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

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.