So South East Asia begins

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Hello dear Blog readers.

Finally we have the time to write another blog- sorry it has been so long we have been travelling around a lot the last couple of weeks and it has gone by so quickly.

We left Varkala on the 15th February to fly to Sri Lanka to get our flight to Bangkok, and what an experience that was. The flight from Trivandrum to Colombo was fine and took all of 45 minutes. However the 15 hour wait in Sri Lanka is another story.
We arrived and were immediately told that we were not allowed to go and wait in departures but had to go to a hotel or wait in the Transit lounge (consisted of 4 plastic seats and was 1 square foot of floor space).
We were then told by immigration that we were not allowed to leave the airport unless we had a 'hotel voucher'. Were then told we hasn't got the right documents to get a hotel voucher (nothing to do with the fact we were the only female Westerners there). A 'friendly' man from immigration then approached us and asked us how many dollars we had- if we had enough we might be able to leave the airport. Great.
We were eventually let into departures and spent the afternoon trying on make up and spraying lots of perfume around.

The airprt was reallllllllly quiet and we turned into mini celebrities amongst the security staff- one offered us a ride around the airport on the back of his vehicle (we declined) and a few others tried to make us add them on facebook- so we had friends to stay with next time we visit Sri Lanka (again declined).

Eventually made it to Bangkok in the morning on the 16th February and got dropped off on the hectic Khao San Road. Found a hostel and immediatly went to bed to recover from our 24 hours lack of sleep.

Decided to go for dinner on Khao San Road and we discovered it was literally like being on a student night out- all the bars were playing cheesy R n B and offering really really cheap drinks- and trying to get people to go by advertising them as really strong and that they don't check I.D- funny times.

We did quite a bit of sightseeing in Bangkok- lots of amazing architecture which is very different from India- took a little time to adjust to where we were. We spent a couple of days visiting the Grand Palace the Wat Pho, The National Gallery and China Town. It's amazing in China Town- you can literally buy anything you want dirt cheap- shoppers heaven.
We spent an evening at The National Theatre for a Classical Thai music performance with dance. It was great to see inside the theatre and the performance was very good but sadly I did fall asleep at some points of the performance- still got the gist of what was going on though : )
We were going to go to The Chatuchack Market in Bangkok which is apparently the biggest best market in the world but as we were in the tuk tuk on the way there it started to pour down so we headed back to the hostel- soaking wet.

We departed Bangkok on the 20th February to head North to Chiang Mai. We were on an overnight train and me and Lucy were so happy during the entire journey- it was like a five star hotel compared to Indian trains. They cam around and made our beds up with sheets AND pillows. We met some nice guys on the train and whiled away the time playing card games.

We had such a good time in Chiang Mai and could probably have stayed for a lot longer as the atmosphere is so chilled out and laid back. We spent our first day wandering around. The Old City is all within a moat- so we walked around this to get our bearings. That evening we went to The Walking market which only happens on a Sunday and was really good. We ate loads of amazing food ( some didn't sound so good- for example a doughnut filled with shredded pork and peanut butter).

The next day we departed for our two day hilltribe trek with 11 other people. We were all similar in age and hit it off straight away on the 2 hour journey in the most cramped van ever to go Elephant riding.

The Elephant ride was one hour long but I'm not sure we covered much distance as they are really slow and unsteady- camels are definately more comfortable that Elephants.
After that we started the 4 hour trek to the hilltribe village we stayed in. It started off gently and we were all chatting away and joking, then all of a sudden the climb got steeper and everyone stopped talking and had to concentrate on getting their legs to move. It was funny when we had our first break and everyone discussed how much their hearts were pounding- maybe we were all just really unfit : )

We eventually made it to the top where we were staying and spent the evening eating dinner, having some drinks and relaxing around a campfire- made the climb worthwhile.
The second day was easier as it was downhill (thank god) and we stopped off at a waterfall to have a swim- it was so ridiculously cold that we managed to stay in for five mintues only- ha! We then wandered on a bit further and travelled the rest of the way in a raft and on a bamboo raft. The bamboo raft Lu, Dan, Marcel and I were on started sinking when we tried to get on it- the man had given us a dud one and found it really funny. We also started having waterfights so by the time we got to where we were having lunch we were soaked- good times.

That night we had a night out with the people from our trek and drank quite a lot of Sang Som. We headed to a reggae bar in Chiang Mai which had live music and had a dance- safe to say had slight headaches the next morning. After all our hard work on the trek we thought we deserved a treat so went for a Thai massage and pedicure- such girls!!

We met a lot of people at the hostel we were in- it has been the most socialble one we have stayed in yet and are hoping to meet up with them here in Laos too.

Soooooo after that long blurb we have spent the last couple of days in Vientiane. We couldn't get the slow boat down the Mekong as we had originally planned as it has dried up so we had to get a bog standard bus here- boring!

It's very peaceful here and has such a French feel to it- picture sitting in cafes drinking coffee and eating pastries all day long - we LOVE travelling.

Anyway we must dash now- going to eat some yummy street food and pack our bags for our next trip to Vang Vieng where we are planning to go tubing!!!!

Lots of Love,

Fairy + S'mousse

xxxxxxx

p.s- Not had the pleasure of meeting any yogics in South East Asia yet- but we will keep you posted.

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Photos

Bangkok
The Grand Palace

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The Grand Palace...one of the best things about Bangkok really

Buddha's
Literally everywhere in Thailand

At the top
The hilltop we managed to climb to the top of

On the way down the hill
Chiang Mai Trek