8 posts tagged “thailand”
Ok I am finally feeling well enough to update my vox! What with christmas and being on holiday and being ill, I just realised I've not been at work for about 5 weeks. Erk. Monday is going to be quite a shock to my system.
Anyway, with my suntan fading fast it's time to relive some of my memories and show you the photies!
Sadly my memory card spazzed up and deleted all my photos from my first 3 days which i was reaaaaally annoyed about especially as the ones from my first day in Chiang Mai were some of the best I've taken. So instead i will substitute some 'borrowed' images from the web. Many thanks to the people I am borrowing them from!
The journey over wasn't too bad. It was actually much nicer breaking up the journey into 2 6-hour flights rather than one long one like when i went to china and japan. The worst bit was probably the 8 hours I spent in Dubai airport but at least all the shops were open at 3 in the morning, which you wouldn't find in a uk airport. hmph.
So Eric met me at the airport after having to wait ages cos my plane was delayed, poor boy. then we we went back to his and his girlfriend's flat which was my base in bangkok. soooo nice to have hot temps after english winter! and the heat wasn't suffocating me with humidity like when I was in shanghai. The next day (saturday) we went to a theme park called dreamland (i think) in the morning which involved me screaming lots on rollercoasters. In the afternoon we went to Chatuchak market where I didn't buy anything because I was too overwhelmed with too much stuff to buy and it all being so cheap. I did like looking in the animal section though - puppies! and kittens! and hedgehogs!
Sunday we did the touristy bit and went to see the Grand Palace and temple and the reclining buddha temple which is waaaay bigger than i imagined. (borrowed photos below which i may replace with erics if he sends them)
Monday, Eric had to go back to work so I caught a plane up to Chiang Mai and stayed in a guest house there for most of the week. I loooooved chiang mai and I didn't want to come back to bangkok! I wish I'd had longer there but with only 2 weeks for my whole holiday I just had to make a promise to myself to go back one day. I was beginning to become bitterly jealous of all the people I was meeting who were in the first week of their year long trips! On the plane I met a canadian guy who lived in Chiang Mai and his sister who was visiting. They were giving me travel tips and then when we landed they very kindly drove me to my guest house and then drove me up to see the temple at doi suthep! I am amazed at how nice people can be that you meet while travelling and I totally forgot to exchange email addresses so I could write to say thanks properly. boo. Anyway here are some borrowed photos of Doi Suthep - it was absolutely amazing when I was there. bright blue sky, shimmery gold temple and monks in their orange robes. I want my photos back :(
I forgot to say that the guest house I was staying in cost less than £2 a night! and it had the most laid back backpacker vibe. hehe.
The next day I went elephant riding and white water rafting and trekked up to a waterfall and i had SO MUCH FUN. this was pretty much when i decided that i never wanted to come home again :p
Oh my photos are getting too jumbled now. boo :( that's the one thing i think isn't quite right about the vox inteface unless I'm doing something wrong. oh well.
Anyway, before I went back to bangkok I just wandered around Chiang Mai by myself generally having fun. I went to the night bazzar and went to the zoo and drank a lot of ice coffee
Back in Bangkok for the weekend, we took a day trip out to Ayuthaya which used to be the capital of thailand and is full of ancient ruined temples. We hired a taxi for the day for about £20 and the driver acted as our tour guide. so cool!
After the weekend eric went back to work again and I flew down to Krabi where I spent the night in a slightly dodgy but cheap (£2) guesthouse before getting the boat across to ko phi phi. Arriving on phi phi I was quite impressed to find that for some reason my standard beach bungalow had been upgraded to a luxury one with aircon and tv. result! Island life was as you would expect - lounging around in the sun and doing pretty much nothing! I read 6 books while i was here and felt thoroughly chilled out by the time I left. I also got rather sunburned. I did take a boat trip around the islands, did some snorkelling (wowee, I've never seen coral reefs before!) and saw Maya bay where "the beach" was filmed.
Then of course back to Bangkok for some shopping! I was happy to find some of my favourite japanese shops in Bangkok (like Loft! argh!) and in the stationery section of the siam paragon department store i started doing my hyperventilating thing that i do when there's too much i want to look at/buy and I don't know where to start - row after row of colour coded pens, aahhhh! also went a little crazy over the japanese kids books in kinokuniya but only bought one in the end, along with a kids book in thai to add to my collection :)
well that's it. think i need a few more months there really!
more photos in my flickr as always
halfway through my holiday and i feel like i've been away for months...
I've been to the Chatuchak market, grand palace and various temples in Bangkok, travelled up to Chiang Mai, stayed in guest house costing less than 2 pounds a night, been elephant riding, white water rafting, up Doi Inthanon and Doi Suthep, blessed by a buddist monk...
managed to lose half the pictures off my camera too.
Currently back in Bangkok for a weekend of day trips before i head down south for beaches and sunsets
full report on my return
checking out....
leaving tomorrow. weeeeee! back in a couple of weeks. have fun while i'm gone!
So it's just typical that Bangkok is bombed 4 days before I go there. bah, i guess that's what you get for living in the world these days. anyway, my friend is fine which is the main thing.
I can't believe I have to go back to work tomorrow. how depressing is that?! I was really starting to get the hang of sleeping in and doing whatever the hell i feel like every day. sigh. i wish some really rich bloke would hurry up and marry me so I can have a life of leisure! I'm less concerned about finishing my work than finding time to shop for the last minute bits and pieces I need for my trip. Decided to spend my xmas money on buying a decent backback too as I realised it's pretty insane that I just keep borrowing one considering the amount of travel I do.
New years dinner at my mum's tomorrow. she's done it every year since I moved out and the people round the table are different every year depending on which friends and housemates are around at the time. the most fun year was definitely the one with my dad, boxit, eric, neil, and a couple of bottles of homemade wine bottled the year I was born. fun times..... sigh.
I've been freezing cold all day and I just can't get warm despite turning the heating right up and sitting in a duvet. I was doing the washing up before and my hand went all tingly. when i took it out of the soapy water 2 of my fingers seemed to have no blood supply - they were yellow/white and the rest of my hand and fingers were pink. it seems to be ok now though. i'm a freak.
Realised I forgot a couple of 2007 goals:
- learn to drive
- go climbing with ian at least once
I'm feeling much better about my japanese this week. I'm really going to try harder and try to do at least half an hour a day. I've got flash cards and i'm listening to japanese pod casts on the metro. I will beat it!!! Also decided to pick up learning norwegian again after reading a few debates on whether or not it's a good idea to learn 2 languages at once. I want to learn one that's easy! and I've been wanting to learn at least one scandanavian language for a while. I already have a book and cd for norwegian and it's supposed to be a good starting point for learning swedish and danish (written danish is practically the same anyway) so if i do decide to persue my idea of working elsewhere in europe I'll at least have some language skills to get me started. Plus it would be cool to be able to ask for directions and things when I'm in oslo next year.
And I ran for longer at the gym! hurray! beat my previous time. I'm still getting bored but not really getting tired out any more. my ipod battery was dead tonight so i got bored even more quickly. meh!
A successful week all in all...
got my thailand injections this morning - tetanus, diptheria, typhoid and hepatitis A. fun! It's only 4 weeks til i go now. eeeek! still have no idea where i'm going to go or what i'm going to do. and so much christmas shopping to do before then! which reminds me... anyone want to look after 2 cats?
Not sure what i'm going to do tonight. i'd quite like to go out for a drink but i don't know where ian is and i'm not going to go sit in a pub by myself! guess i might just get a bottle of wine and chill out in front of the playstation...
I have a confession to make. I am actually planning on buying yet another plane ticket.... found out ryanair fly from newcastle to oslo for £35 return including taxes and the times mean i wouldn't even have to take an afternoon off work to go for the weekend. So I think i'm going to go with vicky next year. We're meeting up on halloween for dinner and we'll discuss it then, inbetween spooky cupcakes and scary movies. I love halloween.
After that trip I'll be saving up for cuba :p
Planning all the places i want to go and things i want to do is really what keeps me going. i alternate between really happy and really sad. life is just such a big mess. the only thing i can do is continue to seek out the things that make me happy and at the moment that means sacrificing my food/clothing/heating budget for plane tickets. i feel like a little speck floating around forever. may as well float somewhere interesting.
My amazon order came which was funded entirely from £35 worth of amazon gift certificates courtesy of my amazon credit card and rpoints. free stuff makes me happy.
There's more on the way. i also got a japanese dictionary but think i might return it - it's not quite what i was looking for. I really need to sit down and browse through them before i buy. maybe a trip to borders is in order... and i'll try to hide from the temptations of paperchase. I'm getting better at japanese but i still feel totally out of my depth in class. everyone else is a much more confident reader and i feel like i don't know what's going on half the time. oh well, only practice will improve me. more time please?
I am reaaaaally excited about thailand. I'm going to have to stop thinking about it or i''ll spend all my time between now and january looking up stuff on the net. i haven't seen eric in years so it'll be nice to catch up properly and he'll be able to tell me all the best places to go and hopefully show me around when he's not working. i am in amazement at the abundance of beach front apartments that cost just a few pounds a night. some of the hotels are more expensive obviously but they're still way way cheaper than they would be in the uk. look at this amazing hotel in bangkok. i have no idea where i'm going or what i'm doing yet, i'm just excited :) need to get hold of a guide book and talk to eric.
well it's late and i should go to bed. friday tomorrow. hrm. i secretly hate weekends these days :p i want to be busy!!! need to get a saturday job or something... pay for all my plane tickets.
I am going to THAILAND
that is all :)
