A Little Brel Catch-up
Ok, this is Brendan here. My voice was seldom heard in past blogs as it always seemed I had more work-related writing to attend to; thus for the most part, Mel became the voice of the Brel Chronicles. This time around I plan to be more involved, as this is 100% vacation!
That having been said, I think I’ll leave first impressions—especially of Japan—to Mel. Having lived in Japan I don’t see it with the same fresh twisted perspective she does, and I think her version will make a lot more entertaining reading!
Before we get into the trip, though, I’d like to play a little catch-up. There has been some pretty entertaining travel between the end of our last big trip and this one; a summary and some photos should get us back up to speed.
Stop 1: Get Home
We kind of trailed off at the end of our blog, stranding readers in Istanbul without wrapping things up very well. Obviously from our posts we became much more focused on Mel’s health at the time, and although stories of Greek hospitals are fun to recall now, it was more than a little stressful at the time. Blogging wasn’t really an enjoyable process when we didn’t know how it was all going to turn out.
But here we are on the road again, things turned out ok, and I think Greece, which despite the craziness was quite good to us, deserves a nod. We already have some good content for this area which we will have to upload later.
In a nutshell, being in a hospital in a foreign country is never fun, but Greece is a pretty good place to do it in the larger scheme of things. Having to stay put for weeks in Athens and Santorini isn’t the worst thing in the world, either, and we did our best to eat and drink ourselves silly. I’m sure souvlaki and retsina adds to recovery.
Stop 2: Get Engaged
Well, I always said I’d have to make sure we could travel together before we got married. After that trip there really wasn’t anything left to the imagination when it came to quirks, annoying habits, stubbornness, …oh yes, and of course the good side of each of us. Really, if we could survive that, how hard could marriage be? (Don’t answer that…)
And so my scheming began.
We planned a random week in Cabo San Lucas, originally to travel a little Mel-style. For those of you that don’t already know, that means travel that is:
– all-inclusive
– somewhere warm with a beach
– does not require advanced language skills to do simple tasks like find the bathroom and eat breakfast
– does not require ingestion of anything unrecognisable
– generally speaking must have bacon
Unbeknownst to Mel, I had already begun planning. I already had a ring (and even had time to insure it!) As much as a Mexican all-inclusive sounded fun, I thought if I was going to propose I could do a little better. And so good old MACO Destinations magazine came to the rescue again.
For those who have read the earlier posts from Costa Rica and Belize, Destinations was the luxury travel magazine that allowed us such outrageous experiences as couples massages beside hot spring rivers, sleeping in Mel Gibson’s favourite bed and tribal mud baths followed by private tiled hot tubs in the jungle.
This time the plan went something like this:
1) pick the most exclusive, outrageously over-the top romantic, luxury boutique hotel I could find
2) pimp out my own engagement to get there
That’s right, I sold my own engagement story before it even happened. Hey, what hotel wouldn’t love the story of a travel writer staging his own engagement and then publishing the story?
Needless to say it worked. Rather than get into all the gory details, I’ll simply let the photos—and the actual article, which I’m attaching here—speak for themselves. From the private butlers (including Mel’s favourite—pool butlers) to the carefully orchestrated private meal I cooked her dressed in chef’s whites, topped off by a homemade chocolate box with a ring in it for desert, it went off like a charm. Plus it made one hell of a story.
Afterwards when we were back at the Cabo commoners see, me and my big mouth happened to mention to a passing waiter at Squid Roe (one of those ridiculous tourist bars Mexico is famous for) that we had just gotten engaged. Below you can view the consequences of my indiscretion. That and drinking margaritas before 5pm. And jello shots.
Next: the dirty vacation. No, not dirty that way. Shame on you.
Stop 3: Get Drunk
Actually, I’m just kidding. Sort of.
Eventually we did take a “normal” last minute cheapo trip to Playa del Carmen and Cancun, a vacation of the Mariachi and Margarita-soaked variety. As you can see by the pictures, we can have vacation snapshots like normal people too! So there.
Mel also discovered the joys of showing up in a town like Playa without so much as a toothbrush and deciding to stay. Score one for spontaneity!
Step 4: Get Married
Unbelievably, there was absolutely no travel involved in our wedding.
Step 5: The Brel Honeymoon
Although we had vowed not to go anywhere right after the wedding—at least not until we had time to do it properly—by the time the whole process was done we were so exhausted we just needed to get out of Dodge. Not to be predictable, we headed to Anguilla via St Maarten, to another Destinations-worthy hotel, one we’d heard great things about while cavorting with the stars in Cabo. Cap Juluca didn’t disappoint, and not just because Penelope Cruz was our neighbour…
That having been said, we’ll probably continue to seek out luxury for value, and I can’t say that the “fancy” side of the Caribbean supplied that. Off to Indonesia!
Tags: Travel
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