Singapore: Summer 2019

Capsule Hostel

My Indonesian adventure was a breakneck run around only a fraction of the country. All told 17 days including the few in Bali. A combination of VISA mixups and a promised trip to visit someone stopped me spending the full 6 weeks of my holiday in this paradise.

Inside of Capsule

I had originally been planning to stop in Hong Kong but with what's going on there, travel to and from to China is tricky and not advised. I was contacted by the agency I booked my flights through who offered me three or four other cities to fly though instead of trying my luck in HK. Singapore was one of them and as they were waiving all fees, I jumped at it.

I was in Singapore last time when I was ten so my memories of the city are a little fuzzy to say the least.

After a few weeks in a very cheap country, Singapore felt very expensive. I kept forgetting and stopping for beers that were easily ten times the price of this I was buying only a few days before. I booked into a capsule hostel (basically a plastic coffin with a TV) near the Indian district. As it happened, I really lucked out here! The hostel was cheap and in a fantastic location. There was an Indian food festival in town for the exact dates I was there so I ate at the indica market for almost every meal. It was a food court style place and had a great atmosphere. I had a blast and some fantastic food! Chinese food is great but they really can't do a decent Indian curry and that is what I now crave above everything else.

My four days in Singapore we a fairly leisurely unplanned mess of shopping lists and curries. The shopping in Singapore is second to none, if you can't find it here, it doesn't exist. I had a wonderful time just wandering about aimlessly.

The only thing that actually planned, was meeting up with an old student of mine from my Shane days. He's in his last year of university now but it still felt strange when he ordered a beer in the restaurant. We decided to venture over to Sentosa Pleasure Island and check out the Aquarium. I love aquariums so this plan suited me fine. Looking back at pictures of Sentosa when we were there as kids, the place has changed so much. It's a giant collection of theme parks, hotels, water parks and activity beaches. I still liked it but was a little overwhelmed by just how big and busy the island was. The aquarium was amazing though!

There is one massive tank towards the one of the aquarium that is just mesmerising. There were sharks, rays and so many different species of fish that we lost count. We bought some snacks and sat down just staring for about an hour at a literal wall of water. It was so immense that my camera couldn't take a picture of the whole thing in one picture. I tried though.

Sentosa was a busy and crowded day but it's always nice catching up with old students and seeing where they end up.

I spent my last afternoon walking to and in singapores famous "gardens in the bay" which although criticised for being a tourist stunt, really was beautiful. Its basically a giant botanical garden next to the harbour. Personally I loved it and thought it was beautiful.

For me, the highlight was the record breaking indoor waterfall and tree top canopy walk. It got busy but it never felt claustrophobic and crowded and I never had to queue for anything.

Singapore turned out to be a fantastic end to a wonderful few weeks as it was so completely different from Indonesia.

Indonesia: Senggigi and the Gili Islands: Summer 2019

After the week I had just had, I wasn't sure if the rest of the country would live up to my now raised expectations. I really shouldn't have worried, it really did!

I flew to Lombok and got picked up from the airport for the hour long drive to Senggigi. I feel better knowing that it is not only drivers in China that scare me. Turns out my hour drive should have been closer to an hour and a half.

I had splurged here and booked a very nice and slightly more expensive hotel. Figured a bit of pampering would be nice after the Island. As the island had been slightly rougher than expected, this really was a great idea. I had two days booked into one of the nicest hotels I've ever stayed in, which was unfortunately in one of the least interesting towns. These things happen, but i had a pool and my own bar so it was all

OK. The staff were lovely and were very confused by me. Every time I left my room, I go that with dozens of questions about solo traveling and living in China as a woman. It was only then that I noticed almost everyone working in the hotels were male. This was a family run place so the rules could be bent slightly.

I listened to some travel advice that failed me a bit, which is bound to happen every now and again. Especially given how much I travel on peoples advice. Never mind, it happens!

Sengiggi has a bit of  a backpack drinkers transport convenient stopover feel to it, but as I was there in the off season, it just felt sad and empty.

Gili Trawangan (small island about a half hour drive and 20 minute ferry away) really did not. I loved it!

Traveling alone, i really appreciate the type of places where I can have a chat with someone and join in with a few other people. This was especially needed after my days in almost isolation in Senggigi and on the dive camp.

Gili Trawangan (or Gili T) is a fantastic mix of exciting and busy within reach of quiet and sedate. The ferry port is roughly the middle of the "exciting" area which stretches a few hundred meters in either direction. Once you walk past that, there is very little happening. the odd restaurant or beach bar/hotel but that's about it. I walked around the whole island in about an hour and a half. Its completely pedestrianised, however in place of cars, there are demon horse and carts that barrel through the small alleyways ringing a little bell. I saw a couple of people get plowed into by horses running at the speed go light. It didn't take long for the reaction of diving for cover at the sound of a bell to become engrained.

Gili T is a main stop on the backpacker trail so it is full of cheap and cheerful restaurants and bars. Pretty much everywhere had their own bar crawl. I joined one that was vernturing to the other side of the island. It was very easy to follow. When you saw a photo op swing you had to down your drink and move onto the next bar.

It seemed like a  little to me but quickly became obvious where this rule can from. Every tree had a swing, every beach bar had something just out in the surf as well as flower arches or photo frames to pose behind. It really is the instagram motherland. In the places defense, It is stunning! My two days did not seem long enough and I regretted having to leave so soon but I added it to my "to go back to" list.

Indonesia: Bali and Labuan Bajo: Summer 2019

From my hostel in Labuan Bajo

Back in the summer I decided to take on Indonesia in all it's island hopping glory. I only had a little over three weeks after taking out some VISA complications and my Taiwan obligations so I had to prioritize. I ended up with a pretty decent introduction to the country with a much longer list of places that I want to go to than I had before.

As almost all flights from Kunming went through Bali after a stop somewhere else (in my case Bangkok and KL on the way back)

Very old dragon. 

I decided to turn a stop over into a few days. I had low expectations for Bali so I hadn't really heard much in the way of good things said about the place. I was expecting an Australian Malaga and I got an Australian Malaga. One the bright side the food was excellent, lots of BBQ steak and sausages everywhere. After several months of not having eaten anything but Kunming's selection, the break was fantastic.

Pirate Dive Camp Jeti

My hotel was described as beach front which when I asked where the beach was, they took me out onto the road and pointed at a tiny slither of blue about 400 meters away. The guy looked very happy and said "see, the sea, all good."

In all fairness, it was quite a nice bech but nothing like the postcard island paradises I was expecting. Kuta city is amazing for meat, seafood and shopping and not much else. My three or four days were plenty.


From Bali it was off to the main event, the whole reason for my trip. Komodo and the hunt for dragons! Seeing these huge beasts has been bucket list item for me for a very long time and I had heard rumors that the government were going to close the island so I jumped on what could be my last chance. (Update: Indonesian government now charging $1000 for a year long membership to the park instead of a single person/ entry ticket of $35) Very glad I did as there is no way I would pay $1000 to go once.)

My "house" on the beach

Komodo itself is actually a small group of Islands off the coast of Labuan Bajo so I stopped there for a night before my splurge stop. I booked a few nights on a "pirate dive camp" which was pretty much what it sounds like. It's a small privately owned island about half way between the mainland and Komodo Park which was both a good thing and a bad thing. We were first to arrive on the island, we weren't woken up by the sunrise calls to prayer and we weren't overrun with people however, we were however stuck with the truly terrible food and bathrooms that were so "rustic" bears would have gone somewhere else.

I was staying in a small "pirate hut" right on the beach so I could lay in bed and hear the waves. I was bliss!

Pinkish if you squint beach

I decided (or rather had no choice but to) go with the camp for the dragon tour. It quickly turned into one of the best days in recent memory. We got to Komodo and met our guide, walked for a few hours looking for dragons without mcc luck. As we were heading back to the boat feeling a little disheartened we turned a corner but the restaurant and ran into three massive males and a baby. They were hiding from us in the open. They even looked smug about it!
A few thousand photos were taken before we went back to the boat and off to Pink Beach and some snorkeling.

Dive camp from the water

I figured as I am a pretty good swimmer and have been diving before, that snorkeling would be easy. I was very wrong. It is a for of very slow drownig that takes a fair amount of time to get used to. For me, it was about the time for my guide to disappear. Pink beach is not actually very pink, a better name would be "Slightly pinkish if you squint beach". Regardless, it was stunning, we nearly had the place to ourselves over a very busy and active coral reef. I gave up trying to snorkel and just sort of floated over the fish. Truly incredible.

There be dragons!

From pink beach, we thought we were heading back to the island but our captain surprised us with a stop at Manta Point. The weather was a bit blowy here so my newfound snorkeling skills were really not up to scratch. A guy was stood on top of our boat then when he shouted and pointed we jumped and searched for an illusive ray. I jumped in with another and we were searching below us, which was actually dauntingly deep, only to glance over and see two huge rays floating about 10 meters away from us just under the surface.

Before we got back in the boat and went back to the island we had seen three and a half dragons, millions of fish and 7 manta rays. A very good day for the bucket list!

My last night on the island and Indonesia really put on a show. The whole trip was filled with stunning sunsets but never had one been over the sea with a volcano rumbling away in the background.
From the island I went back to the mainland for the best pizza of my life!

As if to show off, My last night. A volcanic eruption over the sea at sunset.