Expectations vs Reality - Our Journey So Far

We left the UK nearly two months ago. We have seen and done so much already which fills our hearts with joy.

Dionne and I naturally had some expectations regarding the places we planned to visit. How we would feel about leaving our life in the UK, how the kids would adjust etc. Maybe some of our expectations were pie in the sky and unachievable but we still wanted to try and meet them. After all, we promised ourselves we would. We told others about them before we left the UK. Well … on some things, we have had a bit of a reality check!

Maybe we should… or we should at least budget for the costs of the unexpected!? Two big costly surprises so far:

1. Our lovely drone fell out of the sky and drowned in a deep lake. We were in Bali and had used the drone only a few times before. We loved the footage we were capturing on it. Out of the blue and for no understandable reason, it just lost connection and dropped out of the sky. Splash! Straight into a recreational lake used for water-skiing. I tried to retrieve it but it disappeared. We wanted another one so it has cost us £300 to get a replacement.

2. Our stay in Indonesia will be 61 days as at 24th Sept. Our tourist visa expires after 60 days. I made a small mistake when planning in advance from the UK and it appears that the Indonesian immigration authority will show no leniancy when we get to Lombok airport on 24th Sept. Despite me pleading about it being a mistake and us having given them 61 days of tourism revenue, they were not bothered about that. The one day overstay fine is £50 per person and this has cost us as a family a whopping £350!

Dionne and I agreed that we would not add any immediate pressure on ourselves or the children in respect of their education. Taking them out of an education system where every minute of every day between 9am and 3pm was a structured routine, would be a massive shock to the system. And the parents too! And we are not even talking about all the extra curricular activity such as kids clubs etc. We agreed to let them ‘unschool’ themselves for a period of time. This is not really scientific. It literally means letting them be free everyday to get used to not being shackled in a time sensitive high expectation intense academic environment.

In this ‘unschooling’ period, we have already seen great improvements to their mental/physical wellbeing, their relationships with each other and us as parents has improved. Our 1st month in Bali felt more like a short summer holiday. We placed no emphasis on reading books, writing/drawing or maths but even still, there were multiple everyday situations where they were involved in all of the above learning topics. They have Amazon Kids Plus tablets which are built to allow the kids to get a great balance between learning and entertainment apps. In Bali, we had WiFi in the villa so there was a natural lean towards entertainment and games. In our 2nd month, we have been in Lombok where there is no WiFi in the villa. We knew this was coming and it has proven to be interesting particularly with our teenage son who tells us he can’t survive without WiFi! After a few days of moaning, they started to use the educational offline apps and spend more time away from the tablets. This was a refreshing thing to see for us parents.

Where we have felt a bit disappointed are on excursions to places of cultural interest. Perhaps we set our expectations too high to think that the kids would show a high level of interest in things like religious temples and local villages learning about the history of a place in this way. We hope this will change over time or it does limit where we can visit as parents. I think we will keep trying as the chances are, they are still absorbing new info, even though they don’t seem that interested. On a positive note, they have enjoyed trekking, learning about the surrounding natural habitat (trees, fruits, etc), visiting villages, trying new foods, learning about tropical climate, climate change, plastic pollution and new ocean related stuff such as scuba-diving, surfing and snorkelling, marine conservation etc.

I’m not gonna lie. This has been quite tough. We knew the culture shock was coming but until you are in the middle of it, you can’t truly appreciate the effect it has. Some of us have handled it better than others. Don’t get me wrong, we still feel the pros far outweigh the cons. I mean, come on, we are lucky to be in paradise. The warm sunshine, white sandy beaches, crystal clear ocean, friendly locals, etc. So far after two months, here are a few of the things we have struggled to acclimatise to:

1. Sea sickness. None of us are particularly good with the motion of the ocean and given we are moving from one island to another at the moment, some boat trips have been a struggle. There are ways and means of reducing the effects of sea sickness and we are trying them but I have found the more time you spend in the ocean and on boats, the quicker you get used to it.

2. Ear and eye infections. We have spent so much time in oceans and swimming pools, it was inevitable that some of us would pick up these common ailments. Local pharmacies are always available and cheap for medicine. I have no doubt these ailments will continue to plague us for the foreseeable but we are getting used to it.

3. Insects. Saved the best until last! Lol. This one has been particularly annoying. There are so many insects. And most of them bite! Flies and mosquitoes are the worst. We have all the usual repellents and post bite treatments but it doesn’t completely stop them or remove the discomfort after they have feasted on you. It has affected some of us more than others but we are slowly learning to live with them. We always try and keep our bedrooms cool and closed as this is our escape/sanctuary when we need it.

On the whole, I would say we have been quite lucky so far (touch wood!) given how many other dangers lie within beautiful places like these. Apart from a few bumps and bruises, no one has contracted any dangerous diseases, or had illness with fever like symptoms. No attacks from the wild dogs or monkeys that are always around us. No sunburn/stroke or dehydration. We have religiously been using plenty of sunblock, aftersun and consuming fluids and vitamin supplements to keep energy levels up.

This has been a real eye opener and not in a good way. The glossy travel magazines and social media always portray these places as idyllic with clean white sandy beaches. My previous travels have taught me that there is plenty of poverty surrounding the 5 star resorts, which normally means that there is rubbish and poor sanitary conditions. The surprise came to me when I visited the coastline and beautiful beaches. They are not so beautiful in real life. There is no excuse for leaving litter on a beach. Littered with rubbish left by tourists … or so I thought. It turns out the litterbugs are the locals. Plastic bottles, wrappers, bags, nappies, toothbrushes, flip flops, clothing, to name but a few. How can they not care about these beautiful beaches on their doorstep? Do they not know throwing litter on the floor is anti-social? Do they not know what harm plastic causes in the ocean to marine life?

As I sadly walked around my local beach picking up the litter with my children, we saw a pattern emerging. Where the section of beach is aligned to a hotel, this is always litter free. That’s simply because the hotel employs people to keep it clean. Their customers won’t want to spend time on or near a dirty white sand beach would they? As soon as you move to a part of coastline with no hotels, the locals will be using it … hence the rubbish!

But is it really the local’s fault only? As I learned more from various sources including talking to locals (both indigenous and expats), I found out that the root cause is a combination of factors.

1. The locals are not educated about the dangers of plastic pollution particularly in their school years where it would really help the most. They just copy their parents. No one cares or knows enough. There are no public recycling bins anywhere.

2. The manufacturing and catering industry has this obsession with single use plastic packaging. It’s hard to describe unless you see it with your own eyes. Literally everything comes in a plastic bag! This flimsy plastic is regularly discarded on the floor.

3. The government does not allocate funding to a localised refuse collection system which covers all areas. Neither does it have recycling and reuse centres where the plastic can be collected centrally. They do incentivise plastic bottle collection but I don’t think this is widely used as there is very little financial reward for a lot of effort. At the same time, locals don’t want all of this stuff piling up around them so they periodically either burn it or dump it in a mini unofficial landfill not far from them which is normally visible to anyone passing by. There are normally river/canal/sewage systems which collect this rubbish and dump it out to sea or on the beach too!

With all of the above, you can see why there is no short term solution to stop plastic pollution on these beautiful paradise islands. No system, no knowledge or motivation (rewards or fines) for the locals to clean up their act. If nothing changes across 1, 2, 3 above, we will continue to see beaches littered with plastic polluting the ocean and harming marine life.

Since taking the kids out of school, we have quickly discovered how hungry they are ALL of the time! They don’t stop eating! “Mum, I’m hungry” only 20 mins after breakfast. “Dad, what’s for dinner? Can we have Burger King takeaway?” only 15 mins after lunch! It never stops!

We set what we thought was a reasonable budget for groceries and eating out. We assumed eating out would be about 2 to 3 times a week and the rest of the time we would cook indoors. It hasn’t really turned out to be as we expected. Sometimes, eating out is cheaper than cooking at home. After a couple of weeks, we quickly realised that we had got comfortable shopping at ‘Western’ supermarkets where groceries aren’t that cheap compared to the markets where the locals go to.

Our grocery costs are far exceeding our budget and our last two months in Indonesia has turned out to be a bit of a reality check on that front. We are not quite prepared to give up our creature comfort food from home but those types of groceries (Skippy peanut butter, Nutella chocolate spread, Pringles crisps etc) are premium priced. At some point, this will need to gradually change. We know that the more cost efficient way to shop is at several places where the locals are. Markets for meat, fruit and vegetables. I’ve been to them as a one off to compare and they are definitely cheaper. We have made some small changes on groceries and food consumption at home. More pasta, rice, oats and flour which are cheap to buy and filling to eat. We are being a bit stricter with the kids at set meal times. If they don’t eat when they should, they have to wait until the next set meal time. Watch this space as we try to meet our challenge and cut down our spending in this area.

We want to start here by saying that we have nothing but compassion and sympathy for the last two tough years these people have had with the pandemic virtually reducing their income down to nothing as international tourism completely stopped.

We have heard sad stories about families who solely relied on this income and what they have had to endure. Many of the traders had to go back to their villages and live with their family where they could barely make ends meet living off the land in a self-sustainable way.

As borders started to open in early 2022 and international tourism picked up, the traders began to open up their businesses again. When we got to Bali, we saw a lot of businesses still closed down but one thing is for sure, the mobile traders who walk along the streets and beaches were back in their droves and they mean business! One after another, we would constantly get approached even when we were eating or didn’t look like we were interested. Some traders would continue to wait around after being politely declined which makes us feel uncomfortable.

We have bought various items from them so we can try and help out where we can but there is only so much we can buy. We can’t say yes to everyone. We are also watching our own spending as we travel and feed a family of 7! Dionne finds it difficult to say no to traders which makes the conversation an awkward one. We really hope this summer is a prosperous one for them all but I have to say, it’s been quite frustrating with so many of them always around us.