Gili Trawangan

From our hotel near Denpasar International Airport we took an hour mini bus ride to Padang Bai to catch the fast boat to the miniature island of Gili Trawagan. The ferry station was busy and we waited a while for our fast boat to arrive. The boat ride was about an hour and pretty bumpy and hot. When we first arrived on the beach along the strip of bars and restaurants we weren't entirely sure what we had gotten ourselves into. Our first impression was that it was a party destination; which is somewhat true, but never judge a book by its cover.

We absolutely LOVE these islands and frequently feel like we're in a fairy tale. Gili Trawagan is only six square miles and you can bike around the entire thing in about thirty minutes. We run almost everyday and we can get around the whole thing in 4.36 miles according to our Nike Run app. They don't have cars, only bikes and horse drawn carriages (which we don't ride because we feel bad for the horses), baby goats, butterflies, kittens, chickens and their chicks, calves, delicious vegetarian food, and yoga galore. Since we've been here we've taken classes at Gili Yoga and The Yoga Place. Our favorite is The Yoga Place, they have a great hatha yoga class and The Garden Café restaurant is delicious. Fresh salads, smoothies, sandwiches, veggie burger, chia cups, its basically a vegetarians dream.

A great yoga class, followed by mouth watering food, a $7 massage, and swimming n turquoise water...life is good on Gili Trawangan.

The locals are truly lovely people. Seeing their smiling faces everyday is uplifting. Each morning when we watch the sunrise there are the same amount of locals watching the sunrise as tourists. To live somewhere and still appreciate a sunrise everyday is pretty special. In our everyday lives we tend to forget to stop and notice these natural beautiful wonders and miracles of our home, so to see that was refreshing and a great reminder to stop and smell the flowers.

Calamity in visa land Pt. 2

We were the first ones to waiting in line to check in for our flight (punctual as always). We arrived 2.5 hour before our international flight, thinking we would have plenty of time to check in, eat a little breakfast and spend the last of our Dong. The ticketing agent then told us we needed proof we were leaving the Thailand on a PLANE. The bus tickets we painstakingly planned and already purchased in conjunction with a domestic flight to Bangkok would not suffice. YIKES!

Running out of time and feeling like to unwilling contestants on The Amazing Race, we agreed to only get our boarding passes to Singapore then get proof of a flight out of Thailand by the time we reached Singapore.With only moments to spare we purchased the quickest snacks we could find with our remaining dong (spending more on peanuts than you do on four Banh Mi sandwiches argh) and ran to the plane.

We flew Tigerair which has an option when you book for "Tiger Connect" it is a fee you can pay so they take your bags from one flight to the next. If you ever fly Tiger air purchase it (you'll see why). Since they refused to give us our boarding passes for the second flight we were told to go out, clear immigration and then get our next boarding passes with proof of a flight out of Thailand. Once in Singapore an airport employee warned us that many times once you leave the secured area, if you have a overnight layover they will not give you a boarding pass until the next day four hours before the flight. So now our bags are down circling the conveyor belt, if we leave the amazingly cush terminal then we risk not being able to get back in until 4 AM and the airport security could ask us to vacate until we had boarding passes. On the other hand, if we stay our bags could go to lost and found, and we miss the tour. Wow!  What a pickle we got ourselves into!

We ultimately, decided the cheapest option for a flight out of Thailand was to hop over to Kuala Lumpur for a few days. It is a visa run of sorts but hey for $128 we get yet another stamp in our passport and have an impromptu visit to Malaysia. Knowing our grave fate of sleeping (hopefully) on a few chairs in the arrival department of the Singapore airport, we did one last Hail Mary and went back to the Tigerair counter. Two new employees working this time, and we asked them just to be sure, if there was anyway we could get our boarding passes now so that we could go on the tour and get back into the terminal. These people were ANGELS. "Of course, one of you already has the Tigerconnect (not sure how this happened), so if the other just pays $40, we will make sure your bags go to Thailand and we can print both of your boarding passes here." What the what?! Never once did they ask to see our tickets out of Thailand, which we just spent several hundred dollars on only moments prior.

We can't help but cringe a little thinking that if we could have just talked to these people originally all the stress and the random trip to Malaysia could have been avoided. On the bright side, which there always is if you look hard enough. We got to go on the free tour (which we highly recommend if you have 5+ hours to kill in the Singapore airport), we had a relatively comfy place to sleep (fo free) and we are goin to Malaysia.

Lessons learned:

1) We assumed a bus ticket would suffice, even the Thai embassy told us so. It seems like we just had bad luck getting a ticketing agent in Saigon that wanted to play by the strictest of rules (in truth, it is the job of the airline to ensure no tourist is staying over 30 days in Thailand, so bring proof, printed if possible).

2) Ask someone, and then ask again and again. We were seconds away from leaving that Holy Ground of the Singapore airport and condemning ourselves to a sleepless night in the arrivals lounge or worse. We are so fortunate, we listened to the tour guide who warned us not to leave unless we were sure to get boarding passes first.

3) Sometimes, paying those extra fees does save you in the long run. For us, the $40 for Tigerconnect was well worth not having to clear immigration and wait till the morning for new boarding passes.

4) Stress kills, it is so hard to remove your emotions from a stressful situation. However, at the end of the day whatever it costs, or the discomfort it may bring you. At least we are traveling the world together and getting to spend this year with all of its trials and tribulations doing something that many can only dream about. We are so fortunate, even in these frustrating times we wouldn't rather be anywhere else. It's important to take a step back and have a little perspective.   

Calamity in visa land

Well, let me start this story by saying I am a bit embarrassed by our actions and I do take full responsibility for my part in it. However, there is a lot of misinformation and "regulations" seem to be up to the person you deal with at times. However, let our folly be your word to the wise.

We landed in Saigon with a great plan. Enjoy a long weekend of taking in the sights and then on Monday pick up a 60 day visa from the Thai Embassy and on Tuesday zip off for a month+ to Phuket and the South of Thailand. On Monday morning after reading many travel reviews saying getting a visa was super easy, we woke up early and planned on being the first ones at the embassy office so that we could get our visa processed and be on our way to enjoy one last day in Vietnam, getting massages, eating Pho and taking in the sights. 

Upon arrival, the lady noted that we had to prove we had tickets out of the country, we asked if bus tickets would be okay and she said yes but they had to have a printed copy as evidence. We had read so many posts about border runs in Phuket we had assumed we could just take care of staying slightly over the 30 days once we were in the country. Especially for a 60 day visa, it is really hard to book a ticket that far in advance when you are trying to live life on the wild side (you know sans itinerary).  After hours of running different scenarios and price checking each option to find the cheapest most effective way to leave the country. We decided to fly from Surat Thani Thailand to Bangkok then take a bus to Cambodia. 

Armed with the necessary documents we got another Uber back to the embassy. Filled out the documents with ferocity knowing we were nearing the end of the day, only to be informed that we couldn't get the Visa in time before our flight. 5 Ubers later and our last day wasted in Vietnam we discovered a few frustrating truths that could have saved us a lot of time and money if we knew them earlier:

1) Visas take at least two days! We should have gone in on Friday so we could have picked them up on Monday. Plan ahead for unforeseen bumps in the road and take care of business first! Usually, our M.O If you know us, then you know how shocking it is we dropped the ball like this.

2) Ask more questions. People tend to be short with you when there are language barriers but take the time to make sure you fully understand the situation. When we went in that morning to get the Visa, we should have made sure, if we did indeed get the printed proof of tickets out of the country, could we get the visa done in time?

3) Don't trust everything you read. We read so many reviews and blogs, that said it was very easy to get a Visa and that they did not have to show proof of an exit ticket. That pared with the advertisements of border runs we figured it would be easy. When in doubt be over prepared, especially when it comes to something as important as a visa.

4) Laugh at yourself, learn from the mistake and move on. Traveling with a companion it can be easy to get mad at each other of take the frustration of the situation out on each other. However, after spending so much time and money on a completely moot point we left the embassy and just had a good long laugh. 

At the end of this exhausting/stressful day. We remembered a vegetarian restaurant we passed in one of our Uber rides and decided to go look for it and at least take the opportunity to eat in a new part of town. Retracing our steps we were quite proud of ourselves. High fiving each other and reveling in our awesome internal GPS systems. Until... we landed right back at the embassy. We did a huge circle, didn't eat all day (our last day to enjoy the amazing foods of Saigon no less), and it started to rain. Late, tried and slightly depressed, we splurged to get yet another round of Ubers to our favorite Bingsu place (amazing Korean dessert). Two heaping portions of shaved ice, fresh fruit and condensed milk later, the world was looking a little brighter.

Thinking back to all the things we could have done differently could literally make you go crazy. Coulda, woulda, shoulda all you want. However, the only thing to do is to learn from the mistake, share your story with others so you may save them the hassle, treat yo self and move on.      

Oh the places you'll go

We are two girls that often stick to the rules and like have clear defined plans in pretty much everything we do in life (ya we are those girls). However, we have been trying to incorporate a more laidback attitude into our planning. You know, truly embrace our new backpacker lifestyle. Therein lies the conundrum: how to be laid back so that you can enjoy the journey yet not get stuck spending outrageous amounts on tickets or all of the good accommodations being booked. We can't tell you how many times we have found Airbnb's that are perfect for us with a pool, gym, great location, free breakfast for an amazing price that was already booked for the dates we wanted. So we were forced to spend more on a place with fewer amenities. 

In our short 18 days on the road here are some things we learned:

1) Not everyone shares the same opinions as you, so take reviews and travel blogs with a grain of salt. We stayed at several places highly recommended that we hated, while others that got mediocre reviews that we loved. When reading reviews it's helpful to think about the person writing the review, do they match your demographics? Are you the same type of traveler?

2) To avoid getting stuck somewhere we didn't like and give us more autonomy over our itinerary we learned to only look for places that have flexible cancelation policies. We also were able to book the best accommodations in advance so we knew they would be available if we indeed made it to those destinations as planned. Airbnb for example clearly defines whether a place has a easy, moderate or strict cancelation policy. Booking.com also has numerous locations in which you can reserve a room without even using a credit card.        

3) It seems in SE Asia particularly in Vietnam, they are great at photoshop and many of the places we stayed at did not look at all like the photos. We got room catfished many a time. Be sure to check out photos taken by fellow travelers for a more accurate depiction. We love TripAdvisor for this reason, and attempt to photo compare places when possible before booking.

  

4) We have used several sites to book rooms: Kayak.com and Airbnb are our favorites as they often direct you to the best homes/hotels. Agoda.com in particular which is linked to Kayak, has amazing prices. The hotels we have stayed in often also give us a lot of freebies: free breakfast, bikes, cooking classes, which can add up to a larger value if you would pay for those things anyway.

5) It's nice to have the community hostels create. However, like life being like a box of chocolates, you never know what your going to get in terms of your hostel dorm room mates. Let me tell you, they won't all be your favorite flavor either. We got sick from some inconsiderate dorm mates that were sick as dogs who stayed up coughing and hacking all night right next to our faces. Que cold medicine and missing out on beach days and the savings of staying in a hostel were not worth it.   

Above all else, when in doubt just go for it. Some of our "mistakes" have landed us in the best locations possible that we loved.

The quest for the ultimate Bahn Mi

Yes, if you are an aficionado of great Banh Mi, then you must make the pilgrimage to Banh Mi Phuong. Around 11 AM we jumped in behind a few folks and were shocked to see how many people started to get in line behind us. Being vegetarians we ordered the Op La, which is fried egg and it comes topped with all the usual suspects, picked veggies, lettuce, herbs and sauces. Many travel sites recommend being cautious of eating raw veggies due to the water they wash them in. I am happy to report, we did not get sick, and even went back for seconds. If you want a good sandwich and want to avoid lines, try and get there early. From what we saw the line starts around noon and keeps going throughout the day. However, the women running the line are throwing your toppings in with chopsticks at lightening speeds and the line goes pretty quick, so even if your a late riser, make the time to stop by.

Botanic Garden Homestay Villas- Hoi An

We loved it here! This quaint hotel is nestled off the beaten path surrounded by gardens, residential homes, and small cafes. A tranquil oasis away from the busy main streets, the hotel has two small swimming pools, a pool table, free breakfast, bikes, and a free cooking class. We ended up staying an additional night here because we loved it so much. If you stay over four nights you also get a free four course dinner one night and a free twenty minute foot massage. If you stay seven nights you also get free transport to and from the airport in Da nag, which ended up costing us around 430,000 VND on the way in (rip off) and only 250,000 to get back. The people who work at the hotel were very sweet and took great care of us. The location was centrally located, we were able to bike to the ancient town within 15 minutes or bike to the beaches. They did recommend getting taxis at night however, due to safety which cost us around 30,000 VND. Unfortunately, it was not very sunny during our stay in Hoian so the beaches seemed a bit ominous and were covered in trash (possibly due to high seas?). Hoian, at night in the ancient city is really something to behold and we did not run out of things to do in six days. We highly recommend spending at least 4-5 nights in Hoian.

 

The girls get new clothes

Packing for this trip, we were faced with challenge of picking essential items that would fit in a backpack and be versatile enough to last through the multitude of climates we will face during our gap year. The end result unfortunately left us feeling a little like Lara Croft from Tomb Raider, except a granny less sexy version. In vain we tried to stand out less in our Columbia Sports Wear and dorky all terrain shoes... Low and behold, as luck would have it, Hoian, Vietnam the next stop on our adventure is renowned for it's food and clothing. Truth be told, we are quite fond of both of these things.

Hoian is a lovely city, bustling with life. Today we biked to Cua Dai street which is lined with little shops flaunting beautiful clothing in a myriad of colors and cuts. At first, we practiced great restraint and only purchased a few items. We got a cute short emerald green dress, and an amazing tie around romper for only $16. Feeling all powerful from our improved bargaining skills that we have been perfecting lately, we were still on a quest for a long dress at a good price. After stopping off at numerous shops and braving the streets of Hoian on our dodgy bikes with the squeakiest wheels in town, we decided to stop off at one last shop. Our search was in vain and the local shop keeper convinced us it would be best just to have the perfect dress made. For only $25 we were able to get a custom made dress made over night. Now, I know we have meager funds for this year long endeavor and this does not fit into our frugal AF mantra, but this was just too good to pass up. So I suppose for the next few days its $1 Banh Mi sandwiches for dinner to make up for our indulgences.

Regrets? Not if you have seen these beautiful clothes and tried these sandwiches. They really are to die for. Our favorite spot for these delectable treats we stumbled upon yesterday. A display of steaming buns caught our eye and we jumped in line only to see the everyone coming out with the most amazing looking sandwiches. In the proverbial wisdom of doing as the locals do, we ordered one to go. After splitting one for lunch we decided we had to go back for dinner. Flaky warm bread, pickled veggies and an exotic mixture of chili and sauces, make this and in mere coincidence Anthony Bourdain's favorite spot for Banh Mi in Hoian. Just goes to show, sometimes leaving the guidebook at home can be half the fun. Ditching some of our Lara Croft granny clothes and filling our bags with the beautiful clothing of Hoian we are ready to hit the road again as we venture off to Ho Chi Mihn City.    

Relaxed in Hoi An

Our first blog post, talk about pressure... Our goal was to start this blog on the first on January when we started our "gap year" off celebrating new years in Hanoi, Vietnam. Sounds perfect right? A New Years celebration to commence the trip of a life time. Well, that's what we thought at least, until the reality of being 28 set in and we realized we are no spring chicken anymore that can handle 30 hours of traveling and going though a 16 hour time difference without some downtime. I regrettably must inform you that even with our best intentions of starting off 2017 with a bang, we hit the snooze button one too many times and slept though the festivities.

However, I am getting ahead of myself. As we do have a lot of catching up to do, does sleeping through NYE2017 excuse us from not writing? No, no it does not. Our lack of blogging has not been due to neglect but rather an issue with Google locking us out of our accounts. We had to use a "Proxy" in order to out smart the system and get back into the swing of things. I will be the first to admit we are not the most tech savvy girls but we can be resourceful when necessary and have a great support system of smart friends and family back home (you know who you are and we thank you). So cheers from the beautiful ancient city of Hoian and the numerous mistakes and lessons that have led us here. We can't wait to share more with you as we continue our trip of a lifetime that we literally sacrificed blood, sweat and tears for. Oh ya, and that great support system we mentioned from back home, thank you for helping us get here! Vietnam is absolutely beautiful, crazy, loud, delicious and unforgettable.