"Jesus Christ Andrew she wants to go on a Gap Year"

To Gap Year, or not to Gap Year, that is the question:

College and I never really saw eye to eye, college occurs at that time in your life when the light at the end of the educational tunnel is slowly emerging. That light in fact is the strobe of a dodgy DJ deck but I didn’t know that at the time. It is also the age where you know every fact on every subject however in reality it is the age where you can drive and drink – separately of course, but neither are compatible with still having English first thing on a Monday morning.

 The main problem for me and the shed load of people I crammed into my four seater Mini was that the McDonalds breakfast queue was inconveniently 7 miles long just as I was on the way to college so that always made me a good 20 minutes late. I’d understandably always be greeted by the ‘why are you late?’ interrogation but I never really knew the answer, even when I left early the traffic would be far worse, so I figured I may as well have an extra 20 minutes in bed rather than sit in traffic, that answer didn’t make me popular with teachers. The thing is whenever faced with this question it was as if I had Tourette’s as the chronic lies would fly out of my mouth, I once told a teacher I was mugged on a train. I don’t know where in my mind that came from as my little mini hardly resembles a train, however I didn’t have to hand in any homework all week due to the shock I must be recovering from.

 This was when I decided I wanted to travel, somewhere between McDonalds and being mugged on the train. I wanted a completely new experience, before I went on to University. Everyone who travels seems different not just because of dreadlocks or sexually transmitted diseases, but their views on life seem different, you have to learn to let go of all of your expectations and keep yourself open to any possibilities, that and I needed a tan and heard that wine was cheaper in Asia.

At this age you are greeted with the best opportunity you will ever get to get off the educational treadmill and go and chase your dreams as it is the age before you have any responsibilities that prevent you from having this freedom to get up and go. Follow your heart and all those instagram photos you have liked and yes post a hot dog photo with an iddylic dessert island in the background. It would be heartbreaking to look back and have  list of things you wish you would have done when you had the opportunity. I learnt more whilst travelling than in my first year at university. The difference is incomparable, the people are so diverse and refreshing, not a single jack wills hoody in sight. Perhaps you didn’t get the grades you needed and want to reapply next year, what better way to spend your time or earn yourself money. If you’re going to be working you may as well be grape picking in France or banana picking in Australia than working at a local fast food chain just to fund your alcohol fuelled weekend, in my opinion anyway. What i am describing will be some peoples idea of hell and they may develop a negative opinion of me due to this. I am not saying it is the right or wrong thing to do, it was just right for me.

The gap year phenomenon is worrying a generation of people however, we so free spiritually decide to embark on this adventure yet we forget about those people who changed our nappies and kept us well nourished for two decades. See, what you've got to remember is these adults that i am referring to assume that you cannot locate a washing basket so how on earth are you going to locate the correct plane. They probably would not put money on you being able to make a bed and they are also unsure as to whether one can survive eating pasta 3 times a day 7 days a week. These likeminded people also assume they must have done something terribly wrong for their child to want them to dessert them like this, abandon them with only the constant worry left behind.

They will worry that you will fall in love with the first surfer you see and live in a far away land, never coming home and worry that you will stop sending them a Christmas card after two years. They will also worry that you will name their only grandchild after a small town in Asia, where it is too hot for them to send you the cardigan they dream of knitting and that they will see them only on Skype for the rest of their lives. Infact you’ve done quite the opposite and should be very proud; you have raised a child confident enough to leave normality and explore the ground they walk on, you have brought up your child to think outside the box and take a leap in their personal development and you have made a child who can go into these unknown territories make strong friendships and stand on their own. Having said that you may have just banned them from drinking alcohol in the house and they have heard the beer is cheap in Thailand.

Just because your beloved child has chosen to travel doesn’t mean they hate their family and are only leaving to get away from them or that they’re going to sleep their way around the world taking drugs on a daily basis. Travelling is now in the process of approaching adult hood it isn’t just to get 1000 instagram followers, well only some of the time. My reasoning for going was I wanted a year without the Sunday night feeling. I wanted to wake up and not need to know what day it was as everyday was a Friday. I also wanted to experience numerous different cultures (bars) and open my eyes to the world around me. 

I was away for 7 months, to me that felt like I was presented with a blank book filled with 219 blank pages and it was entirely upto me how I filled them. I could have gone out drank away all my money and be home after only 10 blurry pages. Out of myself and everyone I met no body does that. You might do that for the first week but it teaches you to grow up, you’re not at university with your parents a few hours down the road, you have to step up to the mark to be able to put a roof over your head because you cant run out of money and sleep on the streets in the middle of Thailand or on an island in Bali.

My 7 months in 70 seconds.

We are all dead, We are a nation that no longer strives to achieve To live, to love the world which we are given. We are ignorant to our own ignorance, a stranger to our own imagination, The world owes itself to us, To make us rich To provide us with a rich lifestyle. The world is rich, in the air that the we breathe The ground which we walk and the eye of the needle in which we are barely able to see through But we are not rich For the latest game is not ours The named clothes in the stores & the celebrity not our friend We are not rich for we turn right when we get on a plane, Have one holiday a year And don't own a sports car. We breathe not to live Merely exist in a world so afraid of change, it's changes are killing us 7 continents, 196 countries, 1 planet Yet many see the same street for their whole entire lives We do not live in one world, You could live in a new world every single day If only you opened your mind and moved For gods sake get a bike, A car. Some skates but get of your arse And go get some mates Stop killing your brain, your lungs with your smoke You think it is cool to be pumped full of dope, 'Legalise it, so it can be taxed' Stop talking this crap, We live in a place that drugs are so big an issue, The solution is to allow, Theae people to melt and then they are who.

No one. A culture of celebrities that has us all hooked, A reality tv show, fitness DVD and then comes the book.
You have eyes not to see the beauty around you, But a screen. A screens exaggerating the same mondane lifestyle that everybody leads. Jewellery you do not like, But the name gets you 8 likes Fuck currency

We pay in popularity That necklace for 3 retweets, 9 likes and 12 favourites Desolate. stars are binoculars, If you shine like them on land You will join them If you are dead in your life
You have no hope in your death. The desert, the alps, the beach The mountains, the jungle, the sea, The hub of city life The starry summer night The bat that hangs from the tree, Waiting upside For him the wrong way round is the right way 60,000 thoughts a day in your brain

59,000 the same as yesterday
 The same as tomorrow,
 And the next, hey.
 About what is for tea
 Or on the TV
 Or how will I pay for that CD
 Irrelevant. 

 The car that chugs oil into the air, 
That you inhale into your soul 
The plane that flies around to empty it's petrol, 
If it poured it on the ground would we disagree 
Yet why is it okay, just because we can't see

 Apple, Orange, Blackberry, 
You didn't think of the fruit not you or me, 
we don't work our minds, 
We don't work our hearts. 
the technical world and I never apart. 

The piece of my body that is used the most,
 My thumbs and my fingers 
so that I can boast,
About things which only make me fulfilled, 
for a minute. 

 And then it wears off.

Bali 🌍

I haven't done a blog in ages because I've been lazy but there's a lot to catch up on. We are currently in Penang in Malaysia but I will write a seperate blog about that. The past two weeks have been spent in Bali & Penang. The night before we came to Bali we went to festival Asia this was Malaysia's version of V festival with 50,000 locals attending, we assumed there would be some tourists there but how wrong were we. Not a single one which meant every 5 minutes we were stopped for photos and if people saw someone taking our photo it would encourage others to ask so they were forming queues, the only problem was I didn't think of charging £5 a picture.

As it is a Muslim country there was a tiny bar where you could buy alcohol but you have to remain in the area you couldn't mix with the others to consume it and there was a sign behind the bar saying 'we do not encourage drinking if you choose to do so you face the risk in the afterlife' i took the risk. With this in mind I assumed the night would be quite tame - I couldn't have been more mistaken. Every single person was on a substance way stronger than alcohol, this was so strange to see 49,998 people in a zombie like state many lead on the floor & 2 of us who had just had half a Heineken. One man came upto to us and kindly pointed out to us 'we all on the powder you not on the powder' so we headed back to the safe place for the evening - the bar. It was an amazing night though and I know all festivals have their fair share of drugs I'm not singling out this festival there's obviously just different rules over here, even if the fear of the death sentence for selling drugs does not put you off.

The first three days in Bali we spent at a place called ego village in the jungle in the mountains, now I'm not really a jungle person and having to share my bathroom with a millipede was not my idea of fun. But I soon got over it. The taxi driver who brought us here was called Mr Cheng & I asked if he'd ever been on holiday and he said 'no what's the point I tried it once everywhere looks the same I just like to drive' I didn't tell him I was dedicating a year of my life to travelling what's the point - Blackpool looks the same as Bali in his eyes. True to his word I looked at the pedometer on his car
and it had done 393,000 miles I can only assume that he came out the womb with it. I thought at one point I was going to have to walk behind the vehicle holding it's exhaust in place.

 On the first day in Bali we went to a waterfall which was amazing I opted for a proper English bikini whereas everyone else seemed to be in waterproof shorts and vests but not to worry. I didn't realise how windy it would be but none the less I ploughed in. It was the coldest thing ever and the current made it impossible to get right upto it. It was beautiful and so so surreal and I went as close as I could but the combination of the temperature and the waterfall took your breath away in every form, you had to walk backwards to be able to breathe. I felt like Michael Jackson moonwalking.

The currency is Indonesian rupiahs and the exchange rate is £1 - 20,000 rupiahs so i am officially a millionaire here. The feeling is short lived when you have to pay 10,000 for a drink. Everyone here carried everything on their heads literally rice, washing, cars. The tiniest woman ever greeted us when we arrived and flung our suitcase on her head like all id packed was marshmallows. They have the best posture I've ever seen though I mean models in England would pay for a posture like there's, but now I know the solution don't worry about your hair plonk everything on your head. Also bingo wings haven't even been heard of I'm convinced it's the way forward.
The only issue I've had so far is I can't pronounce their nationality I keep calling the Bolognese as in spaghetti. Apparently it's Balinese. Tomato tomarto.

We had an issue one night in which I woke up at 3 am to the sound of something slithering round the bed, as snakes including cobras are common here i was not going to take any chances and woke Sarah. After about 3 minutes of not breathing we heard it again and this time we were certain it had just slithered around the bed so we ran to the bathroom and locked ourselves in. As you can imagine our life is flashing before our eyes. I could see the daily mail head line flashing in my head 'conservatives consumed by cobra' we eventually got our phone lights on and peered around the door and slowly and I mean it took us thirty minutes managed to check around the room in every area for this cobra. After finding nothing still an hour later and we hadn't heard it since we went back to bed with all the lights on, at this point it was 5am. At 7 am when the same noise happened again followed by the flushing of the toilet we realised someone had moved in the bungalow above us. The two hour ordeal took 10 years off my life all for nothing.




The following four days were spent recovering from the stress on a little island called lembongan, here there were the most idyllic secluded beaches I have ever seen. I probably said the exact same aboutThailand but this overstepped the mark, we were the only people on the beach. The only transport here were motorbikes, my middle name being Houdini meant that obviously I was going to be designated driver, two trees later I finally figured which way you turn the throttle to brake. The island was 4km long so it allowed us to completely explore the place. The only issue we had was we accidentally walked into a temple and I thought I was going to be castrated but we quickly moved along.

As you drove around there were mango, banana and coconut trees so it was like supermarket sweep and we took advantage of it. Although the highest cause of death on the island was being hit on the head by a coconut - no one seemed phased anyhow. I asked a local about the crime on the island and he informed me that yes crime does occur as sometimes chickens get stolen. I apologised as he seemed quite upset, giving him my condolences but delved deeper asking if there was every anything serious. He looked at me quite unamused and it was then as if a light bulb had switched on in his head - 'ah yes this one time many years ago' it was here when I paced myself for the news of a mass homocide 'a cow was stolen'. That put the icing on the cake really.

We had a little hut on stilts for our time on the beach, compared to our hut in Thailand it was like paradise as it had an insect net and hot water. The only surprise was as we looked around our room and opened the bathroom door we were shocked to be greeted by stairs which took us to our bathroom outside. As you can imagine every time I went to the toilet in the night it was like a scene off crime watch with a head torch and a stick to make sure I came back in one piece.

We had to get a boat back to the mainland to catch our flight home and I was expecting a nice leisurely ride like something you'd experience on Stanley park. The driver looked like Chris brown and I imagine if Chris brown was a boat driver he'd do it like this guy aswell. Half way through he stopped and had a walk around and in his eyes waves were a ramp, bare in mind it was a small speed boat where every bump was felt. We passed a group of dolphins on the way which was amazing to see but Chris brown decided to get his video camera out and make an hour long documentary on them before remembering he was driving a boat. We did get their safely in the end and the only downfall was all my ribs had crushed into one.

Malaysia

As I've been here a couple of weeks now I decided I'd give you a little bit of information about Malaysia. I love it, I've even got used to being woken up 5 times a day by the mosque. I don't even act like its karaoke anymore. The problem I have with the numerous religions is I can't really relate to them all. I think most people got into it because it gave them something to do on a Sunday. I mean my mums goes to church for the social occasion and the cafe Nero afterwards. I blame coronation street omnibus on the decline of religion but that's just my view. Aside from that when ever we venture out we are stopped numerous times a day and asked for pictures. Parents put their children in our arms and say 'picture picture please' I can only assume they've read my blog and think I've got potential. I have been told that it's because in some of the places we have visited white people have never been seen before.  It could also be to do with the fact that topshop sell shorts that probably resemble a Malaysian thong.

The public toilets here very kindly come with instructions also. I think the signs would more appropriately be placed in nightclubs in Blackpool. As you can imagine when I saw this sign there was only one thing I did.

This week we went to a place called batu caves. This is where monkeys live in the wild and you have to climb 300 steps to get into the caves. Personally I think the steps are a test because by the time I got to the top my lips were blue and I was having palpitations. The monkeys are clever little bastards though, I dropped one pea out of my Bombay mix and that's it bye bye bombay. Here's a picture of main culprits they decided to take it upon themselves to check in my bag afterwards incase I had any left.

Sarah and I don't particularly like insects, which is a slight problem as we are in Asia and one night we stepped into the lift and saw there was a jumping cockroach, Sarah managed to escape before it ate her alive and I tried my best but ended up trapping my wrists in the lift, so i now look like i have a 6th finger.

Speaking of 6 fingers on our flight here I was sat next to a lady who had 6 fingers, she was Thai and i don't know if its a cultural thing or maybe she's considered royalty out here. On the bright side living in Thailand the hot weather means she won't have the trouble of finding 6 fingered gloves. 

We have stumbled across a variety of strange characters so far and if I had a pound for every time I saw a woman plucking a pube from her bikini line on the beach I'd be a millionaire.

I have come across some rare food whilst I have been here, people who view a sheeps testicles as a delicacy or a chicken korma filled donut, but the most controversial of them all seems to be the chocolate crisps. I still cannot get my head around this, it's like my mind is telling me no it's all wrong you hate them but then all my mouth can think is chocolate.  I'll keep you updated with the result of that one. I have been given a lot of stick for not being very authentic with my food choice apparently it isn't cultural to have Nandos even though it is Portuguese and a Singah beer does not count as Thai food.

The only problem I have had is I got stung by a jellyfish, Sarah thought I'd just stood on a shell but I know it was a jellyfish. I've never really seen the point in them, they're 97% water, if someone would just come and add the other 3% then I could drink the bastard and I wouldn't have nearly had my foot amputated. On that note everyone keeps panicking that sea levels are rising because of me driving to college not roller skating there but I have come to realise its because there's too many fish in it. It's like when a fat kid gets in a pool a load of water goes out. Get rid off all the fish and the sea levels will go down - basic science. 

Thailand

We decided to be brave and headed for Thailand. We arrived at Krabi and it was the most beautiful place I've ever seen. We had a little bungalow on the beach which was perfect it just had one minor downfall. The toilet didn't flush, it wasn't broken or anything it's just a flushing toilet is too technically advance at the moment for Thailand. Instead we have a little saucepan at the side in which you had to pour water down it yourself. This was enough to convince me I  couldn't eat at the resort for the duration of our trip as they definitely use this same pan to cook.

On the first day we visited the phi phi islands, here we saw the most surreal idyllic beaches I have ever seen. Now Sarah is very scared of the sea but after a friendly shove she decided to give snorkelling a try. It was all going very well until she started shouting there's a sting ray chasing me and almost evacuated the whole group until on closer inspection it was just the buckle of her life jacket. It was an honest mistake and everyone was very forgiving apart from the elderly man who had almost given himself a hernia in all the todo. Aside from that everything went swimmingly.

In Thailand rather than taxi's they have a special sort of transport called a 'tuck tuck' now this is a motorbike with a carriage attached to the side. These are great apart from one night it started raining heavily so the driver pulled down a waterproof cover like a pram, however rather than just covering us he covered the while contraption so we looked like a driving lightbulb as his headlight reflected back on us. This proved problematic for him as he couldn't see the road ahead. After that night we decided to give the tuck tuck the benefit of the doubt at get another, the only problem here was Sarah got confused with the name of them and you can imagine the look on his face when she offered him a 'tug tug'.

On the second day we went elephant trekking, it wasn't clearly explained to us that we had it kayak for three hours to get to the elephants and we trailed behind with a Chinese family and the only English they knew was 'ring ding ding' I personally thought they were trying to sing crazy frog. The elephant trekking was spectacular, our elephant was called nipple, that's not even made up for humour as that's very immature humour it might just be the only English word they know. After 

about 5 minutes the Thai man got off the elephant and let us 'drive it' I went first however I was wearing a dress and it took me ten minutes to explain I was wearing a bikini underneath - he still thought his Christmas had come early. I think he did aswell. When Sarah was driving he taught her the elephant sounds to make it walk and personally it sounded like a fat man trying to thrust. I just think he was slightly perverted. He offered to take pictures of us with our iPhones whilst we were stuck on top of an elephant - we weren't falling for that one.

The 5 days we spent there were incredible. It was honestly the best place I have ever been too. There were only 8 of us in our whole resort run by a Thai family. They had two pet dogs which after feeding a snickers too wouldn't leave us alone. One night I heard this heavy breathing at the door and I was convinced pirates from Somalia had popped in to capture us, after eventually plucking up the courage and thinking they might as well take me now we saw that it was just the dog sleeping outside. 

Introduction to slowe

So I decided to write a blog whilst I'm away because it must be tough for you guys at home not hearing my jokes everyday and I don't want any of you to forget how funny I am or become depressed whilst I'm away as the light of your lives has left.

I'll give a brief intro incase for some absurd reason someone other than my mum decides to read this. I'm Sophie Lowe and I'm 19 and currently doing a sell out tour around the world with my best friend Sarah. We've only been gone 10 days and I think I've exceeded all expectations as I think people doubted whether I'd manage to get on the correct plane - I did and I'm loving every minute. We are currently in Kuala Lumpur and I imagined when I got here it'd be something like a scene from SlumDog millionaire however I now realize I was wrong. It's a lot like London if you were in a massive Sauna and I currently look like Tina turner as the humidity is something else.

Last night we went to a bar on a helipad, it was on the top of a 34 floor hotel and literally a helipad. The view was incredible and the only security measure was a big yellow line that said 'don't cross' I only hope Stevie Wonder doesn't visit anytime soon. For a brief moment I contemplated why there was nothing like this in the North West and then I realised that if this was in Blackpool it would be shut down within the first 24 hours because some guy with his name tattooed on his head thought he could fly.