Today was a good day. We decided to walk to the Grand Palace, there were so many people there dressed in black for mourning and queuing to get in, it was crazy! As we were up until 4am playing jenga we didn't actually get out of the hostel until about 2.30pm and by then the Grand Palace was closing to tourists. So someone advised us we visit the temple next door. I think it's called Wat Pho and it's a Buddhist temple that houses the reclining Buddha which is a ginormous golden Buddha lying on it's side. It was amazing.


As expected Chinatown was extremely busy and full of stalls selling food and shops selling other bits like herbs and medicine. After walking around all of the stalls I started to feel a bit queasy and I think it's because i hadn't eaten all day and was likely dehydrated from all of the walking, so we chose a restaurant with aircon over street food.


We ordered 2 dishes each because we thought they would be small portions - we thought wrong. I think the waitresses found us a bit disrespectful because we both barely touched the second dishes we ordered and they got a bit arsey with us - oops! But the food was really good. We both accidentally ordered some really thick noodles, which we were not fans of.

We ended up getting a tuk tuk back towards our hostel - sod walking! We took one last walk down Khoasan Road on the way back and got some more crepes (it is impossible to walk past that stall and not buy one, okay?) Khoasan Road really comes alive at night with all the market stalls, bars, street food and all the random people trying to sell bugs for you to eat or bracelets that say obscene things. I would love to go back here for one night and get horrendously drunk, but at this point i think we were a bit wary to drink too much.


Today we walked to the Grand Palace again (third time's a charm) to attempt to get inside. We managed to get all the way through to the ticket barriers when Laurie was turned away because she had bare shoulders. She was covering them with a black scarf but it wasn't deemed acceptable so she ran off to buy herself a t-shirt.






We paid 500 baht to get into the palace and it was amazing. We got to see the Emerald Buddha (top left) which is made from precious green green stone and about 66cm tall. It was inside a temple in the middle of the Grand Palace 'complex'. We got to sit in there on the floor and watch people pray (I don't know if that's the right term) and I really got a feeling of relaxation in there. Today was the hottest day by far, we felt so uncomfortable in the heat. There were so many Thai people in the Grand Palace (you can see in the centre pic above), I think there was some kind of ceremony in there. I love how everything is covered in gold and elaborate patterns.

After visiting the palace we did a little more shopping (for essentials like snacks for the train ride to Chiang Mai and more Thai trousers for me... I needed the purple ones, alright?). We went back to the first place we ever ate (remember the Schnitzel sandwich...?) because they made the most delicious icy fruit drinks. It is honestly just what you need after a day walking around in the heat.

In the evening, we packed up and took a taxi to the train station. We were anxious that our train tickets were fake (because of all the stuff we had read about tuk tuk scams) but luckily they were the real deal. We got onto the train and were told our seats were in car 2, we made our way there and got comfy. Then, just before the train was pulling away someone came through to check tickets and said we were sitting in the wrong seats. So we had to rush through to the other end of the train with our huge backpacks on, barely fitting through the doors.

As we sat down, a woman came up to us and asked us what we wanted to order for dinner and breakfast from the menu. Laurie wasn't hungry and we had brought snacks so we declined. The woman insisted we pick something, so I asked her to confirm it was all free and she said yes (HA!) So begrudgingly we both picked a dinner and breakfast option just to stop her hassling us. The dinner wasn't actually too bad, I think I had a pork dish with rice.

After dinner they pulled out the beds up top (luckily Laurie and I both had bottom bunks) and everyone settled down to sleep. It was a very bumpy ride, but not in an uncomfortable way - I actually found it quite relaxing. What I did not find relaxing was the big cockroach style bugs that kept crawling at the end of my bed. UGH! They were so gross and there were so  many of them! I ended up curling into a ball in the middle of my bed and got about an hour or two of sleep throughout the 13 hour train ride. I mostly read my book and listened to music. Other than the bugs it was pretty comfy.

The toilets were pretty vile, they were essentially a toilet bowl with a hole onto the tracks. I kid you not. The tracks are actually strewn with toilet roll. I stupidly went to the bathroom without any shoes on (face palm). The floors were covered in piss... so much piss. I spent a good five minutes scrubbing them in the sink afterwards! We are  both so excited for Chiang Mai, we've heard good things.

Labels: bangkok, chiang mai, grand palace, sleeper train, thailand, traveller, travelling, wat pho

Intro to Bangkok

Thursday, 1 December 2016 • 23:12 • 0 comments

Argh, i'm so annoyed at myself for not blogging on a regular basis. It's crazy to think we've been gone for three and a half weeks now and so much has happened. I feel like it's been forever since we left home. Luckily I've been writing a journal along the way so I will just update this blog from my scribbles in there. Since there is so much to write I will break it up into separate sections and posts.

Arriving

So to start...Bangkok - oh where to begin with this place! I think it was a good introduction to Asia just because we learnt a lot, especially about trusting the right people.

So on the Wednesday 9th November we arrived at Suneta Hostel and were relieved to find it was well air conditioned, in a good location and lovely and clean. We were in a room of 16 people but we booked cabin beds (essentially coffins) where we could slide the doors shut. This had good points (privacy) and bad points (bit anti-social) but I was very pleasantly surprised.

On the first night Laurie and I wandered down to what we thought was Khaosan road (it was actually Rambuttri Alley, the road parallel). Khaosan Road is known as a lively road full of bars and shops and I remember I commented on how tame it was compared to what we had read (wrong road, idiot!) We sat at a bar and drank cocktails (buy two,get one free) and a late dinner. Obviously getting in the Asian spirit I had some of the local cuisine... a schnitzel sandwich lol.

The Scam

A couple of days after arriving we decided to walk down to the Grand Palace. The area around here was absolutely rammed with Thai people dressed in black who were mourning the passing of the King. On the way we got stopped by a local guy who told us the palace was closed to tourists so the Thai locals could mourn (strike 1, this was incorrect - the Grand Palace was open until 3:30pm for tourists). He then told us not to pay more than 40 baht for a tuk tuk today as there was a special government price on the tuk tuks (strike 2 - this was bullshit). He then told us since the palace was closed we should visit other tourist spots and circled them on our map (what a nice guy we thought). To cut a long story short, the tuk tuk driver took us to 'tourist' spots such as 'the big Buddha' and 'the lucky Buddha' that were pretty much empty (strike 3 - why didn't it occur to us these places were desolate?)

Then the fatal blow (strike 4), he took us to the T.I.T (Tourist Information of Thailand)... and there we went ahead and booked the next part of our trip to Chiang Mai for what we now know was an extortionate price. It was only when we got back to the hostel and googled this place we read similar stories of the 'tuk tuk' scam. We were so mad at ourselves for getting swept up in a scam on day 3 of the trip! Not to mention our driver also took us to one of the suit shops and tried to entice us to buy suits.

Wandering Around

However, after a day of kicking ourselves for being so stupid we decided to wander down Khaosan Road (pic below) and have a cocktail and look at all of the market stalls and shops. They had really cool clothes, food stalls, and loads of people selling bugs to eat. Laurie got a peanut butter crepe and I got my first bit of street food, a hot chicken wrap which was amazing. I also bought some of the infamous trousers travellers seem to buy when they are in Asia. They are loose and comfortable... but the number one rule is you pull them up at the thigh when you sit down or climb into a tuk tuk or they will split in the crotch area. Guess what happened a few hours after buying mine? Yep... another thing I blame on the evil tuk tuk scam, my poor trousers split. So I ended up buying two more pairs.

Meeting People

When we got back to the hostel we met a woman in our room called Serena who was 50+ and great company. I went downstairs to write in my journal in the common room area and we (she) ended up chatting until 3am. Laurie came down and joined us and then when Serena went to bed we ended up playing Jenga with some dude from California until 4am. It was so nice meeting other backpackers.

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Next post I will get to the part where we actually did some touristy stuff... hurrah! After a bumpy start in Bangkok I sort of questioned why I was even travelling in the first place but it's funny how you get more relaxed and enjoy it as time goes on.

Labels: bangkok, Khoasan Road, scam, T.I.T, traveller, travelling, tuk tuk

Arriving in Bangkok

Thursday, 10 November 2016 • 06:38 • 0 comments

Hurrah, we finally made it to Bangkok! First impressions are that it's hot, humid and full of travellers (with the exact same backpack as us!)

We boarded our EVA air flight on 8th November for a 9.20 pm take off. Originally i was sitting a couple of rows in front of Laurie but she managed to convince a Thai man to swap with me, so we were able to sit across the aisle from one another.

Thanks to my trusty diazepam the 12 hour flight was actually pretty good, flying overnight was perfect because i dozed in and out of sleep most of the time. There was only one instance of pretty bad turbulence at about 3am and we realised we were flying over Islamabad - not ideal for nervous flyers!

We watched Bad Moms and half of The Secret Life of Pets in case you're interested (I know Geo is), were served fried rice for breakfast (need to get used to this) and we also got pretty obsessed with the free 'body mist' spray in the toilets (it smelt amazing).

When we got off the plane, the humidity was pretty evident (help). The first thing we did was buy SIM cards in the airport and bottles of cold water. We met a guy called Stewart on our flight (yes, he had the same backpack) and we shared a taxi to Khaosan Road. 

Just a brief update as i want to do one big Bangkok post once we've been here a bit longer! We've been on a few trips and rode in our first tuk tuk which came with a few issues (haha). We've also booked the next part of our trek which we are super excited about - all will be revealed! 

Labels: aeroplane, bangkok, flying, khoasan, travel, traveller, tuk tuk

Injections and tablets

Wednesday, 12 October 2016 • 04:05 • 0 comments

This post might seem super boring to most, but i really want to document all of the things I did in the lead up to my travels. This was an essential part of getting ready to go and really made me feel like this whole travelling thing was actually going to happen. I think i'd been in a bit of denial beforehand.

Only when i had to pay for some of my injections did i fully appreciate the NHS. Luckily i got my hepatitis, tetanus/diphtheria/polio booster and typhoid injections for free at my doctors. But i had to go to a private travel clinic and pay for my rabies and Japanese encephalitis injections.

I had x3 rabies injections at the cost of £55 per jab and x2 Japanese encephalitis injections which were £89 each. I did a bit of research (googling) and ended up going to MASTA travel clinic in London, they were slightly cheaper than other places and the nurse i saw was really lovely.

For the anti-malarial tablets, i was a bit wary as I'd heard about all of the potential side effects. Initially I was set on getting Malarone as the side effects seemed less severe and you only need to take it for 7 days after leaving a Malaria-prone area.

But the price was ridiculously high (£1.90 per tablet) which would have cost me £450 for a 6 month trip. Since i was already paying £345 for the injections, I felt it was a bit silly to waste so much money on Malarone when there were other options available.

So i changed my mind and decided to buy Doxycycline (£0.19 per tablet) which was only £42 for 6 months supply. The side effects are similar to Malarone (dizziness, nausea, gastro problems etc.) but in addition there can be increased light sensitivity which could cause sunburn.

A downside is that these tablets need to be taken for four weeks after leaving SE Asia, but i just remind myself that i've saved £400 in the process by choosing Doxycycline.

I bought my malaria tablets from Dr Fox, an online pharmacist which i've never used before. The cost was a hell of a lot cheaper than a regular pharmacy and they were delivered right to my door. I've never really trusted online pharmacies before but this one is approved by the CQC (shoutout to Louise!) and i really recommend it.

Labels: backpacking, injections, malaria, rabies, tablets, travel, traveller

Getting ready to go

Tuesday, 11 October 2016 • 04:56 • 0 comments

Packing my whole life into one (highly priced) backpack has been way more exciting than i thought it would be. I've been feeling antsy and restless in the lead up to my departure (to Bangkok) but luckily I've been able to release a bit of this tension by writing organised lists and buying 'important' and 'completely necessary' items on Amazon. I've even watched YouTube videos on how to pack a bag for backpacking. Ten cool points for me!

So, with that being said - here is my packing experience in a nutshell and what i have decided to bring with me. I won't list everything, just a few essentials i bought.

The Backpack

Now I'd been told from a few people that a decent backpack is essential to a happy backpacking life. So after a bit of research and scanning online reviews, one backpack came consistently up top. That was the Osprey Farpoint 70. I was reluctant to buy it at first because it costs somewhere around £130, depending where you buy it. Who on earth pays £130 for a backpack I hear you ask?

Well, I did... but only after finding an online voucher for the Cotswolds shop and getting it for a slight discount at £116. I have to admit the bag is pretty fabulous. It's nice and big, has a 'day bag' (aka a mini backpack) attached on the back which i can remove and take as hand luggage onto the aeroplane or on day trips out. It straps well onto my back, feels comfortable, has a has a good chunk of space inside for all of those necessary Amazon purchases. I am pleased i spent good money on it.

Below is how my bag looks completely packed (minus a few bits a bobs). I decided to use packing cubes (which are essentially small zipped bags) so i could separate all of my stuff. The packing is a bit more organised this way. The backpack behind it is the one that attaches onto the back.

Clothes/Shoes

I panicked slightly about clothing for this trip, I am the kind of girl that stubbornly sweats in cardigans and jeans during our British summers. I rarely, if ever buy summer clothes. So ASOS became my new best friend and i ordered myself shorts, t-shirts, swimwear... the list goes on. Thank god for my sisters ASOS premier account (free delivery!)

I have decided to be very cut-throat with my clothing - i am bringing x7 t-shirts, x6 shorts, x10 underwear, x3 bras, x3 swimwear, x2 dresses, x1 leggings. I decided at the last minute to also bring a cardigan too because apparently it can get pretty cold in hostels with aircon on full blast. I will let you know how i fare with all of this as i go along. I can't believe i managed to roll all the clothes into this tiny packing cube. Such an achievement!

Shoe-wise i am bringing one pair of plastic flip flops, one pair of ugly velcro 'walking sandals' and a pair of trainers. To be honest, i know i will live in my flip flops.

The 'necessary' Amazon purchases

Here is a list of other tidbits i bought. I'm not sure how useful these will all be but I was weirdly thrilled every time i bought something random like this.

- Eye mask and ear plugs (to block people out when I'm tired)
- Padlocks (to stop those pesky thieves)
- Tag for my bag (for the aeroplane, so i know it's mine)
- Packing cubes (so shown above these are the most amazing thing in existence!)
- Travel towel (have been told this was essential)
- Wash bag with a hook so i can hang it (very handy so I can hang it in the shower)
- Cable lock (to tie my bag to things)
- Mini hair straighteners (for those times when I want to conquer the frizz)
- Bumbag (so bloody excited about this purchase, can't wait to put stuff in it)
- Portable phone charger (iPhone batteries, enough said)
- Mini fan that plugs into my phone (how did i not know about this god send when i had to commute in 30 degrees?)
- Waterproof lanyard for my iPhone (so we can all go into the sea without worrying about leaving expensive stuff on the beach)

So that is my random list of things. Possibly a waste of money, but possibly (definitely) the most fun to buy! Hurrah!

The Camera

 

Anyone who knows me, knows that i love to video record my trips abroad and edit them together into rather long (but usually rather hilarious) travel videos. They are so good for capturing memories and i much prefer them to photos.

In the past I've used a flipcam (it broke) and then I moved on to stealing my mums camera. But as I will be gone for so long I thought it was about time i invested in a decent camera of my own.

After a bit of research I bought the Canon SX610 HS Powershot Point and Shoot Digital Camera. With a 32GB memory card and hard shell camera case it came to about £145 which i think was very reasonable. I have used it a couple of times to test it and it seems like a pretty good camera, I will update you when i use it properly.

And by complete surprise I also have a polaroid camera! My mum and sister bought this for me as a goodbye gift and i am so unbelievably excited to use it. They are such a fun idea and i love that you have to be selective with what you take photos of as there are only 10 photos per roll. Will definitely be sticking these in my travel journal. I'm so spoilt! Thanks mum and Geo!

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So all in all, i think i am ready to go now. The backpack will definitely be full to the brim and i will probably do an updated post a few months down the line telling you how much i regret bringing three pairs of shoes and too many kaftans, but i'd rather go out with too much and have to discard it than arrive there with too little. One month to go, i'm sure i will think of plenty of more unnecessary Amazon purchases before then!

Labels: asia, asos, australia, backpack, backpacking, camera, canon, clothes, osprey, traveller, travelling