- Hi everybody it is Brad here,
Robin in the house also just a quick video
to share with you some tips in how to prepare for Wakatobi.
♪ Our hearts collide ♪
♪ Our hearts co ♪
♪ Our hearts beat ♪
♪ And our hearts collide ♪
♪ Our hearts co ♪
♪ Our heart co ♪
♪ Our hearts beat ♪
♪ And our hearts collide ♪
- We just spent the last seven days
in an amazing paradise here in Indonesia.
We're in Seminyak right now.
It's a set of islands called Wakatobi.
There's four islands and we booked this trip
one day before we departed.
So we really didn't prepare for this
and we didn't know what to expect,
we read everything we could about it,
literally the night before we departed
and then we basically became guinea pigs
and we figured it out for ourselves
and then we've decided to compile a list of things
for anybody out there that wants to get away
from the hustle and bustle of Bali.
So.
(laughing)
The first one is a poncho.
Now carry a poncho with you, super important.
It was raining on and off ridiculously unexpectedly,
a little bit like Melbourne weather back home.
It could be really really sunny and hot
and then all of a sudden a rain cloud comes past
and completely drenches you.
(boat engine rumbling)
(laughing)
It's Robin.
Hi Robs!
Why is it raining?
I got drenched so many times, this one had a poncho so,
carry a poncho. - Secret, secret poncho
and they don't take up much space in your bag so.
- Yeah just a poncho, basic.
The next one we've written down is mosquito repellent.
Do you wanna talk about the mosquito repellent?
- Well basically you just get absolutely nailed by
the mozzies on the islands, particularly Hoga island,
maybe because we were based closer to the foresty areas
but it, I mean we had to constantly cover ourselves
with the repellent so it was really important.
- The mosquitoes are ridiculous,
they're savage so yeah. - Yeah.
- Like, you need to repellent like crazy,
like we had two lots of repellents
so make sure you bring that.
Next one is sunscreen, obvious it is super hot.
I'm really guilty of not using it enough.
This one loves to remind me of how peeled my skin is
and how-- - Taking photos of his neck,
the areas he can't see.
(laughing) - Yeah so,
sunscreen for your skin.
It's super hot, it's really really hot
and I was irresponsible so I should have been
on top of that more.
- Particularly with the reflection of water.
That's why you don't think your getting burnt but you
really are getting burnt. - It's very hot.
It's very hot.
The next one we have is dry bags.
Uh really important, we, my drone that I use for all
the aerial footage that you saw in previous videos.
I use a dry bag to carry my drone in and the drone,
I mean anything it could be a drone, it could be a phone,
it could be maybe like a little Ziploc bag.
That's the next thing on the list, plastic Ziploc bag.
And that's great for phones.
So if you're on, in a dug-out canoe
or if it's raining and your wearing a poncho,
make sure you have a dry bag as well.
Something that you, we can buy dry bags.
- You can buy them in different sizes as well.
- Yeah it's. - I mean look at
the size of yours and the one I was carrying around
was like, almost like a little handbag.
- That's right.
The next one wet wipes.
- You want me to talk about the wet wipes?
Wet wipes.
- Yes.
- Sanitary towelling or whatever it's called
but basically wherever you go,
you're travelling through airports,
you're going through toilets, dirty toilets
and I guess you wanna try be as hygienic
as you possibly can be.
And we just found them really useful,
cleaning toilet seats or washing your hands after travel.
Particularly when you just eat lunch
straight of a boat or an aeroplane.
So they're just very very useful.
- Yeah, a lot of places like here in the village
they have like, they don't have soap or anything.
You just, you have to wash your hands with something
and wet wipes-- - Well even,
even in the Bajau village we didn't really get
the opportunity to shower, you can just,
you know give yourself a bit of a wipe down.
With you, including tissues - Exactly, yeah, next one.
- 'cause a lot of the time you'll go to public toilets
and they won't have tissues and particularly when
you don't know when gastro might visit you.
- That's right.
- You wanna be prepared for that
and you most likely will get that.
I mean on the island there was
a bug going around wasn't there?
- Yup, 30 people, 30 people in the place
next to where we were staying had got some sort of bug
and they all had gastro.
All of them, 30, fuck.
That's a lot of people so anyway,
tissues like this little tiny hand tissues,
that little ones you buy were fantastic
and we carried them everywhere with us.
I mean don't expect that these places have luxury,
they have no western luxuries.
No toilet paper on a roll, nothing like that.
No sanitary considerations you have to be,
you just have to bring that, all that yourself.
So wet wipes, tissues.
Plastic bags, I mean I put this one down.
All your wet clothes,
so that they don't get mixed in with your dry clothes.
I just had some plastic bags so it just keeps,
helps to keep things separated.
It's what I used, plastic bags.
Next one is power bank and charging block
with a USB connection.
So, I mean look there's no electricity on these islands,
except they run a generator which is usually for like
a few hours of the day.
So like, you know from six o'clock till 10:30 p.m.
So 6 p.m. till 10:30 p.m. they'll run a generator
at Hoga island which is where we stayed and outside
those hours you're probably doing activities anyway
so you probably don't even need a power bank
but I used mine.
So I highly recommend it but I got a 10,000,
it's in my bag somewhere,
I got a 10,000 milliamp per hour power bank.
You can bring it through the airport carry-on it's fine.
Basic first aid kit,
yeah so we got here bite cream, cotton wool, disinfectant.
I got injured, this one got injured.
Like just small injury like scrapes, scratches.
I got like a--
- Bites. - Yeah.
- So many bites. - We got bitten.
We got bitten by stuff, nothing crazy just mosq--
- Oh yeah I got bitten by something and my arm swelled up.
- Yeah so this one's arm just bggff,
- Yeah. - blew up
- One guy had a piece of wood pierce his foot,
did you hear about that?
- Mhmm. - Yeah.
Like a piece-- - I saw him cleaning,
cleaning it up actually.
- Like, yeah a piece of wood just pierced this guy's foot.
Went through one end out the other.
I mean we just had scrapes and nicks and this and that
but anyway, the bite cream, all these,
a basic first aid kit is gonna help you.
- It's just preventative because I mean
there's nothing to come and collect you,
there aren't any hospitals. - There's, there's
- There's no hospitals, - There's nothing.
there's no medical clinics.
Like we were like thinking to ourselves,
if something happens to us, we're screwed, we're screwed.
- Yeah pretty much. - We're screwed.
- Bring your own mask.
- Ugh, yes!
- This is mandatory.
If you're going to Wakatobi,
you're either gonna be snorkelling or scuba diving or both.
The ones they supply usually most diving resorts,
you know, they have masks you can hire.
They're never good quality but the ones we found.
It was ridiculous like they'll--
- Mine broke.
- That was shocking, you need to bring your own mask.
Invest in a good mask for snorkelling and scuba diving.
It's gonna save you a lot of frustration,
a lot of frustration.
I brought my own mask, this one didn't and.
- I wish I had.
- Yeah.
Just kicking yourself. - I'm gonna invest in mine.
- That's right, you gotta do the same thing.
Next one is sarong and scarf.
This is for the women watching this.
- Yeah well I mean I was very silly,
I didn't do a lot of reading up on the sort of, dress attire
and etiquette when you're travelling around these islands
and I sort of learnt the hard way a little bit
but it's really important that you bring a sarong
in your bag and you actually cover your shoulders
and even your legs.
There are a couple of occasions where I felt
quite uncomfortable with little boys looking up my skirt,
that sort of thing.
Look he's looking up my dress.
- He is too!
- He is! - He is too!
What a cheeky shit.
- It's quite a strange concept to grasp
but that's what happens out there and,
as a female particularly, I mean even when I'm solo,
doing my solo travelling around the world
it's been quite a big lesson for me.
Though what's really useful is if you just have one
in your bag in the airport when I was travelling around
I felt a little bit uncomfortable at a certain point
and I just covered up and that was helpful.
So just bear that in mind.
- Yeah the sarong and scarf you can,
I mean they're pretty lightweight,
you can carry them with you everywhere
and it's easy to whip out and throw on if you have to.
But the little boys looking up this one's dress that was,
I was shocked, that, I wasn't, I've not seen that.
And these guys were like, these little kids,
five, six, seven, eight years old.
There was like four or five of them.
Like this one sat down
and they literally positioned themselves--
- Or even just walking.
- Or just walking. - I was just walking
and they were like - They'll just like looking.
Positioning themselves to look and that was one
of a couple of incidents.
So I'll just mention that one but yeah just,
maybe read up about it a little bit.
Be careful, look after yourself, you know.
Particularly if you're a solo female traveller.
I had Brad with me but even sometimes that didn't count.
- I was there and they were still looking up her dress
and there's nothing I can do about it 'cause--
- Or being touched in inappropriate ways or whatever it is.
- We are like on a, if you saw the previous videos,
we stayed at Bajau village.
It was isolated from the main land.
You can't get upset or angry
because you get speared in the face.
- And also, I mean it's, I think it's also a bit of respect
for the fact for the culture that you're walking into.
It's a Muslim culture and I should've done my homework,
I should've known that because that it the dress attire.
So it's just making sure you're informed
wherever you go in the world to make sure
that you know that sort of stuff.
- Next one on the list is small torch.
This is important because they run generators after hours
as I mentioned before but yeah
sometimes the generator cuts out,
sometimes you're walking past the village
where there's no light.
There's no street lighting, nothing like that
so if you have a small torch.
I actually had a keyring torch,
it literally just fits on my keyring.
You can buy small ones like for five bucks, two bucks.
LED, that's all I used.
Super basic, not complicated, three,
you can buy 'em of eBay for like a dollar.
But yeah you should really bring a torch.
Must, must bring a small torch.
It's something to include.
Body wash and hand wash.
- Yeah I mean you're gonna have to buy that
because a lot of these big places don't provide that.
You need some, it's the same as the wipes
but you need some sort of hand sanitizer
or it's just hygiene reasons.
As you're moving around,
you have something to clean yourself with
and that's not provided.
- She carries everything.
- I try to. (laughing)
You've gotta be prepared.
- I'm so bad, I carry nothing, no body wash.
- Uses all my body wash.
- No body wash.
(laughing)
- It's fine. - I'm pretty bad.
- Anyway, last one is bring a lot of cash.
There are no ATM machines.
We should've put this one at the very beginning.
It's super important.
- Yeah number one.
- We had no idea actually how much money we should've
brought because there wasn't much information
about Wakatobi.
So we just kinda like went with, how much did we have,
nine million?
- Yeah.
- Eight point, so we had four.
- Was about eight and a half.
- So we had about 850, 900 Australian dollars
between us for seven days.
That wasn't enough, to be honest with you,
we actually only covered half of Wakatobi because a,
we didn't have enough money to go all the way down
to Tomia and Binongko, which is the last two islands
in the chain and secondly we didn't have enough time
because it's so slow to get between the island.
Everything's slow and nothing runs on time.
Keep that in mind, bring a lot of cash.
So maybe double that.
- I was just thinking that.
- Yeah maybe double that. - Double it.
- And it might be enough to do diving and.
- Particularly with the diving
'cause the diving will add up.
- Yeah if your diving, you need to bring more.
- Definitely.
- That's it if you have any questions let us know,
let me know and we'll be happy to answer them for you.
If you haven't seen any of the previous videos,
go and check them out.
We cover Wakatobi, we cover a couple of islands,
we stay in the Bajau village, we take you in,
we show you the accommodation.
All right guys.
Chow! - Bye!
(chill step music)