I had such an amazing two weeks and experienced some pretty incredible things. I finished off my last post arriving in Bangkok. After checking in we chilled out in our hotel room after a pretty long, uncomfortable train journey and then went off to the shopping centre in the afternoon to have a browse. It's really cool in there and we found an amazing cheap restaurant that serves the best pasta I have ever tasted. I miss how cheap everything was!
When we arrived it was Songkran festival in Thailand which is the celebration of the Thai new year. It starts on the 13th April every year and continues to the 15th. It's a massive celebration and the streets are packed with people having water fights and spreading chalk all over each other. It comes from the tradition of water washing away all of your sins and bad luck and the chalk is used in reference to the chalk monks used to mark blessings.
Everywhere you went you were likely to get wet which resulted in me having my purse and phone constantly in a plastic bag. We picked up our water guns at the market and then proceeded to Kaoh San Road that evening. I was definitely not prepared for how mental it was! The streets were absolutely packed and everyone was moving along at the pace of snails in one massive crowd, horrible! We made a beeline for Burger King, had some food and waited for about 45 minutes and eventually it did clear slightly. Still really busy but at least we could wak down the road. It ended up being one of the best nights I've ever had, the streets were full with people dancing and spraying water guns and having such a good time.
Tuesday I have nothing to say, we pretty much spent the whole day in bed recovering and having a much needed rest and lazy day watching telly. The evening was fun though. We got ourselves all dressed up and headed off The Dome at Lebua which is the sky bar from the film The Hangover 2. We got a hangovertini which is a whiskey based cocktail - super strong but I wanted the novelty - and enjoyed the amazing views over Bangkok.
On Wednesday me and Pippa attempted (for the second time) to go to the Grand Palace. After the journey, which takes quite a lot of effort, we got there eventually only to find out it was shut all day for Songkran. It was just not meant to be for me to see it! However I did get my baggy thai trousers which I was super excited about!
We headed back to the hotel, had a last dip in the pool and then set off for the airport for the 9 and a half hour flight to Sydney. It was an overnight flight with Quantas and I was very impressed by the service, we even had a menu!
We landed in Sydney and cleared immigration (just about due to my error when doing my visa!) and set off for the hostel. We're staying in Wake Up which is probably the best known and most popular backpackers hostel. We're in a mixed dorm of 6 but if I'm being honest I'd rather be in a 10. The room is tiny and so far all our roommates haven't been very sociable so we've made friends in other dorms and floors and had to sneak in the early hours of the morning so as we don't wake everyone up. The hostel itself is really clean, the staff are so helpful and friendly and the best thing is we have a bar downstairs so it's a super short walk back to our room.
I didn't want to sleep when I was there as to avoid jet lag, so we had a wander around the hostel, went to the shops to get some food as we were cooking quite a lot so we save money and just generally getting a feel for it. On Friday we went on a guided city tour run by the hostel. It was so interesting to see everything and realise how close everything is, it was raining which was a shame but was still good fun and this is where we met quite a lot of people. That night we all went to one of their dorms, played drinking games and then went to the bar downstairs.
On Saturday it was sunnier so a few of us decided to do the walk again to get some nicer pictures of everything. Unfortunately by the time we got to the opera house it was still cloudy so no blue sky photos for me but at least it was warmer and wasn't raining! We also found the rocks square which was really cool. It had loads of little shops and cafes and a German bar which was meant to be really good but a little bit out our price range!
After getting back to the hostel I went and bought myself a cheap Australian phone and SIM card which will make life so much easier as I have to call a lot of the companies to book onto my tours and accommodation. I also stopped at a salon and had my hands and feet done which felt sooo good! That evening a group of us went down to Darling Harbour to watch the fireworks which were amazing. They spend $70,000 on a display every Saturday! We then went for drinks at a local irish bar and of course ended up in side bar!
On Sunday we were meant to be going to the Blue Mountains but didn't get up in time - I'm going to do this when I'm back for 4 days at the end of my Australia trip. Instead we chilled out in the morning and then went off to Bondi Beach with a couple of Pippa's friends who was able to show us around. It was so windy though so we didn't actually get on the beach we just ended up having drinks in a bar but it was lovely and was still nice to see it!
Today is Monday and the weather is horrible. It has rained constantly all day and has been really cold so we've had to find things to do inside - pretty hard when everything is based outside! We needed up going to the museum of contemporary art which was cool and then visited Sydney's oldest pub. We finished off in Cyrens happy hour so got cider for $5 and an amazing pizza for $10. Now I'm just waiting to hop on my 10pm bus to Spot X for surf camp - got a long 9 hour bus journey ahead of me - fun times!
Speak to you soon.
With love, Lauren x
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