Canggu, Bali: Rice paddies, waterfalls and beach temples at sunset

For the couple of days that we’ve been in Canggu, we’ve been living with a local Balinese family at Cepaka Homestay - and we couldn’t have chosen better accommodation here.

Oka and her family have been such friendly hosts and gave us the warmest welcome when we first arrived in Bali! After we got in pretty late in the evening, Oka’s mother made an enormous feast for us - and she's continued to do that every day since. All of the home-cooked Balinese breakfasts and dinners we've had here have been incredible!

Breakfast in Oka's family's garden

The family have also been super chatty and helpful the whole time we’ve been in Canggu, with Oka even writing down for us everything we should see and do in Bali over the next couple of weeks.

Touring Southern Bali

On our first day in Canggu, it turned out that three of my friends from University were staying near the same area as us, so we had a super relaxed day at Berawa beach with Sam, Tom and Ollie before finding somewhere to have drinks and play pool in the evening.

On our second day, Oka set us up with a tour around the area, which was a great way to quickly see some of the most beautiful parts of Canggu.

Our driver started by taking us to see the Pod Chocolate Factory, where we saw Balinese chocolate being made (and got to try about 30 little samples of all the different flavours!)

Next, we headed to the leafy green Jatiluwih rice terraces and had lunch at Padi Bali, a restaurant overlooking the paddies. There, we tried nasi goreng, Bali’s national dish. The view was amazing and Ben absolutely loved his meal but I'm not totally convinced yet so I think I’ll have to try it again somewhere else!

Nasi goreng with a view of the Jatiluwih rice terraces

We also got to visit the Yeh Hoo waterfall, which was beautiful - and surprisingly tourist-free- before going to the hot springs to take a dip with the locals.

Yeh Hoo waterfall

As cool as all of these sights were, the highlight of the tour for me was our visit to Tanah Lot; a beautiful temple built right on a cliff overlooking the ocean.

We wandered around the beach and temple there at sunset while the sky turned pink; a pretty amazing sight.

Tanah Lot temple at sunset

Considering the amount of beautiful places we've been able to see in just a couple of days, I feel like our stay in Canggu has been a really strong start to our time in Bali. I’m excited to see how Ubud compares!

Singapore: Beginning my travels in Asia

Despite feeling jetlagged after a thirteen hour flight from London into Changi airport, Ben and I were beyond excited to kick off our nine months of travelling the other side of the world by spending a couple of days exploring the beautiful Singapore.

Singapore by day

After lots of Googling the best things to do in Singapore, I arrived feeling like I knew everything I wanted to do and see in the couple of days we had here.

We started by taking the metro straight from our hotel to the centre of the city, which was super clean, modern and glamorous. We spent the morning wandering around the promenade, the river, the bay and the upmarket shopping centres. Interestingly, even around these ultra-classy areas, we noticed it was still cheaper to eat, drink and sightsee here than it is in most of London!

The Marina Bay Sands hotel

Two of my favourite must-sees in Singapore were the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest. Inside their giant domes, there are all kinds of beautiful tropical flowers, trees and manmade waterfalls, and you can see through the glass walls to the city and its skyscrapers outside.

The indoor waterfall in the Cloud Forest dome

Another highlight for me was visiting the Singapore Botanic Gardens on our last morning. They were beautiful (and free!) and the National Orchid Garden was super pretty.

Strolling through Singapore's Botanic Gardens

Away from Singapore’s squeaky-clean tourist centre, we also had a look around Little India. This part of town was definitely a lot less pristine than the city centre but it had a bright and busy market, lots of colourful street decorations and some really good places for lunch.

We also did some shopping in Bugis at Singapore’s most famous street market, which was enormous and chaotic but sold a lot of pretty cool (and cheap!) clothes and accessories. The amount of things they'd packed in there was actually amazing – you could have got lost in the maze of stalls!

Singapore by night

While Singapore was a lot of fun to explore by day, I feel like its city centre was really built to come alive at night. After dark, when all of the hotels and landmarks by the bay started to light up with different colours, Singapore was an absolutely stunning place to be.

Singapore's famous light show in the Skytree Garden

We ended our first day by watching the beautiful light show in the Skytree Garden by the bay, where the tree-like towers lit up, changed colours and played songs from musicals.

Right after that amazing performance, on our walk back to Raffles Place, we also stumbled across another beautiful light and water fountain show right in the centre of the bay.

The amazing water and light show by the bay at night

I’d thought that the colourful Skytree show would be hard to top, but I think we may have managed it with our sunset visit to the Lavo rooftop bar on the top of the Marina Bay Sands hotel (the iconic building with a huge ship on top of it) the next day.

We drank our 2-for-1 cocktails (dragon fruit flavoured and really nice!) looking out over an amazing panoramic view of the city – probably one of the best city views I’ve ever seen – while the sun went down behind Singapore's amazing skyline. You could even see the water and light shows at the bay and the Skytree Garden happening down below.

Views from the Lavo rooftop bar in Marina Bay Sands

Singapore by night

The food in Singapore is also definitely worth writing about. For our first breakfast, we tried a Singaporean breakfast staple, kaya toast (which is basically like French toast with a coconut jam). It ended up being so good that we had it every morning!

I also loved the dinner we had at the city’s famous bustling food market Gluttons Bay. We tried the chicken and pork satay, the chicken murtabak and the Singapore's famous ‘carrot cake’, which isn't what it sounds like – it’s actually a fried rice and meat dish with a lot of soy sauce!

Singapore's famous kaya toast brekkie

Overall, Singapore has been amazing and the perfect start to this year out for me. Even though we didn’t have that long to explore it, we definitely crammed lots into our three-day stay. From the metro to the promenade, almost everything in Singapore’s centre has felt very lavish, efficient and clean… a nice way to ease into the rest of South East Asia!

Our hotel (the Fragrance Emerald) was clean and cheap but a little further away from the metro than we'd have ideally liked. This meant that we ended up doing a lot of walking, making it a pretty tiring - but still incredible - couple of days.

I can’t believe we’re now done with our first stop in South East Asia already. It still hasn’t hit me that I’ve finally started the travelling I’ve been looking forward to for so long!

We haven’t even booked our flights for the next couple of months yet and only have a rough plan at the moment but I’m so excited for what’s ahead. For now, it's time to fly out to our next stop - Bali!