids in front of the signage. Hilarious. 

Our main reason for visiting Paragon was to go to the cinema though. We'd heard really good things about the Bangkok multiplexes, especially the big comfy seats and the glorious air conditioning. We saw Dredd on a massive digital screen with great sound, and ate our body weight in Häagen-Dazs. All for about £4.20 each. A great indulgence after a month on an Indonesian desert island in the middle of nowhere!

The weather was sweltering the whole time we were in the city so opportunities to escape inside to air conditioned comfort of shopping malls and cinemas were extremely welcome. It broke one night though, with a spectacular storm right over the top of our guesthouse, and woke us up with some of the loudest thunder and brightest lightning either of us had ever encountered. It lit the room up like it was midday and came through our eyelids to wake us up! It was still ridiculously hot and muggy the next morning though.

As well as shopping and eating, we did do some sightseeing. We had a lovely afternoon at the Bangkok Art & Culture Centre, looking round the galleries of brilliant Thai artworks and chatting to a young artist called Kan who was selling some of his drawings in the public space.

The Jim Thompson House was also really interesting. He was an American who settled in Thailand and set up a huge silk empire (before going missing in Malaysia) and you can look around his gorgeous 1950s Bangkok residence. It was a very interesting little tour and a really nice way to spend an hour or two, looking around the gardens and his collection of artifacts.

One evening we had a speedy walk through the Patpong area, constantly dodging the invitations to ping pong shows. We didn't feel the need to linger, as the 'sexpats' (dodgy old white men enjoying the company of beautiful young Thais) were quite noticeable enough without going looking for them.

We mostly got around the city using the BST (skytrain) and Metro systems. They were fast, easy and cheap... a bit like the girls in Patpong!!! Sorry. 

Ahem! The trains are pretty entertaining in themselves, with constant adverts showing on the overhead TVs and priceless people-watching opportunities. Sometimes there's more than just watching too... like with the friendly old guy who told me about his massage business, said I was very 'modern' looking and then nodded knowingly when I said I was from London, then gave me his card and kissed me on the cheek before disembarking.

All of this urban sprawl got a bit much in the end though, and Dave especially was getting antsy and keen to move on. So, knowing we'd be back to my 'new favourite city' in a couple of months, we booked ourselves onto a bus to Aranya Prathet at the Cambodian border and left for country number three.

Indonesian island hopping

Bali had been great, but it can be quite hectic and we were ready to leave for something a little slower-paced. So it was time to embark on our first bit of island hopping, something I'd read about, been advised about (how doable it is), and that I'd casually mentioned to people: "We'll be doing some island-hopping around Indonesia." But in my mind it had always been something of a far off fantasy, an unknown entity.

Then we were heading for the Padang Bai public ferry, our lives in our backpacks and our magic piece of paper from Pesona Bintang* Tours in hand. We went back to the office at the agreed time and the nice guy ushered us over to board the ferry, where we waved the 'ticket' at a couple of official looking guys who pointed 'onward'.

To get over to the Gilis from Bali in one day you have to be on the 9am ferry from Padang Bai so you can make it over to Lembar and then up to the north of Lombok in time to make the boats going over from Bangsal to the Gilis.

We'd gotten to the ferry quite early so managed to nab a couple of chairs upstairs on the open air deck. It began to fill up around us with a good few Westerners laden with their own backpacks and lots of locals too. A lot of people ended up sitting on the floor. While we were still in port, women prowled the decks hawking food and drinks like instant coffee, bananas (small and green but firm and sweet) and hot nasi goreng wrapped in brown wax paper. I hadn't wanted coffee, but after the 150^th emphatic call from the women I suddenly needed one and caved (advertising works!) I bought two coffees and a few of the little bananas; the coffee was ridiculously sweet (some local sachet with sugar included) and Dave had to finish mine before I slipped into a diabetic coma. Once the ferry was ready to depart, the saleswomen vacated for shore and we were off.

Padang Bai harbour

Sitting at our table, we got chatting to a couple of Indonesian guys about various stuff like the price and strength of local cigarettes, and other cultural differences. This was also the first time we noticed the odd Asian phenomenon of men surreptitiously taking photos of young, beautiful Western women on their digital cameras. Bit creepy. 

We also passed the time reading (me still ploughing through On The Road; a good book but not one I couldn't put down so it was taking me a while) and snapping photos.

Gunung Agung on Bali, gently smoking away

It took about three hours to get to Lembar and then we sat for an hour waiting for the ferry in front of us to unload before we could even dock.

Our Lonely Planet guidebook had warned of the 'gauntlet' you had to negotiate at the port, where hordes of guys hassle you, trying to take your baggage and get it into their vehicles so you'd travel with them, and that the best thing to do was put your head down and get out of there. So when we disembarked we completely ignored the large crowd of Indonesian men shouting and bustling and walked straight past them towards the car park where we hoped to find our onward shuttle bus to Bangsal. With it not being immediately apparent, we asked the Tourist office for assistance; the very helpful man put a phone call in to the Pesona Bintang representative and along came a guy with a big frown on his face saying angrily to Dave “I call you! I say Bintang ticket!” - we'd been so freaked out by the Lonely Planet that we'd walked straight past the person who was trying to help us. To be fair, he wasn't communicating any clear instructions and was rather lost in the scrum, but the warnings did seem a bit over-dramatic considering they almost caused us to miss our connection. Anyway, no harm done and we were directed to our little bus. The magic paper worked again and we begun our trip north to Bangsal.

The ride was great; there were about half a dozen of us, plus the driver and the guide, so there was plenty of room. I donned my headphones, turned up the music, and gazed out of the window at the passing scenery of this new island, our second stop on our year away. More Indonesian life to witness. 

We stopped briefly at the outskirts of Mataram so those who didn't have their tickets to the Gilis could buy them. After a couple of hours, we arrived in Bangsal and once again showed our magic paper to a guy who ushered us away from the hordes of youngsters (including the others on our bus) who were heading for the 'party island' of Gili Trawangan.

After a little while of waiting around without much of an idea of what was happening - things kept being said about having to wait for more people to fill the boat or that the water was too choppy - we got chatting to a European yoga instructor who was living on Gili Air with her dive master boyfriend. She told us that this charade was a frustratingly common occurrence but after a while we were directed to a small wooden outrigger with about a dozen other people. A short chug over the Lombok Strait to Gili Air and we'd made it! About eight hours of travel, and by initial impressions well worth it.

A man driving a pony and trap, costing us 50,000 rupiah for two people and luggage, took us on a 10 minute ride to Harmony Beach House, where we'd made a reservation with the owner Colin. There are two rooms at Harmony, up some steps on the first floor above their bar and restaurant, and they're basic: small and pretty open to the elements, with a double bed, mosquito net, a table lamp, a fan and a couple of little bits of furniture. The two toilets and showers were downstairs in an outhouse, 50% of which were out of order. We dumped our stuff and, as I was pretty hungry after our long journey from Bali, headed next door to Legend bar – a red, yellow and green decorated reggae joint that plays Bob Marley on loop – for some dinner and a couple of beers.

There was quite a large balcony area at Harmony, and as there was no one occupying the other room, we chilled out there for a couple of hours before turning in.

We'd heard from Justin and Ros in Ubud that Bintang* Beach Bungalows was a great place to stay on Gili Air, so the next morning, while I was battling with the shower at Harmony, Dave set out to find it and take a look at their offerings. Under an hour later he returned and asserted “Pack your bags, we're moving”. We settled up and checked out of Harmony, carried our belongings on a three or four minute walk to Bintang, and were shown a couple of different rooms by the friendly, helpful boss Andi. We settled on a cute airy little bungalow, with a high ceiling and white walls, its own veranda and outdoor bathroom, a fan, mozzy net, little table and dressing table. The price was 150,000 rupiah per night (about £10) including breakfast - the same price as Harmony had been. Thank goodness for the recommendation for this place, as it was such better value!

A little about the island itself. Gili Air is a tiny paradise! You can walk around it in about 90 minutes and there's no motorised transport so there's only bicycles and the pony and traps. It's the perfect picture postcard spot: white sand beaches, turquoise oceans, and spectacular sunsets behind distant Gunung Agung. The sea is beautiful; clean and crystal clear. At low tide there are pools in the sand flats where loads of little creatures live – crabs, anemones, starfish etc. At night the skies are full of stars as there's very little light pollution and you can see the Milky Way, Jupiter and Mars with just the naked eye. There are plenty of bars and restaurants – pretty quiet while we were there as we'd arrived at the end of high season – and there's an ATM and some shops for sundries.

This is the place we'd call home for the next month.

* In a few Asian countries there is no enforceable copyright law so if something becomes popular, like Bintang beer for instance, it's ok for other businesses to use the name. In some places it might mean you ask a taxi driver to take you to the Hilton and you're dropped at a tiny guesthouse instead of a huge plush hotel, and allover Indonesia various incarnations of 'Bintang' pop up.

Down south in Bali

It was time for us to move on from Ubud and travel to the south coast of Bali. We needed to head down to Padang Bai to catch the ferry over to the Gili islands, which lie just off the coast of Lombok.

A couple of days in advance (before things started shutting down for Galungan) we went to the Perama office in Ubud to buy our bus tickets. It cost us 50,000 rupiah each - about £3.30.

So it was time to pack up our lives into our rucksacks and leave the Indra Homestay behind.

We'd met a really nice English couple called Justin and Ros during our stay with the Indras, and they gave us some great tips about the Gilis and how to get there, like where to stay and how much we should be paying for things. They were our first encounter with travelers that resulted in some fantastic word-of-mouth advice.

Dave and the luggage at the bus station

Humping our packs down to the Perama office on the Thursday morning, we stocked up on bottled water and after a relatively short wait got onto the bus. It was a decent size but completely full, with no leg room and everyone's luggage piled up front between the passangers and the driver. They really pack you in!

The bus journey itself  was a fun, easy, 90 minute trip. It was great to be out on the road again after being in Ubud for a while, and to see the Balinese landscape whizzing past the windows of our bus. 

There was still a lot of Galungan activity, with penjors lining the roads and people attending religious ceremonies. When we reached the coast we saw a huge gathering of people down by the beach.

We'd found ourselves some accommodation in Padang Bai with  a bit of advance online research. Marco Inn is run by a Dutch guy and his Balinese wife. We contacted Jacob beforehand to make sure they had a room, and this turned out to be a good move. When we all piled off the bus on the main street outside the Padang Bai Perama office, we were immediately hit by the onslaught of guys trying to direct us to their guesthouses. Having something organised in advance was a bonus as it meant we could politely say we already had somewhere booked. 

We found Marco Inn pretty easily and were shown to our room on the first floor. It was small but comfy, with a double bed, cold water shower and one of those toilets that doesn't have a normal flush but instead has a big bucket of water with a cup that you have to empty into the loo to get rid of the 'evidence'. We paid 150,000 rupiah per night - about £10 for the room, with breakfast.

Jacob and his family were really welcoming and there was a small open courtyard where we could chill out and play with their two pet bunny rabbits!

The downside? We were staying really close to the ferry port and centre of town, and it was ridiculously noisy at night. During the day Padang Bai is a pretty sleepy little harbour town but we had a restless, sometimes sleepless, stay. Earplugs were no use when the ferry horn and tannoy, cockerels crowing, dogs barking, and the mosque call to prayer all went off in a ridiculous middle-of-the-night cacophony.

Our main mission was to organise our transport to and from the Gili islands. At that point we didn't really know how long we wanted to stay on the Gilis, but the idea was to head over to Gili Air first for a few days and then see what happened. There are a couple of ways to get over to the islands, mainly the fast boat (quick and expensive) and the public ferry (slow and cheap). We opted for the latter option and had a bit of a scout around for deals; there were loads of local agents advertising the trip and we finally bought our tickets from a guy who was set up at the end of the main street nearest the ferry (Pesona Bintang tours). After some bargaining, we managed to agree upon open return tickets for the two of us for: 

• ferry from Padang Bai to Lembar
• bus transfer up to Bangsal
• boat from Bangsal to Gili Air
• back from any of the Gili islands whenever we wanted. 

It cost us 400,000 rupiah - about £25 - which we were pretty pleased with. 

As well as the official stuff we needed to sort out, we also spent some time along Padang Bai beach front, which was really pretty with lots of traditional boats moored up and bobbing in the shallows. It was lovely being back at the coast after all that time spent inland in Ubud, and the constant calls from the hawkers had changed from "Transport?!" "Massage!?" to "Diving!?" "Boat trip?!"

We spent two nights in Padang Bai and found a really cheap little warung that fed us well on nasi mie and goreng and where we could pick up the unsecured WiFi from the nearby bar (we didn't have internet access at Marco's)! 

On Saturday morning we got up, repacked, and - using our magic piece of paper from the tour office - boarded the ferry to our desert island getaway.