Week One

The Journey..

Airplane...Waking up at 3:30 didn't seem so hard when adrenaline is following as was so excited but very nervous to be leaving. Arrived at charls just before 5:00, being the first one to arrive which makes a change. Helen and emma arrived soon after and we say our goodbye and were off. Once at the airport it was clear that Charls dad was quite nervous to be leaving us all. I attempted to put my backpack on which I realise I can't actually pick it up without help.. hopefully I will get some upper body strength.

Once on the plane I feel relaxed as we set off for one on the longest flight I have ever been on. The airplane was pretty good had a T.V set with loads of games and movies on to keep us entertained. On the plane we were given sooo much food which was all Indian food (as our connecting flight was in Mumbi, which I didn't realise was the capital of India). I mainly napped as I have taken travel sickness tablets which make you drowsy. On one of my naps I have a bad dream in which I woke myself up by screaming, which the girls thought was hilarious but other passengers just gave me a very odd look. I was just pretty embarrassed!! When we got to Mumbi we couldn't land due to monsoon rain so it added another 2 hours to our flight meaning we would miss our connecting flight. Luckily the plane was delaid as there was so many flights unable to land, so everything was fine, but didn't stop us panicking.

We arrived at around 8:00 in Bangkok. We split off as 4 as Helen and Emma were getting an internal flight to Ko Sumui, and Charl and I were waiting for Hayley (another one of the travelers) to then book a night train down south. The train wasn't leaving until 19:00 so we had the whole day to spare. We found a Tut Tut and asked him to take us to the MRT (massive 7 story shopping mall). We then first hand experienced the 'one stop', in confusion with thinking he needed petrol we agreed to stop. When we stopped outside a clothes shop we realized they wanted us to go in and buy something so he got free petrol. We argued with the driver that we were not going in and we want to be taken straight to the mall, he reluctantly and angrily started driving again whilst we were terrified every time we went down an alleyway that he was going to leave us there. Once in the mall we looked around, went to a canteen lunch in a traditional thai place which was so cheap and yummy. We found these random booths that were for karaoke which apparently is a popular thing to do in Bangkok. By the afternoon we were knackered so went for coffee in Starbucks where we fell asleep in for 2 hours!! So hilar as they just left us to it, we were right next to the window so I am sure we got a few weird looks from people going by. We also went to a fish spa where the these little fishes eat your feet.. I wasn't a fan of doing this but Charl and Hayley thought it was a good plan. There feet after were apparently softer?!

The Night train...After seeing pictures when booking the night train (in which it looked fairly glamorous) actually seeing it was a totally different story.. I thought we had the wrong carriage or seat numbers or something. After the initial shock I decided it wasn't 'that bad'.. until well I saw the toilet. The window was made out of metal bar and I did think it was a little breezy, the toilet whole bit went straight onto the track, and it didn't smell particularly good. The cool part was that around 23:00 a man came round a whipped the seats into bunk beds which were fairly comfy and I managed to sleep. The last leg of the journey was a ferry to Koh Phangan, were we would be meeting all 9 of the other girls. The ferry crossing would have been fine if we could have sat inside as with no suncream and no shade led to Charl and I getting very burnt, Hayley just ended up getting nicely tanned. Made some friends on the boat so seemed to go fairly quickly.