Tag: Thailand

We had a quick pitstop at Ao Nang, a seaside town on the mainland. From here we would split up and take busses to separate parts of Thailand, Grace was headed east to do her diving course and I was headed north to Phuket airport and onwards to Vietnam.

It wasn’t quite as plain sailing there as I’d of hoped, as I arrived to find my flight to Thailand and my flight home to the UK had been cancelled so I spent the first half a day in Ao Nang contacting airlines and chasing refunds so I could rebook my flights. but after a tense few hours I managed to rebook everything. The rest of the afternoon we spent chilling by the pool and we headed out for one of our last few authentic Thai curries in the evening, then on to a bar where they tried to sell us magic mushroom milkshakes and weed, but we settled for a few rounds of beer pong with some people we had met instead.

The next day we decided to visit the famous Railey beach a small peninsula only accessible by boat with interesting rock formations and beautiful beaches. We got into a boat taxi which was a merge if a traditional boat with an engine on a stick propelling us through the water. Unfortunately for us it rained most of the time we were there, but in-between we still managed to walk to all four of the famous beaches and we spent a good hour watching people rock climbing up the side of a cliff face.

We returned back to the mainland and then packed ready for our busses the next morning.

We started off on the same bus taken to the local depo and then had to wait for our separate busses which ended up taking about an hour. In that time I managed to accidentally lure in about 10 cats by opening a bag of crisps and then had to spent the next 5 minutes fighting them off, much to the amusement of the other people waiting. Eventually we said our goodbyes and got onto our busses ready for the next part of our adventures. This part I’d be without my chief navigator so I had decided to book onto a tour.

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

Leaving got surrounded by cats who wanted my crisps

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.

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!

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

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

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

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!

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.

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