Travel blog. Chapter One
I write to you from my plane seat: novice traveler Soph is on her own, on a flight bound for Ho Chi Minh city. Well eventually; we have a stop over in Singapore first, damn cheap flights.There are at least three small children crying on this plane, and we have yet to take off. Awesome.
The first leg of the trip is over: Bali done. And it was effing fantastic.
Jewls, Annabel and myself flew over and arrived late on Sunday night, and quickly made fools of ourselves at the Denpasar airport. I walked away from the ATM with my credit card still in it, Jewls allowed the scoundrel boys posing as valets to acquire all of our luggage and Bel headed out towards customs forgetting her suitcase was still standing next to the roundabout. I’m sure there were locals watching us and laughing, but we made it through to the other side with all our belongings.
Wow, that babies really going for it, damn children.
Jewls and I headed to Ubud for two nights, where we met Lindsay and did a day biking trip up from the volcanoes down through the rice paddies. Our guide stopped us several times, to show us local plants, to educate us on the local coffee and allow us to try it with the tobacco, to see the rice harvesting in action, and to walk through a family’s home. That was something of an eye opener. There were 4 family’s living in the ‘house’, most of the rooms were open plan, with one or two walls and a roof. The kitchen was a small black box, with a fire in a grate, a stack of wood and a bucket of murky water. Our guide talked us through the traditions that took place with each room; the grandparents the only ones having a room to themselves, but lending it out to the young ones on their wedding night. Everybody in the family works, and there is no retirement, you work until you die. The living room table being the place where a dead family’s member would lie for several days before cremation. If the family was too poor, they would bury the dead, and then exhume the body several weeks later, at which point it would have started to rot and decompose. It was then the job of the boys of the family to scrape the bones clean.
I think scraping your Grandmas bones of any lasting flesh would be enough to turn anyone onto a vegetarian.
From Ubud we traveled by boat to the Gili Islands, on my birthday as it turned out, which for the most part was spent waiting around. We stupidly cancelled our previous travel arrangements as our hotel dude assured us we were paying too much, and he would sort it better for us. He didn’t, he mucked it all up, and meant we had an extra three hours to sit around waiting to get on the boat. Wonderful Jewls was chirpy and optimistic throughout, putting up with grumpy Soph, and saying marvelous things like “oh well, we’ll get there, this is what happens” and indeed, things like this do happen, when you’re traveling, and this is something I’m learning. To roll with the punches.
And get there we did. Two boat hours later and we were standing on the white sand hailing a horse and cart, the only method of transport on the island. They come wonderfully adorned with Pom poms and tassels, though I know Lindsay for one is a tad concerned for their well being. I did see one stop in protest while having to cart a particularly fat tourist and his luggage.
Our home for the next few days was the Gili Trawangan resort, a hotel on the expensive end of the Bali scale and worth every penny. For days my biggest concern was which pool to lay by, and deciding which cocktail to have next.
Over the next few days a constant trickle of guests arrived for the wedding of Jess and Mat, and what an incredible wedding it was. As you can imagine Jess put in an huge amount of work into everything; the decorations, the drinks, the activities, the bridal party’s outfits, oh my god the bridal parties outfits! A strict blanket ban on social media wedding photos is still in operation, so I’m afraid I cannot post any photos just yet, but let me tell you it all looked incredible.
The ceremony took place under an archway of driftwood and daisy’s, and was the event I have been working towards for the past year. My debut as a celebrant was finally at hand, and thankfully it was such a busy morning getting everything ready I barely had time to get nervous. Turns out the hardest thing about being a celebrant and marrying your friends, is trying not to cry during the ceremony, and as Mat and Jess had written such beautiful vows this proved a real challenge.
But I have to admit, saying “by the power vested in me” (cos I have that power) and getting to pronounce your friends husband and wife, is pretty cool. What an honor, Jess and Mat I love you dearly, and I’d do it all over again 🙂
The ceremony was followed by a garden party of cocktails, and croquet, with swing sets and hammocks and fish cakes under coconut trees. The heat of the day was finally starting to go down by this stage, as many a female was concerned about a shiny face and frizzy hair whilst in her best frock, and with so many cameras snapping away this was a very real concern.
Dinner took place amidst a web of fairy lights under the stars, and was a feast of local delicacies, I was particularly pleased to be eating lobster, I think I was born to eat lobster and I can’t understand why I don’t do it more. A shower of rain then broke out and had all the guests fleeing for cover under the biggest of the pagodas. But no matter, our waiters ferried over the champagne and we got onto the speeches there.
The rain stopped, the bride and groom let off lanterns into the sky, and had their first dance. Then the rain started again and we all said fuck it, lets get wet. Dancing in the rain under the stars was a great decision, the staff even brought out a tarpaulin later on, with dish washing liquid and a hose and made us a slip n slide. Oh and I caught the bouquet; watch out boys.
The last dozen stragglers, including the bride and groom wound up in our pool at 4am. Phewf, what an incredible night, what an amazing wedding.
The day after saw many sore heads and had most people not being able to manage more than lying by the pool and feebly motioning for the waiter, but for us Stones it was family time.
Sandy hired a glass bottom boat and we headed out on the water for some snorkeling, which was incredible. Our guides instructed us at each point to follow them/the current and that hopefully we might spot some turtles: and what do you know we saw seven. They’re one of those funny creatures that on land appear so slow and awkward, but underwater they are so graceful. They look more like they’re flying than swimming. I followed one for a stretch before diving down to swim alongside him. A sideways glance assured him I was no threat, and we swam along in peace for several strides, before he accelerated and took off. Then he did a poo. Life win.
I think we were all quite sad to leave the Gilis, they had become a temporary home, with all of our friends conveniently sleeping next door. I waved them goodbye and proceeded to get sunburnt on the roof of the boat ride back. We spent a night in Seminyak shopping and eating Mexican, and now here I am on the plane.
Bali was fantastic fun. I learned to watch out not to step on the offerings, which are placed in the most inconvenient pieces of footpath. I learned to ask for no sugar when you order a juice as everything is heavily sedated in sweetness. And I finally got the hang of the money and currency conversion, which will now be of no use whatsoever, but still feels satisfying.
I’ve left all the others behind, and thank god the babies have all stopped crying. I’m a little bit burnt, I’ve given up on brushing my hair, and am wearing the first beaded bracelet of probably many.
In Ho Chi Minh I’ll meet Annabel, my other Annabel from high school, to do Vietnam and Thailand together. Neither of us have done any real traveling before so as you can imagine we’re both incredibly excited and fairly ignorant, but we’ll learn. We’ve both also just broken up with boys, so some single gal pal time overseas is just what the doctor ordered.
Ah damn there goes that baby again.
Bye for now, and ill write again soon.
Big love xx
charlieandbudgie 