The Adventure Starts Here

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By the time you get to read this blog, after many months of preparation and planning, we will be in Bangkok. The starting place for our adventure.

This is going to be a whole new experience, we have backpacked for three weeks before but had Sharon, Scott and Gary with us to guide us through the tricky moments, now we have six weeks to fend for ourselves, with the minimum amount of clothing possible (less than I take for a weekend back home!) but armed with numerous guide books and a wealth of tales of experiences passed onto us by our chidren!! They both did it for a year or more so surely we'll manage six weeks, won't we?

Well at least that's what we told ourselves but then Sharon went and announced that her and Scott were giving up their jobs and setting off on yet another year's travel. So, sharon is starting out three weeks before Scott and joining us in Malaysia, (4 weeks into our trip, 16th August to be exact) it looks like we won't be going it alone after all. We have done all the planning so maybe it will be a case of Sharon following our lead this time, we'll see!

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Well, we made it here last night and guess what? It's not raining despite it being rainy season! Unlike Britain when we left. We jumped on a bus when we left the airport and got to our chosen hotel near the Kho San Road under our own steam.

By 10.30pm we were out in a street bar downing our first Chang beer since Christmas. It was so nice to be back!

Next day despite a touch of jet lag, we made our way to the Grande Palace. Naturally we travelled by tuk-tuk (well, being in Bangkok you just have to do it, that’s if you don’t mind risking life and limb as you weave in and out of the busy traffic!)

We’d expected rain but instead it was hot and sunny. As we got out of the tuk-tuk we were bombarded with parasol sellers. We spent the morning tramping around the many ornate temples but were a bit disappointed to find that the Emerald Buddha was closed that day.

Our hotel’s roof top pool made the perfect location to relax and recover in for the afternoon.

That evening we got talking to lots of fellow travellers. A couple we met in Geko Bar, Alison and Jason, were very interesting and told us all about a ‘Save the Orang-utan Project’ in Indonesia that they’d just finished. They’d also been near the Gili Islands and Perhensions so we had loads of stories to exchange. As we parted company at the end of the evening they hugged us goodbye as if we had been their long lost friends.

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