Getting here was a bit of a mission, but now we are here it was well worth it! From Kuta we it was supposed to take 6 hours to get here, but after catching a bus, a ferry, another bus and then a speed boat it was more like 11hours by the time we arrived. There are three tiny islands that make up the Gili islands and we chose to stay on Gili Trawangan which is the slightly bigger of the three, and the most lively! There's a party every second night at a diffe...

We did manage to get a flight at the airport at Medan but it meant stopping at Java first... anyway, 6hours later we arrived at Bali airport! Yipeeee! We actually landed at around 11pm but by the time we had got our bags and got in to Kuta it was well gone midnight and we had yet to find a place to stay. The following 2 hours turned out to be the worst two hours of our accommodation hunting since we had started travelling. Basically, we walked to the main b...

It was a NIGHTMARE getting here... have we mentioned how horrendous the buses and roads are in Indonesia?!?! Well, we just endured another 6 hours, and a ferry, but I have to say it was worth it - it's gorge here! Lake Toba is a huge volcanic lake - the biggest in the world, and the lake itself is the deepest in the world! It's 450 metres deep and just the island in the middle of it (where we're staying) is the size of Singapore! We found a gorgeous traditi...

The only reason we came to Berastagi was to climb an active volcano which is pretty famous in the area called Sibayak. There are 2 volcanoes, both active, so much so that we heard one of them was closed as it's due to blow anytime soon!!! Obviously we didn't climb that one! From Bukit Lawang we caught the local bus back to Medan and then from there another two buses to Beristagi - I might add at this point that travelling on the roads in Sumatra are the wors...

Our first impressions of Sumatra are great - everyone is so, so friendly here, more so than anywhere we've been so far! One thing we've noticed is they seem obsessed with noses, particularly Rich's! People keep telling him he has a nice nose and then giggling (they seem to giggle after everything here!). We think it's cuz he has a defined, pointed nose which isn't something they see much here cuz they all have quite round, flat button noses! Anyway, we arri...