Travel Journal Entry - Day 1

Day 1 - 7-8/4/15, Bangkok

The flight was 11 hours but seemed to take forever! I didn't get to sleep much so I'm pretty much aligned with Thailand time - its 1am right now and I can't wait to go to sleep. 

Thailand is mental. We managed to work our way round the train system (which uses tokens instead of tickets!) and get a tuk-tuk to our hotel after about 4 hours. Tuk-tuks are like the happiest death traps ever. Our hotel is lovely, and everyone is overly friendly, in a nice kinda way. Everything is super cheap.

Khao San road is like the biggest assault on the senses ever - so many lights, and people, and noises, and so much hustle-bustle. There's vendors everywhere asking if you want pad Thai, scorpions, ping pong shows, bracelets, and funny little frog instruments. It's amazing.

Now I shall fall asleep, listening to the air con and feral cats, whilst staring at the awful hat Nick bought. x

The flight did indeed seem to take a hell of a lot longer than 11 hours. I watched a couple of films, tried sleeping, read an entire book, ate food, and still I seemed to have too much time to twiddle my thumbs. Oh well, it was the excitement I suppose. I struggled with sleep for the next few days actually, sleeping about 6pm and waking up around midnight, then on and off sleeping with pins and needles for the next 7 hours or so - none of which fits either English or Thai time. Maybe it was the malaria tablets, maybe it was the heat, who knows?

Excited to finally get off the plane!

Bangkok is full on bat-shit crazy. So noisy, cars everywhere and people everywhere, with bikes and food vendors in between. Khao San road is like they thought, "Let's ramp this up a bit!". We turned the corner and literally stopped in our tracks. 'Woah' was all I could say. It's too much to take in at once. The noise level is incredible. Just one walk from one end to the other will get you offerings for a suit (why on Earth you would need a suit for backpacking, or even for Bangkok, is beyond me), several ping-pong shows (we asked where one was and the guy tried to lead us to a tuk-tuk saying "20 Baht, 20 Baht!!". No thank you! Never let them take you somewhere in a tuk-tuk for that sort of thing and never fall for the 10/20 Baht tuk-tuk scams. You'll end up in trouble. Always take a tuk-tuk or taxi to a place you would recognise and walk the rest of the way), bug delicacies, all sorts of random foods, clothes, and a whole lot of weird and wonderful tack.  

Hill tribe friend!

We sat outside an abandoned building (that actually had a club inside it) and listened to some guys play guitar and one of those boxes you sit on and bang; they were pretty good actually, even if they did miss out the bigger English words. Whilst sitting there, we must have been approached by no less than 20 vendors, most of which are women from the hill tribes selling little bracelets and such. I bought a couple of bracelets and then this one lady picked up that Nick was tipsy, shoved this ugly ass hat on his head and he happily bought it. When he took it off, his face was just like, 'WTF is this?'. Creased me up.

Nick and his happy hat.

ENP and Chiang Mai soon! x

Female Packing List - Thailand/Australia

Okay, okay, I know. I'm a terrible blogger, and this post should have been done before I left the country - but do you know how busy it makes you when you leave the country?!

So I'm currently waiting for a bus to Bangkok from Chiang Mai (it's a long bus) after spending a week at a beautiful elephant sanctuary (more on that later). My bag is considerably lighter than when we first started, and that's a good thing. I read loads of packing lists on blogs and websites before we left and although they were helpful, they never tell you what they chucked out a week or two down the line. So there, my tardiness will be helpful.

Shoes
1x Converse, pump style - for when you need light, closed in shoes
1x Walking boots
1x Sandals - these broke about three days in so I've now got a basic black flip flop pair

Clothing
10x underwear, all types, comfy and pretty. You can probably cut down on this to be honest, as these are relatively easy to wash in the shower, but I just packed as many as I could roll up into a walking boot. 
2x bras - because, let's be honest, who actually uses more than that?
3x Pairs of socks, plus 4x odd socks, because life is too short to match your socks
4x Old T-shirts - I never wore these for their intended purpose. They were supposed to be for the elephant park, something to get dirty that didn't matter. I ended up wearing some nice stuff and cut up two of these t-shirts into new vest tops. I donated two old t-shirts to the elephant park.
8x Normal tops, varying styles. This was a bit excessive. You don't need this many tops, even though I had them for different occasions, especially when you're headed somewhere cheap like Thailand. I've donated two vest tops that were ruined by Songkran/elephant poo, but the rest has stayed. I will probably chuck a couple more and replace them with lighter, breezier items from the markets.
3x Shorts, 2 denim, 1 fabric-y type. I donated one pair of denim shorts because they were too tight in this heat and uncomfortable. The other pair are my favourite and try as I might, I can't get the dusty elephant poo colour out of them. My fabric ones are being worn for comfort on long buses - a definite recommendation.
1x 3 quarter length light trousers. I never wore these and knew I wasn't going to. These were donated to ENP. You can get lovely breezy trousers out here in a multitude of patterns for about 100 Baht (£2). I've bought two and they take up less room and are far comfier than the ones I brought with me.
2x Summer dresses. Worn both and, for the time being, keeping both. Good for if you want to look a little pretty for the evenings.
1x Pyjama set. Only a shorts and vest top set, but these are good if you are in hostels or sleeping somewhere that other people have access to. You will be ridiculously hot in any clothing you wear to bed, so bear this in mind; we thought about bringing our comfy fluffy PJ bottoms but these would definitely have been chucked within the first couple of hours.
1x Light cardigan. Haven't worn this yet, as too pretty for the ele-park. This will probably be worn on the beach in the evenings.

Swimwear
2x Bikinis. Any more than this is unnecessary - wear one whilst the other dries (which will take all of 10 minutes in the sun).
1x Sarong - 100% take one of these, particularly for Thailand. I've used it to cover up at temples, as a headscarf to protect from the sun, a light cover up for the evenings, and worn by the pool. 
1x Kimono. I'm hoping I wear this by the beach, I spent ages looking for these, bought about 3 and only brought 1.

Miscellaneous
In a big ol' list: sleeping bag, travel towel (it's too small! Get an extra large one!), travel journal (entries  will be typed  up later), suncream, toiletries, Scrubba, washing line, first aid kit, Lifestraw, tissues, soap leaves, travel adaptors, antibacterial gel, and probably some other stuff I've forgotten. We haven't bothered with the soap leaves, just bought some shower gel and stuff when we got here, and the Scrubba doesn't clean clothes as well as hoped. The Lifestraw has been a Lifesaver (heheh) we've used it tons. Do you know when you read those things that are like 'Top Ten Items for Backpackers', and you think, Nah, I don't need half of that? - you do. You very much do, and so will the people around you; plasters, hand gel/wipes, water, vaseline - all the niggly little bits you'd otherwise overlook.

Some actual travel blogging coming soon, woohoo! Happy packing x

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! 2015 is set to be a good one. 

Well, it's been a while. To be quite honest, I've not had anything to blog about. I'm just not very interesting. After booking up all our tickets and planes and hotels etc., days, weeks, months passed without much travel news, but this is a new year! This is the year! 

Tomorrow, I hand my notice in at work. It's an extended notice, so my last working day is the end of February. I do love my job; I love the team, I love the product and I love that it's just challenging enough to keep me on my toes. But Christmas in retail is really shit. I don't mean it in a whiney 'Ooh I've got to work Boxing Day, woe is me' kind of way, there are many more people that have to work tougher, longer hours than I did (although I did like 60 hours a week. People doing more hours than that, I totally salute you). But generally those people are nurses, firefighters, police etc - they're doing something good in the world. Whatever job I have at Christmas next year, I'm hoping it's something that has a purpose in the world - I don't ever want to have to deal with irate, demanding people that, for some bizarre reason, have chosen to battle other mental people for sale items they could have bought two weeks prior, instead of sitting at home with their families, scoffing turkey sandwiches and watching films. People are so aggy too! It's not my fault your sniffly kids are tired from running riot since 7am this morning and are now complaining and crying whilst you try on shoes. I hate it when people are waiting to pay and they're like 'Oh, my child is getting restless, can we hurry it up?'. Are you fucking kidding me? You just spent 20 minutes trying to decide if you like a £19 sale shoe, another 10 minutes trying to get a discount because it's 'marked' and now you want me, me??, to hurry up? Lady, I wanted you out of my store 15 minutes ago.

Eesh, got a bit carried away there.

On the rare days I've not been working, I found myself spending it with animals; with Cleo, my loan horse, at the kennels with my Mum, or taking rescue dogs for a walk. Take a look at these beauties:

I absolutely 100% fell in love with these two, Kaiser and his sister Kira. They've moved to a re-homing centre in Scotland, and I oh-so hope they've found a forever home; they have so much love to give, and yet they didn't have a great start in life. They were pretty malnourished when they turned up in the kennels, and Kira had such a nervous disposition, it's possible they wasn't treated very well. Oh, I miss them!
But after spending all my free time with animals, I started thinking - maybe this is my calling? It's the one thing I genuinely enjoy, and no matter how shit the task at hand is, I still find it rewarding, I still feel like I'm doing some good. So I started looking into it some more - and now I'm signed up to a home college course! Zoo animal care, behaviour and welfare. I chose zoo animals because it offers so much more in terms of options, but this is the path I want to take when looking for a new career in Australia. If I'm making this big a change in lifestyle, then there's no reason why I shouldn't attempt a job in something I love.

Part of the course is getting some work experience in a zoo for a week - I'm wetting my pants in excitement! I'm halfway through the modules, trying to power through to make sure I finish them before March.

March is our organising month. Well, my organising month. Nick is amazing at geography but I'm the logistics. I want to get us together a file each, with credit history, no claims proof, references, copies of passports, CV's, tickets etc. Need to get our shit into gear.

I've got high levels of excitement for this year; it started off amazingly and there's so much we have planned - there's probably going to be so many unplanned things too. For New Year's we took an impromptu trip to Weymouth. If you've not been, you need to get your butt down there for a new year - it's brilliant! The town itself is so pretty, a lovely harbour and a beautiful beach, but for NYE the whole town - and I mean the whole town - dresses in fancy dress and congregates in the town square to count down into midnight. All the pubs have a party going on and you're free to wander from one to the other. We literally packed up the car and camped in the car park for the night, getting up in the morning and exploring around the fort, dodging the masses of dog walkers. 
For those that are wondering, because we decided about 5 hours prior to going, we dressed in onesies; I was a ninja turtle, Nick was a turkey. He was a pretty good turkey;

New Years Day started with an adventure too - start as you mean to go on, eh? We drove to Lyme Regis for breakfast and to watch the 'Lyme Lunge' - a charity event where nearly 300 people ran into the sea in fancy dress to raise money for Help For Heroes. Good on them, nutty bunch.

We then ventured to Durdle's Door, the weird rock thing on the southern coast. I know there is more to marvel at, but I can't explain to you how blue the water was, especially for England. The picture doesn't do it any justice at all, it was like tropical waters. But the whole place was absolutely beautiful. A definite recommendation, if you're fitter than we are and are able to walk up a hill without nearly keeling over.

So there we go - a quick update on life and our current adventures. There won't be so much white noise from me over the next couple of months - loads of updates and adventures coming your way!

Places to Find Replacements For

Sure, I'm going to miss people when we're travelling, but riding along the seafront yesterday made me realise there'll be places too. I'm certain I'll find better hotspots, but they definitely won't have the nostalgia of home. In no particular order...

Shoebury East Beach 

It's increased in popularity since I first started going to Shoebury, so now it's usually got a few people milling about and making noise even in the evening; but three or four years ago, this was my happy place. I used to finish work, in a job I detested, go home to a messy house with all my friends squeezed into it, who would all be drinking and smoking, playing games and laughing. Sometimes this was just too much for me - I don't like people, remember? - so instead of hanging around, I'd grab my kite bag and catch the train to East Beach; I'd kite for half hour or so, swooping over the odd dog walker, grab some chips from the Chinese chip shop, then go and sit on the stairs as the tide came in, eating whilst the spray splashed on my feet. Sometimes I'd take one of those flammable logs and hot chocolate and stay for a bit longer, just camping out on the beach. It was serene, and peaceful, and I didn't have to answer to anyone. There was an abandoned boat about 600 yards out to sea, and the tide goes out for miles, quite literally, so as long as you caught it at the right time, you could squelch along the sand and walk out to the boats. I kept saying that I'd do this little boat up - I loved it to pieces - but after the summer, I think they had a boat clear out because one day it just wasn't there. I stopped going so much around that time, but mainly because I'd found another escape - I found Nick, and his bike, which leads us nicely onto the next place.

Southend Seafront

Ok, so I know this may seem the same as the previous one, but it's not. Two totally different places, sets of memories and people. My favourite way of seeing Southend is in passing - on the back of the bike with Nick, with the sun setting pink or the moon reflecting in the water, all the lights flashing, and the smell of doughnuts mixing with the smell of the sea. On late summer nights, you can hear all the rides and screaming from Adventure Island, and just the energy surrounding you is immense. It always makes me want to hold my hands out and close my eyes so I can feel the breeze and hear it all and just soak everything up (if you're going to read my blog, get used to cheesey descriptions, thanks). I'm lucky enough to have only visited  Southend when the weather's been lovely; a scorching day with Powers and Jess, where she wanted to walk along this wave breaker thing that went right out, then decided it was too slippery so jumped down and ended up walking thigh deep in wet sand. She was the only one of us that didn't make it to the flag at the end. Then there's taking my little brother for a day out and both of us (he was 11 at the time) being disgusted at Adventure Island prices - it costs the same amount for entry into Thorpe Park! Admittedly on a 2-4-1 ticket, but you can always get one of those for Thorpe Park. We just scoffed doughnuts and messed around in the arcades and that was so much more fun. Then there's nights out at Chameleon and Mayhem, and the time me, Jody and Tobias left Nick with his friend in the club and walked along the seafront to the casino. We were dancing in the road and playing in the sand and left the casino with the same amount as when we started, and even though we were broke and sober, it was still amazing because we were just high on happiness (I told you to get used to it).

Thorpe Park

I only just realised that this is one of my favourite places whilst writing the last bit. I get the feeling this is going to be a long post.

I go to this place at least once every year! It's a must! If Alton Towers was closer and possible to do in one day, then I'm sure that would be included too and I'd have an annual Merlin pass. We're going to Alton Towers in September, I seriously can't wait, I'm ridiculously excited. I think I love this place because I've been here with so many people, so for me it's like a huge group memory; Siobhan and Jess where we had to go on the log flume more than necessary because we kept getting arms in the way of peoples faces in the picture; Jody, Aimee and Sam, where we couldn't save Aimee from falling head first into the soggy bottom of a rubber ring because we were laughing so much - it was a kids ride too, and I'd spent the whole five minutes of queuing telling everyone that it wasn't exciting, but it was cute; with Nick, Paul and Ange when Nick first passed his driving test - for some reason him and Paul decided it would be better to avoid the bridge and went around the Enfield way (Enfield is the birthplace of M25 traffic) so it took us ages, but it was so quiet when we got there that it didn't matter. Oh, and Paul hung his feet out of the window on the way home because he was hot - eww. Then with my Aunty Caroline, when the Saw ride first opened and I felt the need to get every picture because it was the first time I'd gone in years; with Nick's aunty and cousins, and we convinced his Aunt to go on Rush and she hated it so, so bad; with Jess and Powers when the Saw maze first opened and we absolutely shit our pants and I've been disappointed that it's not been open since. I really need to go here with my Mum and brother. Soon.

The O2 Arena

I've only been here four or five times ever, including when it was the Millennium Dome, but every time has been immense. I can't really remember it as the Dome (it was 14 years ago - I'm so old) but I do remember the Body that was in it; it was huge and I just recall being so fascinated with it. Then my first proper concert was here - Stereophonics with my Aunt - and they were brilliant. The supporting act were a bit angry, as all I could understand from their lyrics was a string of swearing, but Phonics were brilliant. Then there's John Mayer, twice. He was good the first time, but I'll be honest, not as great as I thought he would be. But he'd recently recovered from something to do with his throat so he probably wasn't feeling his usual self either. The second time was mind blowing! There was a bizarre collection of us too; Josh and his girlfriend who are into proper heavy, goth, screamo music, Ant who loves a bit of Taylor Swift, James and his Abba, me and my mainstream and indie rock, and then Nick with his rainbow of music taste, all in absolute awe of John Mayer with his mix of blues/rock. I think I welled up a bit when he played Gravity and Wildfire. I've climbed this beast twice too - 52 metres high, 365m in diameter and 12 steel masts... noticing something here? Yeah, turns out they didn't just plonk a big dome on the corner of the Thames, this shiz was planned. It's definitely worth doing, and I'd recommend it at night too - cities are so much prettier all lit up. Me and Jody did it at night, just randomly, straight after she'd had an interview so she was all pretty in a dress. I booked it up for me and Nick on Christmas Eve and they had a little snow machine going. Magical.

Nanna's House

Because it's full of memories of family; of quiet days having tea, of loud days with all the cousins crammed in, of parties and gatherings and family I don't know. It's somewhere with plenty of food, and it doesn't matter if I turn up uninvited because I needed a wee and was stuck in A12 traffic. It's where I'm always reminded I need to drink more water, and 'do you have sun cream on'. It's staying over with bacon sandwiches in the morning, and Chinese takeaways, or spag bol that my Nan seems to have an accident with every time. It's a meeting place before a Florida holiday. It's where I'm bombarded with photos of family or past holidays, and hiding in corners at parties with Dean and Haydn, discussing how much we hate people, particularly Londoners. 

Maybe it's not so much the places I'm going to miss after all. Maybe it's all the people that made the places what they are.

Excitable

This is going to be a tough post, because I don't think I can put down how excited I am into words.


So yesterday I gave myself square eyes and a numb bum by being sat on the laptop all day, researching places to stay, how to get there, what there is to do once we arrive etc. And that's just for Thailand - we've not even started our Australian and European plans yet.

We booked our flights out of Thailand on Monday, to leave on the 11th May and arrive in Sydney on the 12th May, giving us a total of 8 days in Thailand; I really wish we'd done more now. There's so much to do over there!

Our destination is a little island, about 10 hours away from Bangkok, called Koh Phayam. For a sense of perspective, and so you know what the actual fuck I'm talking about:

So Ranong is the town highlighted in red, and Koh Phayam is the tiny little square bit to the left of it - Bangkok is right at the top. It's an 8/9 hour night bus from Bangkok's Southern Terminal Bus Station (it sounds like I know what I'm talking about, but I really don't), arriving in Ranong about 6am, when nothing's open. So we have 3 hours to wander around, find the pier, sit on the beach, and watch the sun come up - it's lucky May is the hottest month (highs of 32C and lows of 25C) or I would not be impressed. At 9am, you catch a slow boat - 2 hours - that takes you direct to the island. For God's sake do not miss that boat! After that one, you've got one at 2pm and that's your lot. Once you're on the island, there's no actual roads to speak of, only ones that are suitable for motorbikes. You can either hire one, or get a taxi bike, but with our humongous backpacks, there is absolutely no way we'd both fit on one bike. I think our best bet is if Nick hires one and I get a taxi (oh, help!), OR, I'm just gonna have to walk. I'd be a wobbly mess on a push bike with that thing on my back. Sounds like a lot of effort, doesn't it? It's worth it though:

We're getting these little beach bungalows with no hot water, electricity for all of 3 hours a night, and no air con - I seriously can't wait! The resort has all these boogie boards and snorkelling equipment to use, and just look at that water! I'll be getting in there with my little blue swim shoes on!! What? I'm not letting any crab, fish or jellyfish touch my tootsies!

Because there's so much to do on the mainland, we'll probably only stay here for a few days, although we're not sure of the order yet; whether we'll go there first, or stay in Ranong first, do all the bits we want to and then relax on the island before we head back up to Bangkok. There's about 5 different waterfalls in Ranong alone, and I'm not sure how many national parks there are because they've all mushed in my mind, but I think there's about three. They've got hot springs and spas near a place called Raksawarin Arboretum that are supposed to be absolutely beautiful; it'll definitely be a big difference from the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa in Iceland - it won't be snowing whilst we're in the water. Oh, and it's all free! Thailand is ridiculously cheap. Also not far from this Arboretum is the thing I'm most excited about - elephant rides!!! How incredible will that be? I'll be sat on an elephant. A freaking elephant!! With a trunk and big ears and everything! I'm a little dubious about these though, as they don't seem to be very heavily advertised and I can't find any blogs or reviews or anything from someone who's actually done it. I'll be quite upset if there's no Nellyphants!

The day before we fly out, we'll be working our way back up to Bangkok, so we're not miles away from the airport, otherwise I'll be hyperventilating about missing our flight. We said that because we would've spent a lot of time in cities around Europe, that we didn't want a long stay in a Thai city, so we'll literally spend just the one night. I've spotted a hotel only about an hour away from the airport called the Sky Hotel (I think), where the rooms are a ridiculous amount of stories up, and you can see the whole of Bangkok - and they're only £60 a room! That's like normal Premier Inn prices over here! It'll be nice to have fresh towels and air con after slumming it, and before we get on our 12 hour flight. 

I realised yesterday that the start of our trip is only 9 months away - do you know how scary that is? It's not even double digits any more. I have absolutely no idea what I'll be doing this time next year - will I have a job? Will we still be moving around in a little van through Australia? Will we be living somewhere? Not the foggiest! Fingers crossed.