Stop 1: Bangkok, thailand

Please press play to set the vibes for the Bangkok read

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE – SABRINA CARPENTER

Hello fellow friends,

I know this is a blog post which has been long awaited so I thank you for your patience. I write this blog post from an overcast but very toasty poolside hotel in the fancy part of the city and i must say, it is a delightful way to spend a Sunday.

I’m thinking of the best place to start because it feels like i have been here forever, as my mother would say, i’m squeezing out all the drops (which comes hand in hand with not checking my bank account).

DAY 1 – Khao San Road

After a very sad goodbye to my family and friends, I was off on my travels. I hopped on an 11 hr flight from Heathrow to Bangkok, but it was overnight so anyone who knows me knows I had no problem with this as I am a very sleepy girl. I touched down about 3pm and had a stinker trying to find a cab. They use this app called ‘grab’ here, but finding the pick up point in the sweltering heat with my ridiculous backpack could have been improved with some pre-planning.

My thoughts in the taxi were as follows:

1. I don’t know what I am going to do with myself now that I am here 
2. It’s very hot 
3. It looks dystopian, a bit like that episode of ‘Love, Death and Robots’ when the man is trying to kill the woman (hopefully no foreshadowing here). 

I arrived at my Air BnB (in between China Town and Khao San) and thought… I’ve hit the jackpot. In hindsight I possibly set the standard a little too high from the get-go. I had a nap and met up with an Australian man. He was nice enough but a bit boring and kept talking about death (no intentional link to Love, Death and Robots). We went for dinner and then got quite drunk on Khao San Road which is literally as crazy as everyone says it is. There was a bunny man dancing on the table and shakey bum bum, I absolutely loved it.

DAY 2 – The Three C’s

The Three C’s are Coffee, Cinema and Chinatown as funnily enough this is what I got up to on my first full day here.

I woke up at 8.30 and decided to try and find a tattoo shop that I’d seen online. I walked in the blaring heat and the whole time was just thinking ‘get your steps in, its good to sweat because you loose more weight’ but honestly I was on the brink of passing out. If there is one thing I cannot stress to you enough about Bangkok in July, it is that it’s very hot. I ended up at this lovely Vietnamese café about 25 mins from my house and had the most delicious iced coffee. I’m sure they use condensed milk here because my gawd is it delicioso. I had some egg rolls and rice paper rolls which were 4/10 but it was my first breakfast here so we’ll give it a 6 – actually the coffee brought it up to an 8.

While I sat here I pondered the following: 

1. The people here are so friendly 
2. I feel really safe and not that anyone is staring at me 
3. I need to learn some Thai because this is embarrassing. 
4. There are so many different genders of people here and no one seems to bat an eyelid.
5. A lady scanned a QR code to pay her bill via her bank, I’m witnessing a technological revolution.

Post breakfast I continued my hunt for the tattoo shop and ended up down an alleyway where some locals sent me in the wrong direction but were very nice people none the less. I gave up on the tattoo hunt and took it as a sign from the universe and wandered home (again, very hot).

I decided to take myself to a 4D cinema, a showing of Twisters which is about some Tornado chasers. The film was fairly average but my god I was getting clarted around by these moving chairs and got sprayed in the face a few times by a miscellaneous substance. I wished someone was with me because I kept wanting to scream but I kept my composure. After an hour and a half I was pleased I was by myself because I realised I had seen enough, so decided to head on my merry way. The malls here are absolutely insane, you’ll have to google them but they are ginormous and state of the art so I’m really pleased I managed to hit 2 birds with one stone on that one. 

In the evening I headed down to the food market in China town and this was the second point in my trip I thought, I may pass out. China town is absolutely crazy, on par with Khao San Road but it’s like walking into a volcanic crater because there are so many people cooking and it’s absolutely packed.  

Not to sound like a pick me but my appetite is not so big so only managed to scoff down a mango and sticky rice at the market, but it was 10/10 and the lady that served it to me was really friendly. It cost me the grand price of £2. 

I decided to stop for an ice cold Chang and do some people watching, where one American girl came and told me I was beautiful and an old white man started waving at me for a good 20 seconds, to which I did not return the wave. I started chatting to this Welsh guy who was getting hassled by the food vendors, and he invited me to come and sit with his friends, there were about 8 of them and they were lovely (shoutout to Will if you’re reading this). They invited me for a drink with them however after a remarkably alcohol heavy first night, I decided to go home and go to sleep.

Day 3 – Jetlag and Boozy Evening via Boat 

The jetlag got me girls. I woke up at 1am and didn’t get to sleep till 4am, however I mediated my fury with a trip to 7/11 for a naughty toastie and some skinny cigarettes. To my own surprise, I woke up at 1.30pm feeling like a new woman so I put on ‘Please, Please, Please’ by Sabrina Carpenter and had a dance in my room. Post routine, I booked my cab to my dinner cruise.

Eventually I came to terms with the fact I was going to, unfortunately, miss my booking due to the traffic (as is the nature with boats – its hard to get on them if they’ve already left). HOWEVER, by the glory of GOD I made the dinner cruise with minutes to spare. It was absolutely ginormous, free flowing beer and a buffet, however due to fish allergy I could only have rice, chippies and cucumber. In hindsight this probably contributed to the fact I got very drunk later in the evening. There was a singer on this boat and we got to see so much of the city via the main river, – 2 birds, one waterborne stone. 

A lovely Thai family came to talk to me and take a photo, and subsequently a Kiwi family invited me to sit on their table (always in my hearts Mark, Mikey, Greer, Imo, and Muzzy).

We ended up moving our seats to sit together for the Cabaret show afterwards and they kept talking about setting me up with their son (to which I was very keen as I imagine it’s a very straightforward gig if you’ve already met the in-laws). The ’ladyboy’ show was fabulous, amazing dancers, brilliant performers and the costumes were unbelievable. we were on the front row which was a bonus.

Regrettably, I made my way back to Khao San Road via tuktuk…

I was on a very friendly vibe and chatted to just about everyone who was in a 2 metre radius of me. A Colombian man who looked like Hugh Jackman (the Wolverine one, not the Les Mis one) and his nephew bought me a beer, then I sat with some English guys. I moved on to a new bar and met MORE Kiwis and an English girl called Rose who I got matching bracelets with.

LOTTIE <3 ROSE

DAY 4 – Weekend Market and Muay Thai

Woke up from a boozy evening still feeling drunk but definitely on a downwards spiral. Given having already missed a whole day due to being hungover and jetlagged, I decided to promptly make my way to Chctachuk (JJ) Weekend Market.

Again, feelings were summoned of walking into the pit of a volcano which wasn’t helped by the growing nausea. The market was fabulous and huge with a really impressive second hand section. I picked up some shorts, a white top and a little checked top for the grand price of £5 for all of it. Slight problem being that you couldn’t try anything on so all clothes ended up being a little small – we move. 

I decided to get a cool beverage and sit down to delay my impending hangover and got a Thai Tea. This made the whole day worth it, I’ve actually not stopped drinking it since. Think rooibos with milk but it’s sweet and Thai, this was still the best one I have had so far. 

I ventured into a huge building of vintage clothes, but there was a powercut and after seeing the steep prices I decided I had done my shopping for the day and ventured home, tea in hand, heaviness in heart.

I caved and ordered a McDonalds and another thai tea and sat by the window feeling sorry for myself, however the corn cake really perked me up. I mentally prepared myself for the Muay Thai tournament which was about a 15 minute walk from my place (BONUS). 

The Muay Thai was so cool and I sat next to a lovely South African couple who were so in love, it really cheered me up. Slight problem being there was free beer at the event, so after vowing to never drink again, I may or may not have had 3 beers. This severely impacted my sleep. 

DAY 5 – A Woman of Luxury

In a way I was pleased to have no sleep because instead of venturing to the nearby Yuppie neighbourhood of Ari, I decided to pay my £25 and go to the Business District to go to a fancy hotel and use the pool. This re-set me in every way possible and allowed me to get cracking on said blog. 

I enjoyed a delightful meal with the £25 credit, which I enjoyed as I’ve hardly been able to eat any street food because of the fish, so being somewhere quite fancy allowed me to specifically make sure there was no fish. Following this I had two mojitos at happy hour and started to crack on with Harry Potter and the Philosiphers Stone on the kindle (no-one ever told me Hagrid got expelled?). 

LAPPING UP THE RAYS AT SOFITEL, SUKHUMVIT

I then mooched (as I do so well), and found a beautiful outdoor restaurant and had a margie (for the culture) then mooched some more to a rooftop bar as this was on my Bangkok bucket list. I had an old fashioned and met a lovely couple who spoke to me about their travels and lives together. Mary and Paul, if you are reading this it was a pleasure to meet you.

After a delightful day, I got ready for my date with Ches and as it transpires, it was the best date I have ever been on. We stayed up till 4 watching the football at a really good bar, at which we had a brilliant spot after plotting up a few hours before the game started. Paul and Mary checked in on me via Whatsapp so I considered them my adopted parents for the night.

DAY 6 – On The Move

After packing and getting ready for my trip to Chiang Mai to Pai in the North, I went to meet Ches before I left. He was on his second day of getting a tattoo and I brought him a mango juice and got myself my favourite coffee (Vietnamese place) to pass the time for an hour before I left. 

My overnight sleeper train left the station at 6.40pm, so naturally I arrived to the station 2 hours early, got a Thai Tea, and mooched. The sleeper train wasn’t too bad, I managed 7 hours of sleep and as I write this post I am at Chiang Mai transfer station waiting for a glorious 4 further hours on a minibus. I managed to find a Thai Tea so all is well. 

CATCHING Z’S ON THE SLEEPER TRAIN – IF YOU CAN, BOOK THE BOTTOM BUNK. I WAS TOO LATE IN BOOKING BUT I IMAGINE I WOULD HAVE HAD A MORE PLEASANT JOURNEY LOL

The next post i will be writing from the hippie paradise of Pai – stay tuned!