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Thai Islands

For our next two weeks in Thailand we had a very chill time, mostly spent between different islands and beaches, we had planned to move on to Malaysia but once we reached nearer to the boarder we found out that although Malaysia was technically ‘open to tourists’ it was only if you flew in, land borders were still closed. So we instead maximised our beach time which was super relaxing for us but not so exciting in terms of blog content. So I figured rather than a blog on each place, I would just amalgamate them all into one post.

We flew into the famous Phuket and had booked a couple of days here but we were left unimpressed, it felt a bit like we’d stepped into Magaluf, drunk people on the streets and every restaurant selling food ‘just like home’. Luckily we had really nice owners of our BnB who couldn’t do more to help us and showed us where a less touristy beach was so we mainly just chilled there for two days before getting the ferry to Koh Phi Phi. The owners were again super cute and got us a free local breakfast of fried pork and sticky rice for the journey which was delicious.

Our second stop Koh Pho Phi was also very touristy but luckily a bit nicer, we stayed in a cute little hostel run by a couple and their two kids who we made the mistake of playing with on arrival and then had to give piggie backs every time we saw them after that! On our first day we headed to the beach, suprise suprise! It was really cute a quiet but within half an hour of being their we saw a storm roll in, we thought we could wait it out and spent an hour watching the thunderstorm over the sea. Once it calmed down a bit we made our way back to the hostel in the rain, which was actually a nice change from the heat!

In the evening we went for dinner and then drinks along the beach front, every bar had some sort of fire show going on, dancing and juggling with flaming batons an even playing long distance catch with them, throwing them over the head of the audience. I was less than keen on being sat under that and realized I was getting old when I was thinking about how maybe health and safety standards weren’t so bad after all and were needed in cases like this! But Grace reassured me they knew what they were doing.

As possible as that may be I still didn’t volunteer when it came to the audience participation part of the show, it involved a woman holding a cigarette in their mouth while they swung chalices of fire closer and closer to her until it lit the cigarette. After that it was a ‘how low can you go?’ competition under a burning stick, that I did get dragged into. It turns out the answer is ‘quite bloody low’ when the alternative is being burnt on the face. For each height round we completed we were given a shot and after a few rounds we decided to stop as fire and drunken people seemed a dangerous mix….that and it turns out were not super flexible..

Our fears about drunk people and fire were not shared by the bars entertainment team, who brought out large skipping ropes on fire and let whoever would like a go the chance to skip between them. This went about as well as you would imagine, several drunk people got singed and one quite badly burnt before it was put away.

The next morning we went on a boat trip around a few smaller islands, stopping to snorkel around a place called shark point where we did indeed see some small white tip sharks, monkey Island where we also say Monkeys and when we asked what type of monkeys they were we were told ‘local monkeys’ and this was our go to response when ever we saw monkeys after that!

Our next stop was the famous Maya beach where ‘The Beach’ with Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed, it was absolutely beautiful and somehow we managed to turn up at lunch time when the place was almost empty. The beach has only just reopened after it was almost destroyed by tourists and you are now not allowed to stay for more than an hour or enter the sea further than your knees. A rule that is enforced by and angry man in camouflage sat in the bushes who jumps out and blows a whistle at unsuspecting tourists. But the efforts have worked as the beach is back to its pristine condition. We also stoped at some beautiful coves the way back but the show stopper of the trip was right at the end as we returned in the near darkness, we headed to a known bioluminescence spot and got into the water to swim with them.

It was one of the most surreal things I have ever experienced. We were in water in total darkness and the water was the same temperature as the air so it just felt like floating in nothingness and then as soon as you moved your legs or arms quickly the water around you sparked in a green light it was an incredible experience that I can’t do justice with my explanation. But I was pretty knackered after 30 minutes of thrashing around so was glad that was the last stop of the day.

The next day Grace went scuba diving and I headed to the beach with a girl called B from our hostel and later made some other friends at the hostel too. In the evening we all decided to head out to a Mai Thai bar. The bar had an absolutely brilliant marketing technique, it hosted professional Mai Thai events (Thai Martial arts/boxing) in the early evening to draw in a crowd of tourists and then got them drunk with cheap promotional offers and then charged them for a chance to fight each other in the ring so that the customers became the entertainment for other customers. I mean if you have to put up with drunk fighting tourists you may as well contain it and make a profit out of it!

We discovered after a few rounds that size seems to be the biggest contributing factor in who wins. A fact we tried to impress on one of the girls in the group Yasmin who had done many Mai Thai classes in the UK. She was convinced her experience would outweigh her tiny stature. She was unfortunately paired against an Israeli girl who not only was twice her size but was on her post military service gap year. Twice her size and with military training, Yasmin never stood a chance but was gracious in defeat at least.

After the bar we headed down to a party on the beach and me and grace shared a ‘bucket’ cocktail, basically what it sounds like a cocktail in a small bucket normally used to make sandcastles. It was lethal, we probably only had a quarter of the bucket each and it nearly kills us. Worst hang over of my life and I vaguely remember a very fun night that involved riding an electric rodeo bull and lots of dancing. Safe to say the journey to the next ferry the following day was a struggle. One Grace kindly immortalised in photos for me!

Next was a short two days in Koh Lanta, we booked onto a snorkeling trip but unfortunately there were jelly fish everywhere. The guides assured us they weren’t dangerous but they seemed reluctant to get into the water and when they did they sent one guy to move the jellyfish he did it with a long broomstick, not a good sign. Our worries were confirmed when a family came back covered in long red lines over their arms and legs where they had swam across some. Luckily they didn’t hurt them to bad but we still weren’t to keen to get in the water after that so it ended up being a scenic boat ride.

The jelly moving stick

That evening we went to an outdoor cinema with people from the hostel, we ended up being late as on our first attempt to leave Grace slipped and fell face first into a big pile of mud. I think I deserve some sort of medal for contacting my laughter to under 3 minutes and not taking any photos! We eventually made it to the cinema just as the film was starting for a free cinema it was really good nice outdoor seating and we watched the Disney film ‘Big Red’ although we had to stand for what we dubbed the ‘King’s trailer’ which was a weird promotional video of the king that everyone stands with their hand over their heart for. It’s also played in public twice a day at 8am and 8pm and everyone freezes in the hand on heart position until it’s over. Which was very creepy the first time it happened and we had no idea what was happening.

Our next island was Koh Lipe, it would be the last we visited together before going out separate ways so we decided to book a nice beach hut and make the most of it. Unfortunately, things got on on a bad foot as the whole island seemed to be swarming with a plague of mosquitoes and I had managed to book a hut with no air-conditioning, seeing as we were seating just standing still that was never going to work. So I had a stressful hour of negotiating an air-conditioned room while Grace took herself off somewhere quite to refrain from hitting me.

After that we had a nice relaxing week and our luck improved…. mostly. I brought out the mango wine I had brought a few weeks ago and carried around since to celebrate our last few nights, execpt it apparently needed to be drunk sooner than that and when I opened it it just exploded on me and to room! Other than that our days were relaxing and uneventful apart from on our walk to dinner one night we were down an alley and came across what I can only assume was a big black dog, but all we could see were big eyes staring at us in the darkness and heard a low growl. We managed to skirt by and not get eaten so it could have been worse! At one point grace also decided to adopt some local kittens and lure them into our hut which was very cute at first until they found their way under an unused cupboard and scared out three cockroaches we were happy not knowing were there previously!

The taxis on the island
More delicious Thai food

After our few days of relaxing we headed on to Ao Nang a seaside village on the mainland ready for me to get a bus to Krabi and fly out to Vietnam and for grace to fly to Koh Tao.

I’ll tell you all about that soon, love Alice x

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Chiang Mai, Thailand

Our first day in Chiang Mai was pretty uneventful, we walked around the city like zombies, still knackered from our terrible sleep on the night train. we decided to get some comfort food, something from home we’d not had in a while, a sandwich! We should have known it was a little too good to be true, the bread was once again sweet bread and we paid twice what local food would have cost us for this disappointment. I would like to say we’ve learnt our lesson, but sometimes it just looks so delicious and when it’s been weeks or sometimes months since we’ve had it we get drawn in!

After sleeping most of the afternoon we finally felt human again around dinner time and decided to try out a restaurant we had heard rave reviews about from critics and other travelers alike. It boasted the nicest massaman curry in Thailand. So when we got there that’s exactly what I ordered. The waiter asked if I would like a small medium or large portion and I opted for medium after our disappointing lunch. It turns out medium was enough to feed a family of four! Luckily it was absolutely delicious so I managed nearly two people’s worth and Grace also selflessly helped a bit too. She had chosen one of her favourite Thai dishes, one we don’t see much in the UK and mostly only see in the north of Thailand. Khao Soi, it’s a cross between a curry and a soup, with noodles on the bottom and fried crispy noodles on the top. It was also delicious, the restaurant really lived up to the reviews!

On our second day in Chiang Mai we signed up for a tour, we were told we would be doing a hike to the highest point in Vietnam and around a waterfall but that wasn’t quite the case. Instead our first stop was being driven to a waterfall, it was very pretty and we did get to walk around it and do a quick 10 minute walk around it but after that it was back on the bus.

Our next stop was the kind and queen peaks, beautiful monuments to the previous reigning king and his wife one situated at either side of some beautiful flower gardens. The deceased former king was already placed in his monument but the queen was not as she was currently still alive and I don’t think she would take too kindly to being buried there just yet!

Our next stop was the highest point in Thailand, unfortunately we were again driven there instead of hiking it, but it was still cool to see. It’s also the coldest point in Thailand at around 17°c and the Thai tourists were loving it with thick jackets on and remarking how it was like Aircon but in nature! After this visit we did finally get to do a hike for around two hours which was pretty cool, we got to see some cool sights and Grace also got to use a cool walking stick which she enjoyed and I spent a big part of the walk almost tripping over.

After the hike we were taken to a local market and got to try lots of different free samples, I ended up buying some chewy dried mango pieces and a mango wine, which I ended up carrying around in my bag for two weeks until I realised it had gone off when I finally wanted a glass!

Our last stop was to a local tribe who had migrated to Thailand from Myanmar and had previously made a living growing opiates but now farmed coffee. I say used to, they did offer for us to buy some opiates and when we said no they claimed to be joking but we weren’t entirely convinced! It was interesting though and they told us how the local community had helped them learn a substainable legal trade.

All in all it was a good day although we did feel a bit like we were on the tourist convaioir belt. Although the day wasn’t wasted, we finally got to try the famous (amounts backpackers at least) 7/11 cheese toasty. It’s just a cheese and ham tosty you can buy in 7/11 convenience stores that they heat up for you. We had first heard about it from backpackers all the way over in central America and had laughed at one guy who suggested it was a staple of visiting Thailand but once we got here we heard a lot of hype about it. Surprisingly it really lived up to the hype it was super cheesy and delicious, I would definitely eat it again!

Our third day in Chiang Mai was based on more traditional food. We had booked onto a cooking course with a woman named Benny. Grace had done the course with her the last time she was in Thailand, several years ago, and still raves about it to this day as one of her favourite things she did while traveling. Obviously we had to book onto the course. A guy called AJ who we met in Bangkok was also keen to join us after hearing Grace’s raving review.

We were picked up in a tuk tuk and taken straight to a local market where Benny walked us around pointing out various herbs and vegetables we hadn’t seen before and showing us how the coconut milk we would be using was made and which chillies are best for different dishes. She also let us try anything we saw that looked good including some mini oval pancakes and a delicious spicy Chiang Mai sausage. We also saw some pink eggs and Benny explained the local taste for salted and fermented eggs and cracked some open for us to try. The salted eggs were a bit gross and I could tell from the smell of the fermented egg it was not the one for me!

After we had brought all of the things we needed from the market we drove back to Benny’s house where her and her partner had prepared a cooking area in her beautiful garden overlooking a rice paddy. We would each get to cook 5 courses from scratch: a soup, a satay stick, a curry paste which we used to make a curry, a noodle dish and a dessert.

We were each allowed to pick a different soup, meat to satay, noodle dish, curry and dessert dish. So me and Grace picked different ones for each to maximize our knowledge. We learnt so much, Benny was a great teacher and made it all so easy, I left feeling I could easily replicate the dishes at home with the right ingredients, time will tell if that’s true! The food itself was delicious, but Benny’s inside was the most interesting part she was telling us about how different dishes originated, what areas prefer what food and also just general information about Thailand and the Songkran festival that was currently happening.

Songkran is the traditional new year celebration for the Thai calender, it is traditionally to splash Somone with water to wash away their sins and normally cities all over Thailand have a massive city wide water fight. Unfortunately this was cancelled this year because of COVID.

Benny was also asking us about life in England and what people are there and how they cooked it. I was saying how my favourite meat was lamb and Benny commented that she had never had it as it was so expensive here but she had always wanted to try it as many tourists claim it is their favourite.

After several hours of cooking we finally got to eat our feast of 5 courses and Benny gave us free drinks, it was such a fun day we had really enjoyed it and so did Benny. She asked us if we would like to go for drinks with her and her partner Nan the following evening, they said they would show us some of the Songkran parties that were still going ahead against the rules. We agreed and also found a french restaurant that served Lamb and offered to treat them for dinner too. So we settled that they would pick us up at 6pm the following evening.

The next day was pretty uneventful for us, we spent it planning and doing laundry and general life admin. At 6pm we were picked up and headed to the French restaurant, Benny was super excited to try lamb but also felt very guilty as it was so ‘expensive’, which it is for Thailand, dinner and a drink here will normally cost around £2 where as lamb, which is not farmed here and has to be imported in is a bit more expensive, but for us as westerners it is still cheap. We ended up having four mains including lamb stew and a leg of lamb, a bottle of wine, four soft drinks, a bottle of water and four deserts and it came to £38! Less than £10 per person. Benny reeealllly liked the lamb and it was an experience to watch her taste it and try the texture and taste of it with and without other parts of the meal. It was honestly worth more than £10 to see her enjoyment!

After the meal they took us to a huge local club called warm up cafe which is a really famous club in Thailand but not on the tourist radar at all, we were the only non-thai people in the place. We had to do a covid test on entry which was a very surreal experience but once we got in it was really fun! Benny and Nan wouldn’t let us but a drink the whole night, they got us Thai rum and some coke to mix it with and we listened to some Thai bands and then had a bit of a dance in the air conditioned dancefloor.

Once that closed, we headed to the more touristy bar area and to a club called Zoe in yellow where the water fight was well in swing and they had a street party with giant sprinklers pumping water over the street, we got absolutely soaked but it was so fun!

A great end to our time in Chiang Mai, next we’ll be heading down south to explore some of the beautiful islands!

I’ll tell you all about it soon, lots of love, Alice x

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Battambang, Cambodia

The bus ride from Phnom Penh to Batambang was a long one taking 7 hours in total. We did have a stop at a service station for lunch, I ordered chicken noodles which seemed to contain every part of the chicken except the bits we eat in the UK. No leg or breast meat but plenty of internal organs, the chicken’s feet and even cubes of chicken blood sausage. I gave a few of the more edible looking bits a try but mostly concentrated on the noodles! Most of the group preferred to go hungry. Even the vegetarians were left disappointed after finding the only vegetarian meal was just a plate of morning glory (A kind of spinach eaten for breakfast here). You can imagine the jokes that provided us with…

Our next stop was one where we didn’t risk food poisoning at least, it was a small family run pottery. And when I say family run I mean it, everyone was involved from the grandmother making pots to small children digging the clay from the ground and a young teen adding insulation and concrete bases to some basic cooking ovens being made. It was a quite interesting and enjoyable stop, if you ignore the child labour! But the kids were playing in the clay and fascinated to see us.

Initially we weren’t sure what they were making. It was basically an insulated container with one open side and prongs on top. Used to light a fire in the bottom, once the container heats up you can put a pot or wok to cook with. Our guide Sarath was mind blown that we had never seen one before as it’s such a basic household item here and how everyone cooks. He couldn’t believe that we all had ‘fancy hotel ovens’ at home.

The grandmother also showed us how she makes the pots from the clay. Potter’s wheels are not needed here, instead she just walks backwards in circles around the clay. When someone asked why she didn’t buy a wheel she was mystified why anyone would need one. Getting me to walk around backwards to demonstrate how easy it was.

After a few more hours we reached Battambang. A few of us decided to do the optional extra of riding the ‘bamboo train’. The ‘train’ is an invention by the locals to use an old railway track to move things between villages. Two axles with rollers the right distance apart are put on the track and then a rigid bamboo floor mat placed over them to sit. Originally a hand pumped leaver was used to move the contraption along, but nowadays they use a motor.

It was great fun, we were wizzing along the track. At one point we met some locals coming the other way and with a huff our driver got us all off, took the contraption apart, let the other train pass and put it all together again.

Eventually we reached a small bridge over the river and the drivers stopped to let us get off and watch the sunset. Apparently we were a little too keen, we all got off at once leaving the driver and engine on one side of the axle and causing the train to tip up.

Once there, there wasn’t much to do except have a photo shoot, so obviously we did and milked it! We also saw some monks having a photo shoot too, so we weren’t the only ones!

The next morning we went on a bicycle tour. Batambang is known as the rice bowl of Cambodia, so we got to see everything and anything made out of rice. We had a joke on the trip that if you were ever unsure of what you were eating it was probably rice of some kind. This trip definitely proved that!

First we saw the process of making rice paper, the super thin paper like wraps used in fresh spring rolls. I even got to have a go at rolling one out to dry in the heat.

Next on the tour was a house making sweets out of, you guessed it, rice. They were nice enough but not really my thing, its like a ground down and condensed version of rice pudding I guess.

After that was a brewery making rice wine. Sadly we didnt get to try any, but that may have been for the best, the whole opperation had a very moon-shine feel about it and I actually enjoy not being blind…

After this we went to see a traditional Cambodian house that had been in a family for 7 generations and had a lot of antiques, it was interesting to look around and also super cool to see how the building let in a breeze and kept cool. They also showed us how they grind up rice as no stop could be complete without some rice facts.

The one stop of the day that didnt invlove rice was the Prahok making tour, I ended up being the only one brave enough (also know as smell deficient enough) to take part in this stop. I was taken around a fish processing area where a speciality of Prahok (fermented fish paste) was made. There were a lot of big open barrels of fermenting fish. I wasnt quite brave enough to try any but it was interesting to see the process.

On our way back from the tour we got caught in a large down poor of rain, so heavy we couldnt ride our bikes in it, some kind shopkeepers let us stand away from the rain in their large open shop, we were stuck there for about an hour but it ended up being one of our best stops. An impromptu meet and greet with two locals, translated by our guide they were asking us about where we came from and how things worked in our countries. They found it funny that white people are all obsessed with cheese, something not really found in cambodia, infact they dont really have a popular word for it instead calling it ‘American Milk’. That got us on to the subject of hotdogs, here what they’re called roughly translates to ‘American Dicks’ this let on to more dick related conversations including the fact that cambodians use ox cock as slang for aubergine but they also eat ox cock which lead to some hillarious pranks on some travelers. Eventually the rain cleared and we left our new friends behind and cycled back to the hotel.

Day two bike tour rice paper, rice wine, fish factory, rice cake, ride in the rain, ox cock. Evening saw bats walked up to Budda, tried crickets silk worm and raw meat.

In the evening we got to experience the famous bat migration at Phnom Sampov. We parked up and walked down what felt like an A road, the further we walked the bussier it got, there were food stalls and tables and chairs everywhere all directly under a huge cave, it had a real festival vibe, even though this happened daily.

The migration doesnt happen until 5pm so we decided to expolore the area while we waited. We climbed up the giant budda to get a view of the area and then after that hungry work we went of to try some local speciality foods.

A few of of us were brave enough to try crickets, silk worms and raw beef, (not sure why I was so keen to risk food poisining this close to the end of the trip, but luckily it was fine!) but we werent brave enough to try the raw chicken fetus even though our guide indulged and kept asking if we wanted some…

After our snacks, we sat down and waited for 5pm, when the migration would begin. First it was just a trickel of bats that came out of the cave, but then there were more and more until a thick stream of them could be seen coming out of the cave and snaking across the sky, there were thousands! The photos really dont capture how many there were and they kept coming at that volume for about 45 minutes.

We stayed until dark and then headed back to the hotel to rest after our jam packed day. The next few days will be just as busy, will write about them soon.

Love Alice x

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Phenom Phen, Cambodia

Our journey from Vietnam to Cambodia was a long one. Ten hours on a bus including a two hour stop at the border waiting for visas and exit and entry stamps. We got so bored we all had a go at squatting like the locals with varying degrees of success and then we just moved on to doing stretches and yoga because it was nice to move about after being stuck still for so long. Eventually we made it through the border and carried on to Phnom Penh the capital of Cambodia.

Cambodia is quite a poor country and it’s evident from the increased amounts of rubbish everywhere and farm animals wandering about, but it is also very green and beautiful. It has a real mix of roads, some built by the Japanese, which are smooth modern and in good condition and some built by the Chinese, which already appear to be crumbling with potholes. The locals call them the Chinese massage roads as you are bumped and pulled about like a massage. So the onwards journey was a mix of sleeping on the Japanese roads, only to be jolted awake as your head banged against the window once we hit the rougher roads in China.

We arrived, slightly more bruised that we started and in the evening and were supposed to go on a tuk tuk tour of the city. However, it is now the rainy season, so it absolutely chucked it down for two hours completely flooding the roads. So instead we went for dinner in the Hotels restaurant which was delicious, it seems Cambodian food is a mix of the best parts of Thai and Vietnamese food. Our guide told us here the word rice is interchangeable with food/meal as they eat it constantly, instead of asking ‘have you eaten yet?’ they ask ‘have you had rice yet’. After dinner/rice some of us decided to take a dip in the rooftop’s partially covered pool as we would be wet anyway we may as well enjoy the rain from up there with some beers, before heading to bed.

The next day we learned more about the Khmer Rouge an extreme communist party that took control of Cambodia between 1975 to 1979. The party’s aim was to establish a class-less communist state based on a rural agrarian economy and a complete rejection of the free market and capitalism. The way they achieved this was to enter cities, after the end of the brutal civil war for power, and tell the cheering citizens, who were just happy the war was over, that they needed to leave immediately as the city was about to be bombed by America.

Once they left the city with little food and next to no belongings they were not allowed to return, instead they were sent to hard labour camps to farm the land. The Khmer Rouge then arrested and killed thousands of members of the previous government and regimes, including soldiers, politicians and bureaucrats, who they considered to be not “pure people”. Meaning those who were not fit or capable of building the agrarian state they had set out to establish.

Over the following years, hundreds of thousands of intellectuals, professionals, members of minorities and ordinary citizens who were deemed not to conform were also killed in a systematic campaign to eliminate those deemed to be “impure”. With mass exicution centres set up across the country.

This eventually extended to anyone who had lived in a city or not done hard labour being killed. With people being executed if their hands were too soft, skin too pale or if they could not climb a tree fast enough.

There were 8 million people living in Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge came into power in their reign of just 3 years, 8 months and 20 days they had killed around 2 million people. 24% of the population. Mass graves are found all over the country.

Ending just forty two years ago, it’s effects are still seen deeply as you travel around Cambodia. The abolishment of money and free markets means the current currency of Cambodia is weak and is used side by side with US dollars (you regularly receive change in a mix of the two currencies). Normal schooling was banned and teachers executed, meaning even after the regime, there was no one to teach when schools could finally be opened again. It took 10 years to get formal education back in place, meaning a whole generation was left uneducated. Even now students only do half days, one group of children in the morning, one in the afternoon, so that teachers can teach double the amount of students. There was no public or private transportation, meaning roads and transport methods here are limited. Foreign languages, except those of communist countries, were also banned so people of a certain age don’t speak English. Our guide was in his mid/late fifties and told us how he illegally learnt English. The lack of food as the country collapsed also led people to eat insects and learn by trial and error which ones were safe to eat. These are still sold everywhere today: Tarantulas, crickets, Beatles, silk worms etc. Landmines are also still being removed from the land often by the,now grown, child soldiers who were trained to set them up in the first place.

Yet for a country where such horrific suffering happened so recently, I have never met such happy and friendly people. Cambodia is often called the land of smiles and I can see why, wherever you go people wave and smile and practice their English saying hello and good morning and bringing their children to greet you.

It was against this backdrop we visited one of the killing Fields outside Phnom Penh, Choeung Ek. It was truly harrowing. Near the entrance stands a stupa, when Cambodians traditionally place their dead. They had initially planned to dig up the graves and place the skulls of the dead inside as a symbol of remembrance. After removing 5,000 bodies from the site, they decided the number left inside the unopened graves was too large and that they should be left to rest in peace. I’d read about the number of dead, and the horrors they faced, but seeing rows and rows of skulls, and knowing this was just a fraction of those that lost their lives and suffered, the injustice and pointlessness of it all really hit me.

Behind the stupa are the mass graves, some dug by the prisoners themselves before execution, filled with the dead. So many people were killed here, that they attempted to save bullets by instead killing them with bamboo spears, sharp blades of grass or farming instruments such as hoes or hammers. The site is littered with bones, teeth and clothing washed to the surface by the heavy rainy season. The bones and clothing that wash to the surface are put in boxes as soon as possible but the sheer volume of them means that the floor is covered with clothes and teeth and bone fragments as you walk around.

The hardest part was the grave of the mother’s and children. The Khmer Rouge had a saying that ‘to kill grass, you must dig it at the root’ meaning that if they killed one person in a family, the whole family had to be killed so they would not plan revenge. To save ammunition when killing young infants and babies the soldiers would swing them against a tree, while making their mother’s watch, knowing they would be next. It was horrific to see and hear about and the last straw before most of our group were in tears. Even our guide a young woman in her 20’s was crying after telling us many of her aunt’s and uncles were murdered here. It didnt feel right to take photos on the fields themselves where these horrific things had happened, so I have none to add, but there is more information online if you are interested.

Equally as scary was the fact that the guide had asked us not to ask any political questions here and would pretend she didn’t hear us if we asked one even close to being political or relating to anything current. When we got back on the bus she answered the questions she had previously ignored, telling us that the current government is still closely linked to the Khmer Rouge with high officials previously having senior roles, even the president. She told us that tour guides are constantly watched for any criticism of the current government, she told us ‘we are not a communist country externally anymore, but there are always eyes and ears watching’.

The next stop was equally as difficult, we visited Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Housed in the infamous former S21 prison. The prison, one of nearly 200, was built in a school in the city and used to hold prisoners of interest to the Khmer Rouge, who tortured them for information. The torture would often lead prisoners to make up stories about being in the CIA or KGB and naming family and friends as co-spies meaning more and more people were brought in and tortured.

Cells were built inside the school and the inmates shackled to the floor given an ammunition box as a toilet. If they spilled any or made a mess they were beaten until they licked it all up. Three times a day they were tortured by beatings and having their wrists tied behind their backs and then being hoisted up on the previous gym rope bar by their wrists, dislocating their bones and ripping their muscles. If they lost consciousness their heads were submerged in a vat of sewage formed from emptying the prisoners ammunition box toilets.

20,000 prisoners were kept in the prison over the three years it was opened, 12 survived. Those twelve only survived as those who were adults were useful enough to the regime in the running of the prison that they were un-shackled and could run when the Vietnamese invasion came close to the prison and the Khmer Rouge soldiers were evacuating. The children were able to escape by hiding in a large pile of dead victims clothes. The rest of the inmates were killed in their cells. Their blood still stains the floor of the museum.

On a positive note we were able to meet two of the survivors. One, an old man, who told us about his life before, during and after the regime. How he was kept alive as he could fix the typewriters that the ‘confessions’ were recorded with. His wife and children were not so lucky and to this day he still does not know why they were all arrested. We also met a man in his late 40’s who was one of the child survivors who told us about his short experience in the prison, the last time he saw his mother through a window as she was taken to be executed, hiding from the guards coming to kill them and about being adopted by a unit of Vietnamese soldiers after they rescued him and then being placed in an orphanage.

Both men had written short books about their experiences which we also purchased. The old man told us to have a photo with him and to smile to show that it had not broken him.

The next day thankfully was a bit less heavy on the heart. We did a tuk tuk tour of Phnom Penh and saw lots of pretty temples and monuments to the king and one to a monk who had standardised the Cambodian language. We also learned about Mrs Phen the woman who founded a buddhist temple on a hill or ‘Phnom’ after she found a statue of Budda floating down a river inside a tree.

We also got to go on a boat ride on the Mekong River. As we waited for the boat to arrive we saw lots of birds in cages and our guide Sareth told us you can pay to release them for good luck so we all paid a dollar to release some. It didn’t get us much luck though, half way through the boat ride there was torrential rain and we had to turn back, we were absolutely drenched!

Hopefully the weather will be better in Batambang where we are headed next! I will tell you all about it soon, love Alice x

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Ayutthaya, Thailand

We travelled to Ayutthaya via train, my first train while backpacking actually, so it felt quite novel. We would only be traveling for two hours so we chose a third class ticket, which meant no Aircon and sitting on wooden benches but that suited us fine, we were slightly sweaty by the end but overall it was an enjoyable way to travel and we got to look out at the countryside and city’s that we passed through and got a view of the non-touristy sections of the country. We also got to see a lot of monks on the train (not quite the same as snakes on a plane but probably safer!) which felt a bit surreal at first, but we soon got used to it.

We arrived in the afternoon and walked about the town, it was super hot and sweaty which is the common theme in Asia but here it was slightly hotter and sweatier than usual. After a pretty uneventful walk we headed back to our hostel and after a sit to cool down in the Aircon and a shower (we are now showering at least two times a day, normally three!) One it had got dark we headed back out to grab some dinner, hoping it had cooled down slightly, it had not.

Thai restaurants normally have a large menu but the one we chose was even more insane than usual with a thick binders worth of meal options, no exaduration. Grace chose pad see ew, which is thick translucent noodles with soy sauce and oyster sauce vinegar and sugar. I went for a classic fried rice, we also got some traditional thai spring rolls to try. We wanted to try some more stuff but unfortunately the meals are always huge and it feels like a waste if you don’t like it or you’re too full to eat it. So we just tried each other’s and the dumplings.

Grace was debating whether to have a beer as they only had large bottles that are two drinks worth. Even after years of traveling with Grace and her making me try different types of beer in the hope that one day I’ll come round to liking it, (as if the fact it’s always the cheapest drink on the menu isn’t persuasive enough!) I still can’t stand it. So she was in luck when an Australian man on the table next to us offered to go half with her as his wife didn’t like beer either.

The couple both spoke fluent Thai but even without a language barrier there still seemed to be a cultural one about wanting one beer to share between two tables, with three different members of staff coming over in disbelief to check their college hadn’t misunderstood.

The couple were super interesting he was Australian and she was Indonesian. They both did a study abroad year in Thailand 20 years ago, not realising that no-one spoke English, so had to learn Thai pretty quickly. Not an easy feat, I think we’ve learnt about 6 phrases in a month of being here and that’s 5 more than most travelers here! Who’d have thought we’d miss Spanish! But they clearly had a knack for it, as they both spoke English, Thai and several Indonesian languages. They spent half of their year in Thailand and half in Singapore and we had a really fun evening chatting away to them.

The added bonus was that they knew a lot about Thai food and let us try loads of their wide variety of dishes. We got to try tom ya soup I liked it, Grace wasn’t a fan, some spicy shrimp paste sauce with local veg, and mango rice, a favourite desert here in Thailand. Grace liked this but I was less keen, sweet rice just feels wrong to me! We were also offered some raw shrimp which we kindly declined.

The next day was our only full day in Ayutthaya, so we wanted to see the ruins the city is famous for. Well… technically the ruins are the city I suppose. They were the old capital of Thailand before the Burmese invaded and ransacked it in 1767 and a more defendable position was picked for the capital. Even as ruins the city is still impressive and still very sizable as a town. We had a jam packed day, visiting 7 different sites in total various temples and royal buildings. Even in its decrepit state it was still impressive, we were saying how amazing it would have been to see the buildings in their prime, completed and painted, as we walked through a very run down building. At one point the walls were uncomfortably slanted inwards, we rushed through there quickly, not wishing to end up under a pile of rubble.

In one of the sites we saw a building still used for worship, one of the few where the Buda statue hadn’t been decapitated. They clearly don’t get many visitors here as we were the only people there apart from a female nun, who was obviously used to solitude… She let out a really loud fart and smiled to herself before hearing us trying to stiffel a laugh. She rushed off looking horrified. When we came to asia looking to experience new things, hearing a female monk fart wasn’t exactly what I had in mind but it’s definitely a memorable and unique experience I’ll give it that.

At another sites we got to see one of the decapitated Buda heads that had been enfolded into a tree which was a pretty cool sight.

Even walking between the sites we got to see some cool stuff, there were lots of Thai people in traditional dress taking engagement photos in different parts of the riened city, we walked through some beautifully tended parks and saw some locals riding elephants, we also noticed people selling lottery tickets everywhere apparently buying a ticket at a temple is supposed to bring you luck. So a very jam packed day.

After a long day of sight seeing we headed back into the new town to buy our train ticket for that evening, we would be getting a 12 hour overnight train to Chiang Mai. We wanted to book 1st or 2nd class compartments which are air-conditioned beds. But we hadn’t realised today was the start of a week long festival, kind of like Thai New year and everyone was traveling to see friends or family, so the only tickets still available for the next week were third class benches with no Aircon… It would be a long journey!

We had a few hours to kill before our train so we decided to grab some dinner and then check out the local night market. We figured we should probably eat in a restaurant rather than the market itself as the food would be less likely to give us food poisoning. How wrong we were. We ordered some fried rice and to me it just looked like food poisoning on a plate, I can’t even explain why, it was just pale and unappetizing, even the vegetables looked undercooked and tasted hard. I know sometimes my Crohn’s makes me slightly over suspensious of food so I just kept my mouth shut and tried to eat rice only. But it appears Grace had the same thought and after checking a piece of chicken, found it was raw in the middle. Thankfully the food only cost £3 each so we just paid up and left, we didn’t fancy trying to argue it out with a language barrier.

We had much better luck in the market, here all of the food is cooked to order right infront of you and you can see how clean the cooking area is, so we paid another £1.5 each and got a Pad Thai, it was tastier and cheaper than our previous meal and both of them together cost less than £5 so I still didn’t feel robbed.

There were loads of other cool stuf in the market too, big vats of delicious smelling curry, many varieties of meat on a stick, lots of sticky mango rice deserts and even some edible insects, seeing as we’ve both tried these before on travels, I can still feel the wing I got stuck in my teeth everytime I think about it, we didn’t opt for the bugs. We did however purchase some tiny jam donut like deserts which were really nice, but very sweet.

Eventually we waddled out of the market and towards the train station ready for our overnight train. The third carriage was rammed, me and Grace took our seats, two of us and our stuff squished on one bench. We were sat across from a woman who had booked two seats for herself so she could just about lay down on the bench, we were very jealous we hadn’t thought of that. We decided to take shifts in sleeping so we could watch over our stuff, as I’m more of a night owl Grace went to sleep first. About an hour after setting off a train attendant walked down the train talking to different passengers, unfortunately she did not speak English so I just had to hope what she was saying wasn’t important! About 10 minutes later she came back with a tray of pot noodles, she was taking food orders. I pointed to one of the pot noodles and gestured that I would like one, a woman sat across from me shook her head and said ‘no, too spicy’ she then pointed to another flavour on the tray, seeing as I can’t read Thai so was randomly guessing anyway, I agreed to the suggested flavour.

Thank god for that woman is all I can say! If what I ended up with was the mild flavour, I don’t want to try the spicy one! It was really tasty as pot noodles go, but boy was it warm. I was also left with the broth of concentrated spice at the bottom but seeing as there were no bins and I didn’t want it to spill, I had to drink it. It took a good two hours before I could feel the pain in my lips receding. I also think the woman and her husband got a bit too much enjoyment watching my suffering, especially when she asked me if it was nice as I was almost panting like a dog.

Around 2am we reached a stop when half of the carriage got off, including the woman opposite us, so we were able to have a bench each, we also gave up on sleeping in shifts and just slept on our bags so wed notice if anyone tried to take them, (they were already padlocked closed so taking the whole bag would be the only way to get our stuff).

We were woken by daylight and a few hours later we reached our destination Chiang Mai. Hopefully that will be the first and last 3rd class overnight train!

I will tell you all about Chiang Mai soon, lots of love, Alice x

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Bangkok, Thailand

Day two went to palace, saw show of local dances, tried a famous pad Thai place went out in evening. Exotic apple for breakfast.

After a short and hectic week stop over in the UK we have now arrived in Bangkok! We have to isolate on arrival here which means we were picked up from the airport and shuttled to our government approved hotel. As soon as we arrived a woman in a hazmat suit took samples for our PCR tests and we were sent to our room we would get the results back in the morning spend the rest of the day at the hotel before being released into Bangkok, if all went well. We got the all clear via a phone call at 7am and had planned to spend the morning making use of the pool but unfortunately Jet lag hit and we ended up sleeping until 2pm and then running around like headless to pack so we didn’t miss the check out time.

Even though we are now on a new continent it appears our habit of wandering about in the afternoon heat with our backpacks on has continued with us to Asia. We took what we hoped would be a scenic if not slightly long walk along a river to our next hostel. The river itself was pretty enough but every now and the we got an awful waft of rotting fish from the waste of markets along the river. But all in all it wasn’t too bad, we made it to our hostel slightly sweaty but otherwise unharmed, apart from the asault on our noses.

I had expected not to like Bangkok I thought it would be over touristy with small streets and a lot of litter like some other big city’s I’ve been to in asia but I actually really liked it it was clean with bright wide streets. I also thought I would have a bit of culture shock here. But although it is vastly different from Europe and Latin America I think I had already had the culture shock when visiting Asia/ Indonesia previously, so this time it was less of an adjustment. That’s not to say it isn’t a completely different world here, Just trying to cross the road will remind you of that! There are zebra crossings with green lights to indicate when you should walk but that is where the similarities end, here the traffic wont stop for the red light and the green pedestrian light indicates it is now your turn to try and cross the road, but you have to walk into a sea of oncoming traffic and the cars will part and dodge around you like a modern day traffic Moses.

You must also take your shoes off before going into any building even public toilets, although for toilets they sometimes provide communal flipflops to use once inside. The toilets themselves are not always western toilets sometimes they are squat toilets and it takes some skill not to pee on your own feet as a woman! But in every toilet they have a bum gun, as me and Grace call them, a small hose to wash yourself clean instead of, or sometimes as well as, toilet paper. Although apparently we are the weird ones in the UK as both Latin America and Asia have this.

Men and women must also have both their shoulders and knees covered when entering any religious, historical or government building. Which sounds fine in principle but is actually very hot and sweaty in practice.

On our first afternoon of freedom we decided to visit Wat Pho, one of the largest and oldest buddist temples in Bangkok. (Wat is what they call temples here). I wore a long dress that reached down to my ankles with a long sleeved shirt over the top and Grace wore a long sleeved shirt with some baggy trousers that came a few inches below her knee.

Unfortunately after a sweaty 20 minute walk to the wat we were told that if you were wearing trousers not only must they cover your knees they must reach your ankle and so Grace was turned away. We walked back to the hostel and Grace switched clothes ready for round two. This time we decided to get our first tuk tuk, basically a motorbike where the back has been adjusted to be a small bench. The hostel advised us to ask for a price and then start bartering at half that price, so that is what we did and soon we were off back to the temple.

The tuk tuk driver tried to tell us the temple was now closed and instead he could take us on a tour of Bangkok for a ‘small fee’ but seeing as we had just been to the temple we were on to his scam and got us to take us to the temple. But it was a scam we would hear again and again in tuk tuks.

On the second time we were allowed inside! The temples here in Thailand are really something else often made up of several buildings guilded in gold or decorated with intricate painted wood carvings it really is impressive, and photos and videos just don’t seem to do it justice. We wandered around the various temples and were lucky there were only a few other people around which Grace tells me is normally unheard of, she has been to this temple on her last trip to Thailand and it was heaving with people. I guess the testing and quarantine rules have put a lot of tourists off coming.

But it was wonderfully peaceful, we saw the seated Buda and locals praying to him alongside monks, which seem to be everywhere in Thailand, apparently every male has to do at least 6 months as a monk in his lifetime here. There are also rules around the monks and Buda. You should never ever touch a monk especially as a woman, you should keep your head down as they pass and try not to be taller or have your head above a monk or Buda, which is easier said than done when people are so short here. You should also never turn your back to Buda or point your feet towards him, we’re yet to figured out how we can do both of those at once but have gone for the side on to Buda approach! In general people don’t seem to mind too much as long as you are dressed respectfully, don’t wear shoes in temples and appear to be making an effort.

We also got to see the reclining Buda, basically Buda lying down supposed to represent him on his deathbed. It was an impressive structure, 15m high and 46m long! One of the largest in Thailand. The whole structure was golden except for the soles of Buda’s feet which were covered in pearls meant to represent the universe.

The temple is considered the first public university of Thailand, teaching students in the fields of religion, science, and literature through the murals and sculptures. A school for traditional medicine and massage was established at the temple in 1955, and still offers courses in Thai medicine: Thai pharmacy, Thai medical practice, Thai midwifery, and Thai massage. So of course we had to get a Thai massage here.

I endured the massage rather than enjoyed it, at parts it was almost enjoyable with the masseuse kneeding my muscles like dough but for the most part it consisted of him pushing his thumb into several spots along my legs and arms and then putting all of his body weight on it. Very uncomfortable and I was left with a very odd looking set of bruises!

For our first real dinner in Thailand, as I don’t think the quarantine trays count! We decided to head to….China town. We had heard if was a really cool place to check out and it was on our way home and we were hungry, don’t judge! It was really cool we saw all the flashing neon lights and the street stalls cooking delicious food and we eventually stopped at the nicest looking one and had a dinner of gyozas (fried pork dumplings), chicken and veg in oyster sauce and egg fried rice and drinks. All for £4! One of the best things about Asia is the delicious food that’s so cheap!

‘mush cooked to order’ safe to say we didn’t eat here!

On our second day in Bangkok we decided to check out the royal palace built up throughout the centuries by every new king. I must say that Buckingham palace looks rather plain in comparison! Again it was an impressive mix of wood carvings and gold painted buildings.

After we had finished looking at the palace we saw our entry ticket also included a free show at the royal theatre, so we got a tuk tuk there for the next showing. The show was super cool and interesting it showcased traditional dances from different periods and different regions of Thailand as well as including a short traditional play about one of the Thai gods and his fight with a sea demon.

In the evening we went to try a place Grace accredited as having served her the best pad Thai she had had while in Thailand the last time she was here. She was right it was delicious! Also probably the best Pad Thai I’ve had whilst in Thailand too! Pad Thai for anyone who hasn’t had it is a delicious noodle stir fry dish traditionally served in an omelette basket. It was actually introduced during world war two when Thailand suffered a rice shortage and quickly became a staple dish in Thailand.

A pad Thai I made myself recently! No egg basket as I’m not a pro!

That evening we went out to the famous party scene in Bangkok, Khao San Road, with some people we’d met in our hostel. It was a fun night with a mix of tourists and locals and the music reflected that. Although we still managed to hear lots of Latin American Regatón music, it seems we didn’t leave that behind either!

The next morning we headed out for breakfast feeling a bit worse for wear. I ordered a fruit salad and spent about 5 minutes trying to figure out what one crunchy piece of fruit was, it tastes familiar but had a crunch texture like water chestnut and it definitely wasn’t a fruit I’d had in any of my breakfasts while here or in centeral America. I gave Grace a price to try (she had curry for Breakfast, while in Thailand I suppose!). Grace quickly realised what it was and laughed her head off at me…it was Apple! Turns out I may have been away from the UK for a bit too long…

Next we’re off to Ayutthaya, the old capital city. I will tell you all about it soon! Lots of love, Alice x

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Panama City, Panama

Day one went to ecological museum, art deco very cool, Scotland joined UK as derian attempt failed. Saw Panama canal, went for a fancy evening meal got free champagne and desert for sitting on the road.

Day two very long walking tour, poor people live there they have water and light. Went to the molar museum very interesting

Got to fate at airport and there was a whole dance as it seemed to be a brand new route to Europe, plane was delayed for an hour.

Please stay seated until we meet our fucking position.

Panama City was our last stop in Central America, we had two days here before we flew home. On our first day we decided to go to the famous ecological museum we had heard it was really interesting giving information about the ecology of the whole of Centeral America.

It was a really cool museum, the building itself was art deco and very interesting to look at built by a famous architect Frank Gehry. The content of the museum was also really fascinating it was one of the best museums we went to, it detailed the history of the formation of the land bridge between north and south America which we now call central America, with displays about the different types of rock formations. Which I can’t say me or Grace were super interested in but we did have a fun time jumping in front of a seismic activity/ Richter measurement device. Somehow tiny grace seemed to make bigger waves than me. More interestingly we found out about how each area looked before the connection and what the bridge allowing movement between the two areas meant for the different species that had evolved there.

For example they believe giant sloths from South America (who I can confirm really live up to their name after seeing a lifesize model!) Were driven to extinction by sabour tooth tigers from the north and that the south had its own sabour tooth tiger of sorts that had evolved independently, however it had a pouch for young like a kangaroo. We also learnt about lots of cool species of Central America still alive today including some frogs that live their whole lives above ground in trees, they don’t even return down to lay eggs, instead laying eggs in pools of water caught in leaves of trees. We also saw a jaw of an extinct Megladon shark, which could have swalloed me whole while standing up with no issue!

The museum also had a section on human history in Central America detailing the native people and their way of life, the conquest by European invaders, including the Scottish who put a substantial about of money into trying to conquer and control the Daren area of Panama, now know as the ‘Daren gap’, they were unsuccessful and te endeavour almost bankrupt Scotland leading to them agreeing to join the UK. It also had a section about the building of the famous Panama Canal. How the French had tried to build the canal originally, but had tried to make it all at sea level and had gone bankrupt, selling the rights and equipment to the US who completed the project using locks. It also detailed how Panama came to eventually own the canal itself.

So after spending most of the day in that very interesting museum we headed outside to see the one thing we couldn’t leave Panama without seeing. The Panama Canal itself! The official museum for the canal was still closed after Covid but the ecological museum was right next to part of the canal and we had a beautiful view of the bridge of the Americas crossing the canal. We sat in the shade for a while watching some ships sail along it before eventually heading back to our hostel.

As it would be our last evening meal before heading home tomorrow evening we decided to dress up and go somewhere fancy, or at least get as dressed up as you can be while living out of a backpack! We had booked a fancy restaurant for 7:30pm but decided to go to a bar overlooking the city for sunset beforehand. It was a very pretty bar and we drank cocktails and talked about our trip highs and lows while the sun set. After finishing our third round of drinks we decided to walk to the restaurant while we could still walk! We ended up arriving 15 minutes before our booking and the hostess apologised profusely. I’m not sure why she felt it was her fault we couldn’t keep time but she seemed very relieved when we didn’t shout at her and told her it was fine and we would wait outside.

There didn’t seem much point in heading anywhere else for the sake of 10/15 minutes so we walked around the side of the building and sat on a curb to wait, this sounds worse than it was as the curbs here are several feet high, so it’s basically like sitting on a bumb high wall. While we were sat there, some police on bikes came and in broken English made us promise not to go any further down the road as we ‘looked too expensive for the area’ and may attract trouble. Turns out we do scrub up well after all!

The restaurant hostess had come to check on some of the alfresco diners along the side of the restaurant on the road we were waiting on and seemed absolutely mortified by the fact that we had been ‘reduced to waiting by the curb and had been harnessed by the police’ in her words. She again smothered us in unnecessary apologies before bringing us to a table and providing us with free glasses of champagne. I can only imagine what sort of people she has to deal with daily as again she was visibly relieved that we weren’t shouting at her or going to complain to the restaurant. So relieved in fact that she gave us free champagne all evening and a free desert too! It was a delicious meal (even the parts we had to pay for) and very fancy which was a first on this trip! But even eating in the fanciest restaurant and leaving a 25% tip, how could we not for the wonderful hostess, the meal came to £25 each! We kinda wish we had gone fancier earlier now…

Our flight the following day wasn’t until 6pm in the evening so we still had some time to explore until then. We decided to do a free walking tour of the town. The tour was pretty awful but as there were only two other people so we couldn’t sneek off and leave. Instead we were dragged around the town and taken into churches where the ‘guide’ and I use that term very loosely ready information to us from information plaques mounted on walls that we could already read for ourselves and didn’t really provide any insight of his own. Except for one point in a church he pointed to the floor and said ‘come look, dead people’ to alert us to a sign about catacombs in a church and another time when we asked his thoughts on the gentrification of the city forcing poorer locals out, as there were signs protesting about it, and he pointed across to a far off block of flats and said ‘we put poor people there, we give them daylight and water what more do they need’. Which is a line I now use on Grace whenever she complains about anything.

Although the tour guide didn’t really give us any meaningful local insight, some of the places he took us were at least a little interesting we saw 6 or 7 churches all with huge nativity scenes that took up a whole room which was pretty cool, although less so after the 4th one you’ve seen… We also saw some weird modern tech in some of these churches including LED prayer candles and a electronic holy water dispenser which felt very strange to see.

After we had given our tip for the tour we decided to do our own exploring and came across a weekend craft market which was cool we saw some Guna people selling their handmade fabrics known as molars alongside some more contemporary crafts. Grace decided to buy a glass necklace pendant of a sloth and the seller showed us how he made them himself by hand. He then made us two smaller matching sloths on string bracelets that he gave us for free.

After a late lunch we decided to check out a museum about the indigenous Guna people and the molars they make. The museum was free but really interesting especially after our visit to a Guna community in the San Blas Islands. The museum explained their traditional molars used in clothing and what different patterns and symbols meant, spirals to trap evil spirits, zigzag patterns to harm and ward off bad omens etc. Beads on their arms and legs to protect them, a line drawn down the nose to eccentricate a long thin nose which is the height of beauty to the Guna. It was really interesting to see how such a traditional unchanged art had been passed down for hundreds of years, it was especially cool to see the traditional methods used to capture things in modern day life such as mother’s making their children traditional shirts but with Spider-Man on the front made in the traditional way. Very surreal and an interesting way to end our day and our time in central America.

After collecting our bags we headed to the airport, but there was one last suprise in store for us, (well two if you could a bottle of water costing $10 USD in the departure lounge!) We had picked a Lufthansa flight home that had a stop over in Germany rather than the standard stop in the US most flights do, as we wanted to avoid having to apply for a visa waiver and getting a PCR test.

What we didn’t realize was that our flight would be the first direct flight from Panama to Europe that airport had offered so at our gate we got to watch an opening ceremony that involved traditional dancing and a live band. So a good send off for us!

But don’t worry it wasn’t too sad flying home, we got to see our family and friends for the first time in three months! And besides,y we were only home 8 days before heading off to Asia! But that is another adventure for another post!

Can’t wait to tell you all about it soon! Love, Alice x

P.s. we had a German Piolet with a strong accent and when after landing he tried to say ‘stay in your seats until we reach the final position’ it came out as ‘stay in your seats until we reach the fucking position’ which amused us no end as we initially thought he was just having a bad day and was sick of people getting up to early ?

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San Blas Islands, Guna Yala

From El Valle we took a long bus to Panama City, we would be back after San Blas to check out Panama City properly, but for now we stayed one night before being picked up at 5am ready to make our way to the San Blas Islands.

The San Blas Islands are an archipelago comprising around 365 islands, of which 49 are inhabited. The area is home to a tribe of indigenous peoples known as the Guna. The Guna are self governing and decide who is granted entry into the islands. Tourists are only allowed on certain islands that are not inhabited by Guna families.

We started the day by driving four hours in a jeep along a potholed road through dense forest to get to the coast, from here we were greeted by Guna boats that would take us on another hour to the islands. We had been told that nothing is set on the islands, you could be placed anywhere, some days you get a trip, some days you don’t and where you go is random and never to schedule so you just have to go with the flow.

This was the case on our first day, we arrived with our small backpacks full of clothes and snacks for 3 days along with a big barrel of water to be told we were going on a trip straight away and wouldn’t be able to drop anything of first. So we arrived at ‘little dog island’ with all of our stuff and had to take it exploring with us.

The island itself was beautiful, golden soft sand and crystal blue waters. We got to relax here for a few hours, apparently there is a shipwreck in the water you can snorkel around, but we didn’t find out about this until after we’d left.

We got our first island meal here of deep fried fish, salad and potatoes (it would become our standard lunch and dinner meal for the next few days). Before lugging all our stuff back on a boat to explore some ‘natural pools’.

These natural pools were areas in the sea where sand had built up so that the sea was very shallow, it was interesting to see. We also saw some locals in a traditional boat and some star fish which was cool.

Orange juice that made us giggle

After a few hours swimming here we were taken back to the island we would be staying on, it was also beautiful and much quieter than the one we were on today. We were staying in a dorm which was basically thin weaved walls and a thatched roof all made from dried coconut leaves and branches.

That evening the family taking care of us on our island asked our names but after struggling with Grace and hearing it as ‘rice’ decided to rename Grace as ‘Arroz’ the Spanish for rice. There were also two Dutch girls Maude and Annabella, and Maude also got renamed to mouse. That evening we spent chatting with the girls and watching the sunset on the island before getting an early night, we were knackered after getting up at 5am.

The next day we were woken by someone blowing into a Conch Shell which is how we were called to every meal. So we got ready for the day. Today we would visit big dog island, this was another beautiful island this time slightly larger and with a lot more tourists, we watched as a group of American women took several hours to get the perfect ‘candid’ shot! We were more concerned with snorkeling the reefs surrounding the island.

At lunch Mouse mentioned it was her birthday and so the locals gave us all lots and lots of free alcohol and put on music, they also made her a cute fruit basket shaped like a bird.

We were also taken on a second trip but unfortunately it was to the same place as yesterday so this time we decided to snorkel around the sand build up of the natural pools. Two of the younger tour guides who had been giving us beers came to see what we were up to and when they saw we were snorkeling they were keen to join in. One of them was pointing out sting rays on the ocean floor but it was way to far down for us to see so he dove down at least 15, if not 20m deep (on one breath!), to poke the stingrays so that they moved and we could see them. He also went down a second time to pick up some starfish to show us. It was cool to see but I’m not sure how good it was for the health of the starfish!

After our trip was finished we were taken back to the beach and given more drinks where we decided if you couldn’t beat all the people having photo shoots you may as well join them. I should probably point out the following (very unflattering photos) were a result of us being a little drunk and very much taking the piss.

Although we did get some nice ones too! So we’re not total munters after all…

That evening we were alerted it was dinner time by the blowing of the Conch Shell and this time we asked if we could try blowing it, it’s a lot harder than it looks!

After dinner we bought a bottle of rum and played lots of drinking games for Mouse’s birthday. Including a very silly one called vikings, where one person is the Viking and has to wiggle some fingers on her head as viking horns, the people either side have to mime rowing a boat and everyone else has to sway about pretending to be a wave all shouting ‘Viki Viki Viki viki’ until the Viking points at someone else to be viking and everyone mush change thier action and the last one to do it drinks. It was really fun and some french guys in their 50s joined in with the games but they were soon verrry drunk as they had already had a bottle of rum before joining us. So at 10pm we all pretended to go to bed so that one of the guys could convince the drunker one it was time for them to go to bed too.

After they had gone to bed the rest of us came back out and watched the stars and chatted for a bit before heading off the bed ourselves.

The next day was our last, in the morning we chilled on the island and did some snorkeling and in the afternoon we were taken to the main Guna island where a lot of the population live and where most of the children got to school. There were children absolutely everywhere and they were all eager to say hello, practice their English or just show you a cool trick they could do it was really fun engaging with them.

We got to look around their town meeting room where they have debates and council meetings and we also got to see the shops selling supplies (I assume from what we ate of mostly rice beans and potatoes! ?) We also got to see the women working on traditional clothing and textiles they call molar. I didn’t take many photos as it feels a bit intrusive, but it was very interesting to see.

After our visit to the main island was done we headed back to the mainland and a jeep journey back to Panama City. Our time on San Blas was truly beautiful and not something we will forget in a hurry.

I’ll tell you all about Panama City soon, lots of love, Alice x

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El Valle, Panama

We only had one full day in El Valle, it was just a filler stop to break up the long journey from Santa Catalina to Panama City, but we actually really liked it here and probably would have stayed another day if we had time.

But the short time we did spend here was super fun. We were staying in the same hostel as the girls we had met in Santa Catalina, Liv and Rachel, and also saw two of the guys, Patric and Jamie, we had met in Bocas del Toro. We arrived late in the afternoon and sat in the hostel garden chatting, we were all too tired to do much else. It was Liv’s birthday the following day and our only full day here so we decided to pack it full of activities.

We started the day at 4am ready for a hike up a nearby hill to watch the sunrise. Well all of us except Patrick, he claimed the very idea of waking up early to do a hard walk was barbaric and that anyone who woke him would meet his wrath. Seeing as he was a good foot higher than the rest of us we left him be!

We hailed an open back collectivo to take us to the start of the walk, he seemed unsure when we got on of where we wanted to go, but insisted he could take us there despite us saying we could get a different collectivo. It turns out he did not know where he was going at all and took us 10 minutes in the wrong direction. Eventually we got him to stop and he admitted defeat and phoned a friend who gave him institutions. We got to the start a little later than we had hoped for but this turned out not to be a problem as the driver just kept on going up the path, off road, until he had taken us up about a quarter of the trek and the car physically couldn’t fit any further along. At this point he finally stopped and us four and 6 other people from our hostel doing the same hike got out.

I asked the driver how much we owed him and he said $25 USD and looked shifty about it but before I could question it further one of the guys from the other group was collecting $2.50 from each of the 10 of us and handed it over. The guy then asked if he could take a photo of us all and had already blinded us with a flash from his camera before we had a chance to respond.

When the lights had faded and the collectivo had finished it’s 90 point turn and headed off, we started the walk. It was a little strenuous but the hardest part was seeing where you were going in the dark, there were a lot of loose rocks prime for a twisted ankle. Luckily after carrying her head torch around for 3 and a half months it was finally Grace’s time to shine and put it to use.

Gradually we made our way upwards and as we went it started to get lighter enough to see a little, although the higher we got the windier it got too until we almost at the very top and on a thin path on the side of the hill, the heaviest of us were struggling to push forward into the wind and the lighter of the group we actually being blown backwards. Luckily the wind dropped slightly and we made it around the other side of the hill. The final part of the assent was up a thin path to somewhat of a peak. Grace, Jamie and myself didn’t quite fancy risking ourselves going up there as we already had a pretty cool view for the sunrise so we let the girls go on ahead while we found a good spot.

It turned out to be a pretty average sunrise anyway as there was a lot of cloud, but it was still nice to see.

Afterwards we headed back down the hill, this time in daylight and I must say it was much more pleasant and there were lovely views all around, although it was still slightly treacherous in the wind. At the bottom we got a collectivo back into town it cost 25cents instead of $2.50…. turns out our last driver had scammed us and then taken our photo as bragging rights!

The final part of the walk we missed off.

Once we made it back to the hostel we all took a nap for an hour or two. For lunch we decided to go to a pizza place Patrick highly recommended. Grace ordered a pizza but the rest of us went for a panini after hearing Patrick go on about how good they were for the last hour. Plot twist they were not good. Not even close. They were very anemic looking rolls with so little cheese that a mouse would have starved to death from eating there. A very disappointing birthday lunch for Liv!

In the afternoon we decided to visit some thermal springs, it was a good way to relax our aching muscles and they even had some mud from the springs that you could rub on yourself, so obviously we gave it a go and smothered ourselves from top to bottom. We then sat and played cards while the mud dried and found ourselves cast in the positions we had sat in… Once we had crunched ourselves up straight again we washed the mud off in the shower and had lovely smooth skin underneath.

In the evening we went out for a meal to celebrate Liv’s birthday and to hopefully make up for the awful paninis. We chose a local restaurant that was very tasty, and Rachel even managed to get a birthday cake made. Although something was lost in translation and it was huge and very very sweet with thick marshmello frosting, so it was hard to eat more than a small slice. We ended up giving slices out to everyone, the staff at the restaurant, some local homeless people and anyone who was around at the hostel when we got back.

We planned to go out that evening but apparently the one bar in town was closed so instead we stayed drinking at the hostel and playing drinking games and unfortunately our poor Costa Rica playing cards with frogs on ended up covered in beer! But apart from that it was a really fun evening and a brilliant end to our brief time in El Valle.

Next we’re off to Panama City, ready to be picked up for our tour to the San Blas Islands! Something I’ve wanted to do since our last trim and that I’m hoping will be the highlight of our trip! I can’t wait!

Tell you all about it soon, lots of love, Alice x

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Santa Catalina, Panama

I feel like a lot of posts I have written on this trip have mentioned how hot it has been, turns out those places were nothing compared to Santa Catalina. Just existing here is unpleasant and you are covered in sweat from sitting in the shade. Unfortunately for us, the hostel we had picked was a thirty minute walk from the beach in the baking sun all the way and there was no pool or Aircon or restaurant at the hostel. Just one fan for a room of 9 people.

On our first day we decided to walk down to the beach in the hope of getting some food, we tried to shorten our walk by heading down various side paths that all claimed to have restaurants down, but every time they were either closed or super expensive. After an hour of many detours we reached the beach, by this point we were absolutely dripping with sweat and had discovered new revelations about ourselves in the heat. Apparently when I’m uncomfortably hot I start puffing out air and sound like a pissed off horse huffing away, gryace on the other hand sounds like a pissed if sailor and swears and curses anything that moves and a lot of stuff that doesn’t.

When we reached the town by the beach, most of the restaurants were closed as it was now nearly 3pm. We noticed an elderly couple from our hostel at a restaurant at the far end of the town waving us over as it was still open, so we hobbled over and sat down. The main meal was nice although the waitress slammed the food and drinks on the table as if we’d personally offended her by daring to order food at her restaurant. That didn’t stop us from ordering dessert however, as we were determined to fill up on enough food that we wouldn’t need to make another long trip down for dinner. Unfortunately for us the cheesecake we’d chosen to share lived up to its name a little too well and tasted very cheesy indeed, accompanied by a chewy rubbery texture. The dogs on the beach were well fed that afternoon!

We chilled out on the beach for a bit hoping the temperature would start to cool off but around 5pm it was still baking hot so we syked ourselves up and started on the walk home. It finally cooled down from the high thirties to the low thirties/ high twenties around 1am and we finally got some sleep.

The next day Grace had booked a scuba diving trip and I had paid for a snorkeling trip, both of which were in the national marine park. The older Dutch couple from our hostel, Peter and Madeleine, who we had seen at the restaurant the previous night were on the snorkeling trip too.

The guide had promised we’d see a lot on the trip, however our first sighting was very unexpected indeed… We spotted the president of Panama! He landed in a helicopter right next to the pickup point for our snorkeling trip. There were special police everywhere. With grey camouflage on and black balaclavas with just a slit for their eyes. They looked very much like baddies from a bond movie, but we were very impressed they hadn’t already roasted to death inside head to toe clothing.

Photo from Google but this is the uniform

Our second spot of the day came on the boats out to the reservation islands. We saw dolphins as they swam and jumpued out of the water right next to the boat! It was very cool to see!

The first island we visited was a tiny thin split of land surrounded by coral reefs, we saw lots of cool colourful fish and also a reef shark. Although sadly I also ended up telling one couple on our boat off for standing on the corals. I mentioned this to our guide who also reiterated not to do this, the coral grows only a cm each year so standing on it and breaking it cases decades of setbacks, it’s also full of bacteria that you really don’t want in your foot.

The second spot we headed to was another island, this time with lots of trees on. The reef here is a cleaning spot for turtles, they stop by and tiny fish nibble at their dead skin. Although these fish aren’t picky and will also nibble humans as well as I found out! I have been to the fish feet spa so I assumed fishes nibbling me in the water would feel the same. However, after swimming over a dense part of the reef my legs were absolutely covered in fish, I assumed if I started swimming and kicking my legs this would stop the rather forceful nibbling, it did not. It was a rather unpleasant and unsettling feeling and I swam as fast as I could for 10+ minutes to get far enough away from the reef that they would leave me alone! After catching my breath I swam again to the edges of the reef, careful to avoid any fish, and I was rewarded by seeing not one, but two huge turtles! The guide remarked after they were some of the largest she’s ever seen.

Our next stop was onto the largest island on the reserve, here we climbed up to a viewing platform and our guide explained how the islands on the reserve used to house prison buildings and no boats were allowed in the area to prevent escapes, this is why the area is so untouched. There is also a huge crocodile on this island called Tito that the locals feed and it will appear if you call for it, but none of us fancied making the call, especially as we had nothing to feed him, we didn’t want to end up his snack!

Our last stop was at another island with lots more colourful fishes and here we also saw a sea snake and a puffer fish, so we definitely got our money’s worth!

I had spent most of the day chatting to the Dutch couple, they were really nice and told me how they were retired and spent a month of every year traveling around a new country. Madeleine also insisted on creaming my back for me so I didn’t burn and also asked if I would like a lift to town for dinner as they had a car! Very nice people indeed! That evening we couldn’t resist a free lift in an air-conditioned car so myself and Grace got a lift from them into town and we ended up having a nice dinner together, chatting about all the different places they and we had been. At the end of the evening they kindly offered to take us half way to our next destination in two days time as they were headed in a similar direction.

The next day we decided to chill on the beach, this time walking down super early when it was at least slightly cooler and finding a spot of shade to hide from the sun in. It was honestly too hot to do anything that took us too far away from the water. In the evening we got chatting with some girls at our hostel, we were all going to go out to a party although none of us could stay late as the girls had to catch the 7am bus and Peter and Madeleine had offered us a lift at 8am (although they later said they were happy to leave at 10am so we could have fun at the party as they’re complete babes!).

We ended up losing track of time and sat chatting until midnight, at that point none of us could be bothered to do the sweaty walk into town and, as it turned out we would all be staying at the same hostel in the next stop, we decided to call it a night and go out at the next town.

So we had an early-ish nights sleep and a beautifully air-conditioned journey halfway to our next destination, El Valle de Anton. Which meant we didn’t have to get up at 6am and we only needed to get two buses instead of four!

I’ll tell you all about El Valle de Anton soon, lots of love, Alice x

P.s. I almost forgot to tell you about the unluckiest person we met while traveling. A German girl in our dorm here. Santa Catalina was her second stop on her holiday and not only did she also end up in this booking hot Hostel in the middle of nowhere she managed to get diarrhea on her first day in a dorm where all 7 of us shared one bathroom connected to the room, there is no keeping that one to yourself. That evening the girl in the bed above her accidentally unscrewed the top of her water bottle in her sleep and it all leaked out onto this German girl in the bed below. She didn’t realize it was water and thought the girl above had wet herself so she slept on the floor. The next day she decided to go to the beach and got bitten by a dog, the local hospital patched her up and gave her a tetanus shot but she needed to take a 8 hour bus the next day to Panama city to get a rabies shot. Then on her final night before she left for Panama city a big wooden slat from the bottom of the bed above her came loose and fell on her head leaving her with a huge bruise! Honestly talk about being unlucky! I only hope her luck improved in Panama city!