The satisfaction of seeing a mess thoroughly cleaned up is undeniable.

And something underlined by a mesmerizing time-lapse video showing rivers in Indonesia being cleared of waste by a charity Sungai watch.

The footage condenses five cleanups that took a total of 14 hours into a clip of just one minute.

And it has left hundreds of thousands of social media users spellbound.

Sungai Watch posted the clip on its website Instagram pagewhere it has over 768,000 views at the time of writing.

The first, third and fifth clips were shot on the Indonesian island of Java and the second and fourth clips on the island of Bali.

Kelly Bencheghib, co-founder of Sungai Watch, revealed to MailOnline Travel that the cleanups shown in the timelapse removed 7,682kg (7.6 tonnes) of non-organic waste from the waterways.

Kelly runs Sungai Watch with her siblings Gary, 29, and Sam, 24.

They are from France, but moved to Bali 18 years ago.

Their charity works with 110 dedicated ‘river warriors’, who organize weekly clean-up events every Friday afternoon, ‘attracting hundreds of volunteers’.

The clean-up actions are not requested, but take place after ‘proactive reconnaissance missions to heavily polluted waste hotspots’.

Most common objects The charity’s teams find single-use plastic packaging and bags.

Kelly, 31, continues: ‘What we find in the rivers is mainly single-use food and drink packaging.

‘However, we come across a wide range of items, including unexpected items such as wallets that are still in good condition, musical instruments, identity cards, mattresses, toilets and even TVs.

‘The variety is truly astonishing. We also find a fair number of dead animals such as pigs, dogs, chickens, snakes and others, which makes working conditions a lot more difficult.’

Kelly said Sungai Watch is “on a mission to protect and restore the world’s rivers by developing and designing simple technologies to stop the flow of plastic pollution into the ocean.”

She added: “I would also like to point out that we are not just cleaners. We are deeply committed to identifying the biggest contributors to this waste, the types of plastic that cause the most damage and their origins.

‘As a super short summary of our daily work: we clean our 200 [trash] barriers every day and to date we have collected over 1,600,000 kg of plastic. The waste collected at these barriers (and the cleanups you see in the video) is then taken to one of our sorting facilities, where it is sorted into over 30 categories.

‘The idea behind this far-reaching segregation is to recycle and upcycle as much as possible. We also carry out a brand audit on the waste. To date, we have analyzed more than 700,000 individual types of waste packaging. It’s tedious work, but it’s a step toward holding the big polluters accountable. We publish this list on a yearly basis.’

Was Kelly surprised the Instagram video got so many likes?

She said: “We are thrilled with the engagement our video has received. It highlights the urgent, borderless problem of plastic pollution and inspires broader awareness and action. Every like and share helps strengthen our mission for cleaner waterways.”

Britannia has been named the UK’s worst large hotel chain by Which? for the 11th year in a row.

The ‘awful’ chain yet again has come bottom of an annual survey by Which? that asked more than 5,000 respondents to assess 28 large and nine small hotel chains across 10 key categories, including bed comfort, breakfast, customer service, ‘description matches reality’ and value for money.

For each hotel, an overall customer score has been calculated combining overall satisfaction and likeliness to recommend.

Britannia, which has an average room price of £82, scores a dismal one-star rating for its bedrooms, bathrooms and the quality of the Wi-Fi, and scores no higher than two stars in any of the remaining categories – including cleanliness.

One respondent told the consumer champion that their Britannia hotel was ‘awful… so filthy that we cleaned the whole accommodation ourselves’. Meanwhile, boutique chain Hotel Indigo, owned by IHG, and Premier Inn’s satellite brand, Hub by Premier Inn, tie for first place.

Both have been awarded the coveted Which? Recommended Provider status and earn a customer satisfaction score of 77 per cent.

Hotel Indigo stood out to respondents for its ‘stylish’ boutique offering, with many of its 18 UK hotels housed in historic buildings, Which? reveals.

The watchdog notes that customers praised the chain’s ‘unusual’ and ‘quirky’ décor, noting the unique character and atmosphere of the brand’s accommodation. It scores an impressive clutch of five and four-star ratings – dropping to three stars only on value for money.

Meanwhile, Hub by Premier Inn narrowly eclipses its parent brand Premier Inn, which comes a close second place with a score of 75 per cent.

Currently found only in Edinburgh and London, hotels in the ‘Hub By Premier Inn’ portfolio boast ‘excellent city-centre locations and facilities, but with compact rooms – some completely windowless’, Which? reveals.

Multiple guests praised the Hub hotels for their ‘convenient’ locations, Which? notes. It says that while customers did acknowledge that the rooms were ‘extremely compact’, they nonetheless concluded that they were ‘efficient’ and ‘well designed’, particularly for shorter stays. 

The chain scores a full five stars for cleanliness, bed comfort and the description matching the reality, and scores four stars for its bedrooms, bathrooms, customer service, and communal areas and décor. 

Second-place Premier Inn – which ranked top last year – also secures Which? Recommended Provider status, and is rated five stars for its bed comfort, and four stars for its bedrooms, customer service, cleanliness, value for money and how well descriptions matched the reality.

In third place is the budget pub chain Wetherspoons with a customer score of 73 per cent. Respondents reported that they paid £84 a night on average, making it among the cheaper options in the survey – it scores four stars for value for money.

The chain garners three stars, meanwhile, for bed comfort, cleanliness, customer service and how well the description matched the reality.

In contrast, rival pub chain Old English/Greene King Inns finds itself in the bottom three (joint 14th place) with a score of 60 per cent – despite a higher reported room cost, at £103 a night on average. 

Bottom-ranked Britannia (16th) has over 60 hotels across the UK and many of its properties actually have illustrious histories – the 19th-century Adelphi in Liverpool, for example, counts Prime Minister Winston Churchill among its former patrons, as does the famous Grand Hotel Scarborough.

However, Which? says that many Britannia hotels now offer ‘but a faint glimpse of what one guest described as their “faded elegance”‘.

Another lamented their stay was ‘like something out of the sixties’, while another guest concluded they’d ‘never stay in a Britannia again’, the watchdog reveals.

Overall, the hotel chain scores an ‘abysmal’ overall customer satisfaction score of just 48 per cent, Which? notes. Last year, MailOnline Travel compared the popular Premier Inn chain with bottom-ranking Britannia – and found that its own experiences echoed the Which? survey’s findings.

Just ahead of Britannia, with mediocre joint scores of 56 per cent, are Travelodge and Mercure (joint 15th place).

Though some customers praised Mercure for their conveniently located hotels and ‘excellent service’, it nonetheless secures a run of two and three-star ratings, including two stars for the quality of its bedrooms, bathrooms, and communal areas, with customers criticising the chain’s ‘dingy’, and ‘tired’ feel, Which? reveals. 

With respondents reporting they paid £106 a night on average, Mercure scores just two stars for value for money.

Travelodge similarly falls down on its value for money offer, scoring just two stars despite being among the cheapest brands in the survey, at £79 a night on average, Which? says. 

Across the remaining categories, it receives a mixed bag of one, two and three-star ratings – including two stars for its bedrooms, bathrooms, and breakfast, and just one star for Wi-Fi. One guest described their room as having ‘an NHS hospital aesthetic’ while another described the hotel as ‘dated and tired’, the watchdog notes. Others were more positive though, reporting they had a ‘good overall experience’.

Travelodge’s ratings come in sharp contrast to budget competitor Days Inn, which despite also having an average price per night of £79, finds itself higher up the charts with a middling customer score of 65 per cent – and an impressive four stars for value for money, Which? reveals. Customers described it as ‘cheap and cheerful’ with ‘clean and quiet’ rooms.

SMALL CHAINS

In the small chains category, the top prize goes to Brend Collection, a family-run hospitality business in the West Country, which earns a customer score of 80 per cent. It gets five stars for cleanliness and four stars in a variety of categories, including bedrooms and bed comfort.

Brend Collection, Coaching Inn Group (second, 79 per cent) and Inn Collection Group (third, 78 per cent) all achieve Which? Recommended Provider Status.

The lowest-ranking small chain is Village Hotels, which has more than 30 locations throughout the UK. It has an overall satisfaction score of just 55 per cent, with two stars for its breakfast, communal areas and décor, Wi-Fi and value for money.

Generally, Which? has found that hotel prices have risen by an inflation-busting 13 per cent on average this year, according to ONS figures, meaning even budget stays are not as cheap as they once were.

The majority of hotel chains (78 per cent) in the consumer champion’s survey were reported as costing well over £100 a night for a room on average – including some of the most poorly rated. 

Which? notes that no chain managed a full five stars for value for money. With prices spiralling, finding the right hotel for your money is increasingly important, the watchdog says.

Commenting on the survey’s findings, Rory Boland, Editor of Which? Travel, says: ‘With prices at many hotels rising further this year, finding good value, budget accommodation is increasingly difficult. For those looking for a reasonably priced stay, there are big differences between the best and worst chains, with the likes of Premier Inn and Wetherspoons distinguishing themselves from the pack.

‘When you’re booking your next trip, make sure to take time to research your options carefully, and read reviews from a range of sources to see what other guests thought of their stay.’

A spokesperson for Travelodge says: ‘Last year we welcomed over 21 million business and leisure guests to our hotels. Ninety per cent of our Travelodge UK hotels are rated four stars or above on Tripadvisor and our new breakfast menu at our onsite Bar Cafes has been rated excellent value for money by over 70 per cent of our customers. 

‘Travelodge is investing significantly in our UK portfolio to deliver a high-quality, premium look and feel hotel design and a great value for money proposition to our customers. This hotel refit programme is Travelodge’s most significant brand transformation to date and is well underway across the country, with approximately £45million being invested this year to update our hotels. We take our guest feedback very seriously and are sorry to hear that the Which? reviewers did not receive our normal high-quality service.’

A spokesperson for Mercure said: ‘Our position in this survey doesn’t reflect the standard of guest experience we strive for, and we will of course look into the feedback and make any improvements we can to ensure the experience, safety, and wellbeing of our guests at each property is of the high standard they deserve. However, the results of this survey, which are based on 129 guests who had visited a Mercure, do not reflect either the 93 per cent of mentions that are positive about our service friendliness from TrustYou data based on over 14,000 independent reviews on Tripadvisor and other platforms; or our guest feedback, based on nearly 100,000 annual reviews, which scores Mercure at 85.6 per cent for its staff, while also exceeding the overall Which? customer score by a significant amount.

‘Regardless of this, we take all feedback constructively. We are aware that there are improvements to be made and we will always endeavour to deliver an outstanding experience for our guests.’

Britannia did not respond to a request for comment.

During my time as founder of a feted PR agency, as a women’s rights advocate and as the real-life inspiration for Edina Monsoon in Ab Fab, I’ve hosted some fabulous birthday celebrations.

My 40th was for 500 people in a huge film studio; my 50th for 150 in an old London chapel, and my 60th on the beach in Majorca for 50, with a huge paella cooked on an open fire.

But this spring, rather than throwing the usual big bash, I celebrated my 75th birthday by going to Germany to have all of the blood in my body — yes, every last drop — taken out and ‘cleaned’. 

Now, admittedly, my constant and ongoing quest for a healthy and happy old age has led to some weird and wonderful healing experiences. 

From eating only brown rice for three weeks to clean my liver to fasting for a week with daily colonic ‘therapy’, I’ve tried cures and treatments that would test the most hardcore wellness fanatic.

But even by my standards, this was extreme. The idea of taking blood out of my body via a tube in one arm, passing it through a futuristic-looking machine in a process called ‘apheresis’, and putting it back in through a tube in the other arm was certainly the most bizarre I’d ever encountered. 

As I’ve admitted, I am a fan of emerging treatments — look at fasting, which is now mainstream but, ten years ago, was thought of as an odd thing to do — but I’m also careful not to get taken in by quackery so I always do my research.

In this case, that involved tracking down others who’d had the treatment, as well as studying research papers written by the doctor running the programme.

Right now, apheresis is not available in the UK so is a relatively unknown private procedure you have to travel outside the country to get, but I felt that I was making the right choice for me. 

So how did I reach this decision and what on earth made me try it?

In my research, everything pointed towards the cleaning of plasma in the blood being the ultimate detox. No juice cleanse can do what ‘blood washing’ can.

It’s an intense health therapy intended to rid the body of all those accumulated toxins — pesticides, solvents, heavy metals, allergens — you can’t help but absorb from a modern world awash with plastic and drenched in chemicals.

Said to restore vitality and help combat any number of diseases, including autoimmune conditions like rheumatism and even long Covid, it’s also regarded as an anti-ageing and energy-boosting treatment for those of us hitting big birthdays.

After years of working round the clock on my various women’s empowerment programmes, it sounded to me like the perfect restorative cure — albeit not for the faint-hearted.

I first heard about it from my good friend Ursula Peer, a nutritionist and detox expert who specialises in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). 

Ursula told me that both she and her 75-year-old mother had tried it — and felt much healthier afterwards, with huge amounts of energy.

But it wasn’t just the modern, synthetic toxins that I wanted to be rid of. 

I know this sounds grim, but I’d also been told by several therapists and doctors that I was harbouring parasites in various organs of my body that were causing internal inflammation and could be quite dangerous as I got older.

I had probably picked up these unwelcome new friends during a lifetime travelling round the world having extraordinary experiences — from eating street food in India to swimming up the Amazon surrounded by piranha fish, to living on a small farm surrounded by tick-ridden bush in Northern California.

I’d definitely noticed that I’d been getting more tired than usual and was suffering with shortness of breath when walking up the steep hills in my town of Wincanton, Somerset, plus I had some gut issues that were causing me problems. 

In short, it seemed as if my body was potentially riddled with nasties and was struggling to function.

I’ve always believed the world tells you when the time is right for action. 

Despite the occasionally disastrous consequences — such as my unpleasant experience on I’m A Celebrity in 2007 being bitten by rats as I crawled through tunnels — I’ve almost always followed my sense of intuition wherever it leads me.

So when I was invited to deliver a workshop to a business network for the same fee as the cost of the blood cleanse, I was convinced it was a sign. I booked my appointment and a flight to Bavaria, Germany.

The treatment is the brainchild of Dr Richard Straube, a respected specialist in internal medicine who 15 years ago re-engineered a blood-washing machine originally invented in Japan.

His adapted procedure — which he calls INUSpheresis — combines different high-tech filters to clean the blood efficiently according to the needs of individual patients.

Today, he has treated more than 30,000 people, from the ages of 14 to 99, and measured the way in which chronic illnesses such as Parkinson’s, dementia and autoimmune diseases have improved as a result.

I was to have the therapy within a ‘blood-cleaning retreat’. My friend Ursula had made all the arrangements, booking a beautiful converted glass factory in the depths of the Bavarian forest for us to stay in.

Two blood-cleaning sessions lasting two to three hours each at the clinic would be combined with daily exercise classes and a delicious diet of Ursula’s detox meals based on the philosophy of TCM.

Our visit was the same week as my birthday, and I was even more convinced that this was the perfect present to myself.

It was only as I was going through Customs at Heathrow on my way to Germany that I realised I was setting off for one of the biggest and bravest adventures of my life. 

I had no idea what was in store and felt my nerves build throughout the flight to Munich, followed by the long drive on the autobahn.

The jitters began to settle when I arrived at the house set in the Black Forest, surrounded by ancient druid stones, beaver dams and a river running through the peaceful garden, where I was warmly greeted by Ursula and the other friendly, German-speaking members of the group.

Ursula explained our schedule for the next few days. We would relax at the house the first day and enjoy our qi gong exercise — the ancient Chinese martial art combining movement, breathing and meditation now so popular these days all over the world — taught by the wonderful Thomas Hudecsek, an Austrian teacher based in Vienna.

The second day of the retreat, we were sent off to the clinic for a morning of in-depth tests before receiving the first blood cleanse. 

I had a blood test, an ECG for my heart, a careful monitoring of my blood pressure and an ultrasound to check all of my key organs.

Only when Dr Straube and his team were satisfied that I was well enough to have the treatment — and that it would help me with my problems based on my life history and previous diagnoses — was I put on a flat bed alongside the INUSpheresis machine.

It seemed huge as I lay there, like something out of a sci-fi film. I was putting a great deal of trust in this contraption. 

A lot of my test results had been good, if not positively healthy, but I knew I still had issues to deal with.

The average woman has nine or ten pints of blood inside her. All of it would be taken out — though clearly only in small amounts at a time — and ‘washed’ by filtering not only the toxins I had absorbed from outside, but other waste products and pathogens cluttering up my blood.

A cannula was put in a vein in one arm, and I watched as the blood slowly filled the tube that then entered the filtration machine, which was covered in lights and made a mild rumbling noise as it worked.

Another cannula in my other arm completed the loop, as the blood came back down a tube into my body.

I was constantly monitored by the lovely doctors and nurses checking my oxygen saturation, blood pressure and heart rate as I lay back and let them do all the work.

The two-and-a-half hours went by quickly with no pain or discomfort at all and I relaxed into nothingness. 

The only thing that stopped me from dozing, indeed, was the excitement I felt at the new and hopefully much healthier life I was embarking upon.

After the first session, Dr Straube showed me a plastic bag full of a rather unpleasant yellow liquid which he explained were the removed toxins suspended in a saline lotion.

I then re-joined my group — all women aged from their 50s to their 70s, plus one man — and we compared notes as we taxied back across the Bavarian countryside for a healthy supper.

The real work, Ursula told us, was the second cleanse two days later when the machine extracts the remaining, and most stubborn, toxins left in the body.

We trooped back for this second session and, afterwards, Dr Straube again showed me the bag of vivid yellow toxins that he had removed. Yuk! 

Now samples of blood were taken for analysis to show the ‘before’ and ‘after’ results, which would be sent to me at home. Better out than in, I thought!

A few weeks later, back in Somerset, a letter popped through the letterbox from Bavaria and I found out what had been lurking inside me. It was a tense moment as I opened the envelope.

The results showed that I did indeed have both tropical and local parasites, plus possible infections in my gums and — much to my surprise — Lyme disease, which I must have got from a tick at some point.

Dr Straube suggested all these infections were likely to be causing the breathlessness and gut issues, and would need further treatment at home in the UK.

I immediately started searching for a good holistic dentist who understands that teeth and gum treatment is part of complete body health and needs to be done alongside natural health practitioners.

Dr Straube recommended that I continue to follow a healthy diet and blast out the remaining various unwelcome visitors with both antibiotics (which I may decide not to take) and natural herbs. 

So how do I feel now? And was it worth the many thousands of pounds it cost me overall, including fares and the retreat?

The process itself costs £5,000 for the two blood cleanses, plus blood tests on top.

Looking back, I did expect to jump off the machine feeling 25 and dance my way out of the clinic, so I was a little disappointed to find that it takes a few weeks really to feel the effects of the treatment.

In fact in the first few weeks afterwards, I felt more tired than usual. Dr Straube explained that my body was going through an expected stage where the blood was re-balancing and calming down after being cleaned up.

Now, eight weeks on, I feel much better.

Keeping up the healthy lifestyle and getting enough rest has been key for me. 

I have stayed on Ursula’s detox plan of 80 per cent plant food, no coffee, no alcohol, very limited dairy and limited sugar, and intend to continue this healthier way of eating (other than the very occasional splurge on a glass of wine, a bite of healthy chocolate and some delicious fish — I left Edina’s excesses behind many years ago).

As someone who does love her food, I am listening to my body as much as I can and I rest when I need to. But I still intend to enjoy life.

Meanwhile, my hairdresser says my hair has never felt healthier. My nails are strong and my friends are asking why I look so well. 

My energy levels are great — I definitely feel far less tired day to day, and I’ve taken on lots of exciting new work, which I am managing to juggle with my hectic social diary without it wiping me out as it would have previously.

I have a busy summer now, following up on all Dr Straube’s advice to make sure that I get rid of the pesky little parasites that are still there, albeit in far smaller numbers than they were, according to the ‘before’ and ‘after’ test results.

I realise that the blood cleaning has done a huge amount to boost my health, but I also know there is no quick fix to optimise energy levels, especially at 75, and I need to keep making sensible lifestyle choices if I want to age well.

Do I feel like a new woman? Certainly, the whole experience has been an eye-opener as far as understanding my body and health goes. It definitely feels like a reset, and I intend to make it a regular event.

Yes, it’s extreme, but I have never been a timid person and no one would expect me to become one now. 

In fact, I’ve already booked with Ursula to join her retreat in Bavaria next spring for my 76th birthday and enjoy the whole thing all over again.

• To find out about Lynne’s women’s workshops and retreats, visit lynnefranks.com.
• Always see your GP before making any major changes to your diet or lifestyle, or trying new treatments — especially if you take regular, prescribed medicines as there may be contraindications.