101 Challenges:

Location: Taipei

Details: Taipei is home to the Worlds tallest building open to the public - the Taipei 101 skyscraper. This was to be the scene of our actual record breaking challenge. All we had to do was run up all 101 floors via the stairwell in less than an hour and we would be guaranteed a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

As Roy Castle put it “dedication’s all you need” and with us having that in bucket loads, we headed off for the highest building we could see. Being 101 Challenges, there was obviously a catch. We were to do the race up the thousands of stairs in a 3-legged style.

Outcome: Having done no research at all on this Challenge, we arrived at the building hoping to open the doors and start our ascent. Unfortunately there’s a massive shopping mall at the base of this fantastic piece of architecture and so, it took us absolutely ages to find the stairs. Worryingly, at this point, we were already knackered and, we hadn’t even climbed a flight!

We decided that the best course of action would be to use our inside leg(s) first then outside legs – simple really.

Ready, steady, go! We flew up the first few floors in amazing and beautiful fluency – faster than a speeding bullet, but not as fast as a lift.

Everything was going better than planned (if we ever bothered to make one) but for now, that’s it. The telly folk won’t let us tell you anymore as apparently it’d ruin the show.

Three days ago we finally pulled ourselves away from Manila and, after enduring yet another agonising two-and-a-half-hours of Lindsay’s in-flight squirming and screaming, Lee was happy to be back on land… but now in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. He wasn’t as happy as Lindsay though – Paul McKenna can you help him? Lee? Any airline passenger that may accidentally be placed next to the sweating and trembling oaf?

On first impressions, this is a very impressive little ole city. Very clean, very busy but very efficient – everything runs like clock work - and to best describe it, it’s probably a bit like a small Tokyo (although we can’t truly compare because we haven’t been to Japan yet) But, it does have huge bright signs (the electricity bill here must be massive!) adorning every doorway and stacked onwards and upwards on every building with squiggly writing (possibly Chinese) and we’ve seen things like that in Japan on the telly.

What surprised us is, despite most of the signs here being in hieroglyphics, is that it’s very easy to get around thanks to the underground. What initially looks like a game of “Snake” on drugs, turns out to be a rather fluent and easy guide/map of the miles-upon-miles of subways.

Despite the excitement of being in a new country, Lindsay’s been feeling a little home sick over the past few days (missing his teddy and easy fat girls probably) and was in desperate need of a good cuppa. So, we decided to bring the “All the Tea in China” Challenge forward to Taiwan.

We heard there was a tea plantation on the outskirts of the city so, we hopped on a train and hopped on a bus to go and visit it. We hoped to have a nice day out in the fields and hoped to educate ourselves and you too, on the processes of how tea bags are made. What better place to go? Well as it turned out, anywhere else on earth would be better.

We were to “see how the leaves are harvested and the final cuppa brewed” and then “shock the owners by tasting their most expensive tea by dunking digestive biscuits”. Aaah, the culture.

Well, we’re not allowed to give away all the details (the telly people would kick us in if we did) but what we can tell you is, everything we hoped for was dashed and everything we sooooooo wanted to do was dangled in front of us like a carrot before being snatched away – at the same time as being punched in the dogs-reproductive-glands.

We only got offered one brew, and that brew was bloody disgusting. The plantation/museum was as boring as it sounds and the guide who we had arranged to meet us obviously didn’t know who we weren’t and failed to show up.

There’s an old saying in Scotland. It goes a little something like this… “Yi kin only p*ss wee the c*ck yav got” which means (in English) “One can only do, with the tools one has, only what said tools can allow one to do” So, Lindsay decided to run havoc around the joint and amuse himself in (what he claims) the name of “entertainment” Lee never moved from the stage of bored-stupid;

We saw your ad in the Tokyo Notice Board. We are currently filming a UK TV Series called 101 Challenges – to be screened on Channel 4 (UK) in November and December.

The show follows us, 2 brothers from Scotland, as we travel all over Asia completing 101 challenges given to us by the public. One of those challenges is to get on a Japanese game show.

We will do anything – for free – and give you publicity on our site, the e4.com site and the television show itself if you can get us onto a show this week.

Please email us asap if you can help. We are currently in Shanjuku.

Yours Sincerely

Lindsay and Lee Vine (the brothers)

Today we headed into one of the many markets in Manila - in search of a local dish. This was part of the ongoing Dodgy Delicacy challenge and, this one certainly lived up to the title.  The particular dish we were looking for is called Balute. It looks like a normal chicken egg, except inside there’s a partially developed foetus. Yum yum. Everyone likes chicken.

We found a little stall selling the Balute in no time at all and loads of people were coming to purchase the protein filled dish. Apparently you should have no more than 10 per week or you’ll die. We don’t know what of or if it’s true but that’s what we were told and we’ll believe anything – the moon is made of cheese!

Lindsay ate chicken feet in Vietnam so it was only right that Lee eat chicken feet-uss (see what we did there!) in the Philippines.

Lee approached the stall owner and made sure what he was about to buy was in fact Balute. He was very articulate and pointed to the pile of eggs and said chicken? The stall holder nodded and said chicken in which point Lee nodded back and said chicken one more time just to be sure there was no misunderstanding. Thrice confirmed – it was indeed chicken.

Not knowing what to expect, Lee proceeded to crack the egg and peel off the top of the shell. What was revealed looked like something from the movie “Alien” than a chicken or a normal yolk. There was loads of liquid in the egg (the “soup” apparently) and Lee was encouraged to down it by the now growing crowd - who were enjoying watching the little Westerner tucking in to one of their favourite snacks.

The liquid was downed, and despite a burp or two and stomach convulsions it surprised Lee to find that it didn’t taste too bad. Not good, just not too bad. The rest of the shell was then removed and the contents were unfolded. There was a hard stone like thing which you don’t or cannot eat, then a little bit of what look liked normal egg yolk and then the alien.

The alien part was gooey, slimy, ugly, and down right scary looking. This was certainly something that you did not want to hold, never mind put in your mouth. Nevertheless, with some members of the crowd instructing that it tastes better with salt, Lee sprinkled away and then shoved the gooey and slimey salty gunk in to his gaping mouth to a chanting crowd countdown of 3-2-1.

As it was chewed the vomit-inducing-stomach-spasms returned. Throughout the period of chewing and swallowing, a little dance was performed. This was just an involuntary reaction by the body and we don’t know if it was a “Lee” thing or whether Balute causes everybody to dance.

The crowd were pleased with the Westerner’s performance and happy that he had tried one of their delicacies and managed to keep the contents down. With the deed done we left the market with talk of future dodgy delicacies to come… things such as live prawns in Japan. Perhaps, in comparison, dead and uncooked baby chicken isn’t that bad after all

The last few weeks have been mental in so many ways.

Firstly we have been trying to set up our challenges that are planned for Taiwan and Japan before we enter the countries. This has provied rather difficult due to language barriers.

Lindsay has had a bit more success than Lee due to the fact that he speaks the Queen's English and well Lee speaks more like Rab C Nesbit. When Lee has called certain organisations he has asked to speak to an English speaker. This request on most occasions was not understood and on the few occasions it was they didn’t think Lee was speaking English. Lee is now practicing his “How now brown cow” sentence although it sounds like “who new brun coo”.

On average we have spent about 5 hours a day at the pc and on the phone trying to get the get people to help us and set up locations and other logistical nightmares.

We have now been told that the Philippines sell the Asian delicacy of duck embryos. These are almost hatched ducklings that are shelled and eaten with their cute little beaks and little feathery bodies included.

We have been challenged to eat one, so watch this space...

X-Factor International was a tricky one. We were to write our very own original song. This is a tad difficult when you have the musical ability of a tadpole and the singing qualities of a horse’s anus (it’s always nice to write anus).

Writing the thing began in India, way back in January. Lindsay used to write poetry (we know… try not to laugh) and so, it was only natural that he compose a from-the-heart and passionate song. Here’s some of the incredibly gay (no offence to homosexuals here – you lot can probably write a hell of a lot better crap than this) lyrics that he initially penned. Obviously hoping for a Grammy or some “Female Lyricist of the Year” award;

I’m a lost soul searching
You’re a lost soul found
A thousand rocks upon a shore
Out of sight, a thousand more

From out of the dark
In pours the sun
Closing the sad
Opening the fun

I left a home which was no longer mine
She’s the wind
She blows a fury
She can calmly breeze
She’s been everywhere

A solitary man finds a lonely spot
And counts the blessings that he’s got
He thinks to himself
Small man, small land, big sense of adventure
A lonely island, a secluded rock
Never racing against the clock

Everywhere she goes, she brings a party
She brings the will of the sun, sand and see
She puts a smile on everyone around her

Mystical land takes me by the hand
Shows me things I’d never seen
Every sight, a true delight
Beyond my wildest dreams

It’s better to regret what you have done
Than forever regret what you haven’t
Don’t follow, lead
Don’t starve, feed

Absolutely horrifically pathetic. We were actually cringing as we copied these Sonnets from paper to screen. Amazingly though, with the random and slightly scary juices flowing, on the 23rd of June, 2008, Lindsay finally penned the song of his life.

With the amazing help (and even more amazing patience) of Russell Smith, a fellow Scottish back-packer, we finally and miraculously (and over the course of 8 beers each) came up with the following (what we think is an) amazing end result. Lindsay still holds a mental erection over it.

Until the end of time, we’ll always be baffled at how the hell Lindsay came up with a song about a bloody pineapple. Pyschologists would have a field day exploring the insides of his head. But, the song’s great (even if we do say so ourselves) Watch out Leona Lewis!

Location: Bali - Indonesia

Details: When we see a single person that seems sad or lonely we'll dedicate 24 hours to becoming that person's best friend and soul mate! We'll eat with them, dance with them, walk, talk and dine with them... sharing the moonlight together and enjoying the sunrise as one (or three)

Outcome: Oh my goodness gracious us, what a disaster. We thought we were being clever by inviting the loneliest person in the world out to join us and be made to feel loved. We also decided to do this for a few weeks and not just a day. Instead he went home in tears and plaster.

Rather than search all over Asia for a lonely person which we had not came across yet we diced to invite our littlest brother Lyle over from Scotland.

He jumped on a plane and landed a few days later in Bali and us being great brothers were there to meet him with a loving sign.

The first few days started well as we gave him party after party night. It was during one of these party nights that Lyle's ego was to soar to great heights. He was party animal number one, the main man of the Bali clubbing scene or so he thought. His belief was based on how many ladies were at his side, laughing at his every joke and telling him how handsome he was. We are sure at one point he did even shout “who's the Man, I said who's the effin man?”.

We could not let his ego get any bigger and decided to tell him he was in fact surrounded by ladies of the night. He said “What? Vampires?” After we explained, Lyle's ego took a nosedive and he backed off, informing his party “you’ll nae get money outta me hen”. 

We knew we had to give this boy a good time and so decided to take him surfing. He hated it from the word go but we told him to persevere. He did, although he wished he didn’t. On about day 4 of surfing Lee smashed right into him when both tried to catch the same wave. Lee being older and wiser bailed (yeah we know surfer terms dude) just before the collision and Lyle did not. This resulted in two broken fingers and Lyle not feeling loved at all.

This unloving feeling would only grow on the subsequent visit to the hospital. As in all hospitals you have to wait to be seen. After we (Lee and Lindsay - Lyle wasn't in the mood to partake) had weighed ourselves, tested our eye sight using the eye chart and tasted all the coffees in the free coffee machine, we got bored; we were so bored that despite our concerns for our littlest brother we decided to leave him there and go for a pint. We think this is where the Loving You challenge may have technically failed.

Despite his broken fingers and being told he would be in plaster for 6 weeks Lyle still tried to enjoy himself. He was even game enough to climb a volcano with his arm in plaster and wearing flip flops, that boy has a death wish.

    

Location: Sepilok - Borneo

Details: Off to the national parks in Borneo we go to hug an Orangutan! Any funds raised throughout your stay in this area will go to saving these beautiful creatures from extinction.

Outcome: Today we kind of completed the Hug-U-Tan Challenge. We say kind of because it was in fact Olly, our pet Orang-utan puppet (donated to us by Caroline Cross and www.mightybanana.com) who headed off to the Sepilok Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre to hug one of his own. You see, Olly’s been living in the bottom of Lee’s bag for the past 4-and-a-bit months and crawled out this morning insisting that it should be him and him only that completes this Challenge as human’s shouldn’t really be touching his Aunt or Uncle or second Cousin Belinda.

The conversation heated up a bit and things could have turned nasty if it wasn’t for Olly’s diplomacy and calming influence. We finally agreed to surrender the onus of responsibility for this Challenge – Olly left the hotel and we stayed in bed. Together. Spooning again. This is no longer unnatural or awkward for us.

So, off little Ollykins went and after a nearly a full day of us worrying for his wellbeing, he returned all happy and proud of himself – the little smug b*stard. He explained in great detail and length of the beauty of his natural home, how his alcoholic and substance abusing brothers and sisters were doing well on their cold-turkey rehabilitation programme and then, how he got patted on the head by his grand-dad.

Technically he failed the Challenge and when we told him this, our ginger little friend went absolutely mental and wrecked the hotel room before storming off. We haven’t seen him since.

Location: Gili Islands 

This will be the last journal entry for a wee while. After being joined by our little bro Lyle, we’ve all taken a trip to the Gili Islands – just of the north-west coast of Lambok. Life on this island (Gili T) is slow paced (until night time comes) and the internet connections are even slower. This journal took 3 hours to upload so unfortunately there won’t be any more updates until we’re back on the mainland where we can get dial-up. Ooooooh.

The last few days have been spent perfecting our Pacman abilities. Lindsay’s thus far the bestest, with a grand score of 46050 – his proudest moment and greatest accomplishment so far in life:

Righteeho – we’re off to catch some sun, get pissed and do nothing for a few days. See ya!

Location: Bali

We appeared in the Scottish Daily Record newspaper yesterday after sending a few emails back and forth to a journalist who was very friendly and nice to us. We like nice people.

In exchange for some of our amazing words of wisdom – the Daily Record decided to reward our little project by donating £100 to the High Five Challenge. It’ll be great to hand this money over to some needy folk throughout the rest of our travels.

A woman’s magazine journalist quickly got in touch after reading the 2-page Record feature (that’s almost as big a coverage as Janet Jackson’s nips) and although we’re all too happy to appeal to the masses (mums love us) we’re even happier to say that once this article goes to press, they’ll be handing over £500 to our charidee efforts. Nice.

Any future funds from any forthcoming articles, features and what-not will be going to us. We’ve been over-spending on our daily £20 budget continuously since leaving 'home' and seriously and drastically require some beer funds. You’d think that coming from the home town of the great economist Adam Smith, we’d have a better grasp on the world of expenditure control – but we don’t. We’re bloody useless. On top of this, surely we’ve done enough good deeds this quarter of the year to make God keep our planes in the sky.

To all the people who’ve been in touch with well-wishes and nice little e-letters, thanks very much. It’s nice to be appreciated Mum (we know it’s you).

Location: Bali

And so… we never fell to earth from 36,000 feet in a ball of torturous flames to our deaths and Lindsay, after a 22 hour recovering 'downer' from the cocktail of sleeping pills and everything else is back on track. Lee’s grand too.

We’re pushing the boat out quite a bit here – staying at the Ari Putri hotel which is rather lavish and way too upmarket for the likes of us common hooligans. It’s costing about £20 a night to stay here. Too right is should – the room is bigger than Lindsay’s flat back home, the swimming pool is shadowed by Balese sculptures and gorgeous traditional cottage-style abodes. It’s very, very posh – and we feel stupid here.

Failing to kerb our over spending, we both decided that we’d get some tailor-made shorts. Yes, shorts. £20 is the sum Lindsay paid for his delightfully made to measure luxury garments (2 pairs) and Lee handed over £25. We get them on our return to Bali – can’t wait, they should be divinely exquisite.

This evening we collected Lyle – our little brother (who’s actually bigger than the two of us combined – standing at 7 foot 3 inches) at Bali airport (3 hours later than planned) So Mum, you can relax, he got to us all safe and well but with some suspicious piercings and tattoos of moustached men on his torso (only joking). He’s going to be our lonely person for our 'Loving You' Challenge. Watch this space!

Location: Kota Kinabalu Airport

As this part of the journal is being written, we’re sitting in Kota Kinabalu airport ready and waiting for our flight in to Bali. It’s 17:30 pm on Monday the 19th of May (see above journal entry date) and Lindsay, as always, is sh*tting himself at the thought of a 3 hour aviation adventure - and so, has just popped a prescribed 5mg Diazepam tablet and a 25mg (un-prescribed but never-the-less, given to him by a pharmacist so it’s all ok) 25mg Promethanzine tablet – we don’t know what these are but apparently the magical blue little pills make you sleep for up to 8 hours and, mixed with the aforementioned Diazepam and a nervous pre-flight concoction of 6 pints of San Miguel beer, Lindsay should be unconscious before walking through the boarding lounge. Hopefully – says Lee and all the other 67 passengers.

Malaysia’s been great – but it’s now time to shake off the expenses that this country has and head happily and blissfully into pastures new. Bali is nearing and so too is our desire to chill out, relax, do nothing and watch Lindsay attempt and fail 82 times at getting laid.