Luke and Lily's Travels

Hi Guys, After a wonderful 2 days in Singapore we headed to our last stop in Asia - Gili Air. It took a while to get there including one flight to Bali, then another to Lombok , an hour taxi ride to a hotel by the port all before a public boat the following morning to Gili Air. A solid 2 days of travel but my god it was worth it. Gili Air is a small island around 5K of the North West coast of Lombok. Cars aren't allowed on the island we were here for one reason ... DIVING! Our main goal was getting our open water certificate. To be honest its another thing that before travelling that we never thought possible and now it was happening we were beyond excited. We knew this was a pretty good area for diving and the coral was good and the wildlife immense it is also one of the best turtle spots in the world. Day 1 Openwater we met our instructors Phoebe and Nat and had a bit of a theory day in the swimming pool before we were let loose on the open ocean the following morni...

Hi Guys, Hope everyone is well? We had 2 days before we left for our last stop in Asia and we weren't a 100% sure what to expect, Singapore is an odd place a kind of portal into another world a perfect synopsis of a city; modern, exciting, full of flair and intrigue and loads to see and do. We arrived about lunchtime to our hostel and if were being honest it was pretty average, even grim but alas we cracked on and went on the explore. We had a ganders on tripadvisor as we do and picked out Gardens by the Bay for our afternoon visit. It was a bit like the Eden Project or Kew Gardens, two massive greenhouses plonked in the middle of the city and surrounded by beautiful gardens and sculptures. If you like flowers it was amazing, full of wonderful colours and smells. One of the glass houses was centred around flowers from all over the world and the other was centred around a waterfall. We particularly liked the latter, mainly because it was air-conned. We spent the even...

Hi Guys, Our first stop in Malaysia was Langkawi, a small-ish island on the west coast of the main land. We were both so excited to experience a new cuisine and to visit a country with such diverse mix of cultures.  We stayed in a little town called Pantai Tengah at a hostel full of people 'finding themselves' by doing nothing all day. The main reason we went to Langkawi was to visit the Seven Wells waterfall and to cross the sky bridge. Again, the main method of transport around the island was mopeds, so on our first day we hired a bike and off we went to the cable car that took us up to the top of a hill for the sky bridge. The views on the way up were incredible, jungle that stretched for miles, and the other side the bright blue sea. Once we reached the top we were so high we couldn't see anything as we were in the clouds. A strange experience but still worth the ride. A quick stop on the way back from the sky bridge (mainly because our bums had become...

Hi Guys, We left Siem Riep on a flight to Bangkok, followed the next day with another flight, then bus and finally a ferry ride before we reached Koh Tao. We decided to only do one island on that side of the country as Koh Pangyan and Koh Samui were  not quite the scene we were after.   Koh Tao is the smalletst of the three islands on the north and is well known for its beautiful beaches. There are lots of scuba diving and snorkelling excursions on the island so we knew that it was a must once we got there. The only method of transport on the island are scooters, so we cautiously hired one and explored the incredible island. We booked ourselves on a taster day of diving, slightly apprehensive to do our full certification without trying it out first, and we are so glad we did. We went with 'Scuba Club Koh Tao' and had a great instructor called Bart (would recommend if you are ever in the area). We started the day with a Wet Suit fitting (cringe) and then a safe...

Hi Guys, This is a blog of two halves hence the title the horrors of he recent past here in Cambodia and the amazing recovery and grit of a nation to return to happier times. We caught a bus from Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City to Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh. The border crossing was possibly the most sketchy part of our trip so far. Once the bus arrived at the border we handed our passports, documents and money over to the driver and hoped for the best. Two pages worth of stamps in our passports, $70 and a dodgy fried rice in 'no mans land' later, we arrived in Cambodia. The hostel was absolutely dead which was odd but we did have a first for the trip which was a double bed in a hostel which was lovely. We left on our fist morning and we booked a tuk tuk to take us to the genocide museum and the killing fields we were both very apprehensive and concerned about what we were going to see and we were not wrong it was a horrifying eye opening experience full of pain,...

Hi Guys, We set off from Hue, on a  short train to Da Nang before a taxi down to the chic town of Hoi An. Da nang actually looked pretty decent, a bit of an up and comer from what we saw from our cab. We arrived at our guesthouse, about a kilometre outside of the old town and rushed out to a local restaurant for a quick bite as it was late and then decided to get an earlyish night and have a good old explore in the morning. The next morning we ambled through the town stopped of for a bit of Pho for brekkie. It did seem a bit odd eating beef noodle soup at 10am but when in Rome. We were told before we left from numerous people that Hoi An was amazing so we were hoping for a great couple of days. The old town is a beautiful place to walk around loads of knick knack shops, bars, coffee shops and restaurants. Very little traffic in the day and motorbikes and cars are not allowed on the streets in the evening so was lovely and peaceful, it was a really cool place and somethin...