Summer Loving... Had Me A Blast!

Well following my travels in Asia I have been embracing my time back home in the Lake District with my nearest and dearest. From drinking to dancing and from capoeira to capsizing, Summer 2010 has turned out to be a corker!

Though I haven't had a job this year (except for the 1 day I worked at a wedding!) I have been trying to raise funds in other ways; namely via eBay and doing carboot sales with my Mum!

I found selling on eBay to be a little disappointing; it takes a while to create a good, attractive and informative advert, and then only around 15% of the items I listed actually sold (often for a much lower price than I really wanted them to go for!). Naturally, with my penchant for shopping, all of the items I listed were clothing, and admittedly I knew that clothes aren't lucrative items to sell on eBay.
Ah well, at least now I've sold a few clothes I have more space in my wardrobe for all the new things I've aquired this summer!

Including... new lilac stilettos and matching nail varnish and eye mousse, 2 silk hankerchief hem vests in navy and grey, some bargain grey boots, a tiger-print MNG tee, a River zippy slouch bag, a Warehouse military jacket, some polka-dot cullottes, a printed wrap dress, some rosy blusher, a Motel chain dress, high-waisted black jeans, many new patterned tights and an inordinate amount of new jewellery and accessories!

Shopping aside, I've been having a hoot on great nights out and at gigs with my favourite people, many a meal out and girly nights in plus one too many take-aways and late-night pizzas!

I also went to the Edinburgh Fringe festival (where we rubbed shoulders with Alex Zane, Stiffler's mom, Jack Whitehall and the VIVA advert guy!), and I had a fantastic time at the wonderful Solfest festival learning capoeira, african drumming and creating things from clay aswell as enjoying the great atmosphere and music!

I've also tried out Zumba with my Mum (YouTube it it's insane) and have been going to Dancercise, Boxercise and Steps to try and counteract my summer excesses!

My friends and I went kayaking and capsized our tin kayak Branston within 10 mins so played scrabble instead, I went bowling with the family, and have attended Christenings, Weddings and Birthday parties but sadly no Bar Mitzvahs.

Also part of my life this summer; sunshine, Family portraits, decorating, the park, fake tan, Magnums, jogging, pensions, Thai spices, ISAs, cooking, Facebook, reading, Bowtime and sofa time.

I've been preparing myself for my final year of my degree by buying all the books on my reading lists (reading them is next on my agenda) and thinking about my dreaded dissertation.

I have two weeks of work experience lined up before term starts, which I am very much looking forward to as I hope it will give me a beter idea of what I should do with my life!

That's my latest news, so bye for now, I'm off the enjoy the last of my summer break... :)

Geek Chic post on the SFB

I recently reviewed two T-shirts for my fabulous friends at Student Fashion Blog (.co.uk).

The Tees were kindly shipped over from American clothing brand J!NX, and I thoroughly enjoyed modelling them in my Uni Library, even though some people were trying to study while the photographer's camera flashed incessantly- sorry!

To read my short but sweet review and follow links to the J!NX website, click here. Thanks!

The end of my amazing trip!

So my travels in South East Asia have come to an end- sob! Here is a re-cap of my final week-and-a-bit:

From Nha Trang we travelled to Hoi An; a quaint and beautiful city with an iconic Japanese bridge and a gorgeous beach only a short ride away. We even got to lie on actual sunbeds if we ate at the beachside restaurant- an absolute necessity with the scorching temperatures of the sand making it almost too hot to sprint across never mind sunbathe on!

Hoi An is famous for its many tailors- they can make absolutely anything you want overnight no problem and then make alterations in an hour or two if needed. I fell in love with the stunning silk in a tailors called Thi, and my seamstress Hui made me a colourful kaftan/robe with chinese buttons and a matching waist tie for only $12. I drew a slinky dress for my friend and she had it made in crushed nude silk, and some of my other friends had silk-lined jackets made exactly like the pictures they had printed off the internet. Some of them even had cute leather or suede shoes made to measure!

While in Hoi An I decided to try their delicious regional speciality dish; Cao Lau- noodles, beansprouts, tender strips of pork, deep-fried crispy rice paper and greens. We also splashed out on some exquisite deserts from one of the french-style patisseries near the Old Town that tasted as good as they looked, before another bus journey up to the historical city of Hue.

In Hue we went on a relaxing dragon boat trip up the Perfume River to see the oldest house in Hue and its fruit-yielding gardens, a floating fishing village and the Heavenly Lady Pagoda. We also got an all-you-can-eat buffet lunch, which resulted in sore stomachs all round! That evening we had a fablous night out, and the following day we visited the Citadel and explored the Old Town before getting our last sleeper bus up to Hanoi.

From Hanoi we were picked up and taken to Ha Long City, ready to depart on our beautiful old-fashioned boat to Ha Long Bay. We visited huge caves which were stunning but disappointingly unnatural due to the added mood lighting, music and guards playing on lap-tops. After that we jumped off the top deck of our boat and went swimming, careful to avoid the jellyfish, before kayaking around the stunning bay and soaking up the magical atmosphere.
The food on-board was wonderful and included whole fish, seafood noodles and vietnamese spring rolls, and as there were only 13 people on our boat we got to socialise with new people as we watched the sunset around the limestone islets rising out of the emerald water. Getting up early to catch the sunrise was definately worth it, but our trip had to be cut short due to an impending storm about to sweep the area.

Back in the capital of Hanoi we enjoyed a great night out playing pool in an Irish bar; Finnegans, with people we had bumped into earlier in our trip. A bowl of steaming pho bo (beef noodle soup; delicious and only abour 70p for a huge bowl) from a tiny street kitchen at 3am really hit the spot and began my obsession with the traditional dish, which I have been craving every morning since then! We wiled away the next 2 days exploring the city-centre Hoan Kiem Lake, including its Turtle Tower, Jade Mountain Temple and huge varnished giant turtle, and buying souvenirs at the atmospheric markets.

A flight to Bangkok gave us one last day before our flight home, so we did a pit-stop tour round the main temples, buddhas and pagodas (which turned out to be a bit of a scam!). Every day is 'Buddha Day' it seems, and when a friendly tuk-tuk driver told us that means free entrance to many attractions and he'd drive us round for only 10 Baht each (around 20p), we thought we'd go for it. I'd heard about scams to do with 'Buddha Day' before but we went with it, thinking our guy was genuine. It turns out he wasn't, and after making us go and pretend to be interested in a tailor's suits, he left us at the 3rd stop on our route, though as we hadn't paid him we don't really know what he got out of leaving us! We got another tuk-tuk who told us that the Grand Palace was free after 4pm, so we let him drive us to other attractions until then. On arrival at the Grand Palace we learnt that it closes at 3.30pm and we had been fooled again! Aside from missing this we had only paid 10 Baht and had seen a lot in a couple of hours, so we didn't feel too bad, and set off to find our other friends on Khao San Road.
After a couple of my friends got henna tattoos we went for a final thai curry, then spent all our left-over currency on cheap beer vests, ice-cream and souvenirs before running through the torrential rain back to our shack. I can't call it a hotel room; it was a shack with a bed in it.

Rising at 5am and picking up our friend from her (much swankier!) hotel, we flew the first leg of our flight home to Bahrain, where our 12-hour stop-over meant we were provided with a glorious hotel (with carpets and a marble bathroom that didn't smell of urine!) and fed with delicious Arabic food before our final flight to Heathrow.

Now back in England I am so thankful for having had such a wonderful time travelling. I would do it again in an instant and would urge anyone thinking about going to just book your flights now; South East Asia is such a fantastic area of the world filled with amazing sights, interesting cultures, delicious food, friendly (but not always honest!) people, and great experiences to be had.

The only thing I need to decide now is where to explore next...

Good Morning Vietnam!

Chào!

Well, the bus journey to Vietnam from Cambodia ended up taking 16 hours (it was dire) but once we arrived in this AMAZING country I knew it was instantly worth it- I love it here!

We first stayed in Ho Chi Minh city; formerly known as Saigon, and once we'd mastered the art of crossing a road heaving with motorbikes (it's all about keeping a steady pace!) we settled right in. I even tried my first traditional shrimp and pork spring roll, which was nice and fresh but I unfortunately prefer the much less healthy deep-fried versions to the rice paper ones favoured here.

On our first full day we visited the Cu Chi tunnels used by the ingenious Viet Cong guerrillas in the Vietnamese war. We learned about their lives, clothing and weapons (including cleverly making their bombs from their enemies bomb materials and designing brutal booby traps), tried their food (some potatoey substance dipped in nuts with weak tea) and crawled through their infamous undergound tunnels.

That night we ate shrimp noodles ($1) on the market and had a night out in the city, which was fabulous until we were getting fried rice at 3am and my friend's bag was swiped by a passing motorbike thief!

The next day we visited the War Remnants Museum, where the graphic images and shocking information about the Vietnam war really affected me and my friends. Photographs of American soldiers holding up the heads of the Vietnamese dead, burned victims of Napalm bombs and disfigured children of civilians gassed by Agent Orange were among the most affecting, and alongside the propaganda posters, torture stories, prison cell replicas, the place had a strange feeling of sadness that clashed with the contemporary setting.

That night we experienced our first sleeper bus; rows of double-decker reclining leather seats that as it turns out were not so great for getting a good nights sleep! Arriving in Nha Trang at 7am we dumped our bags and headed straight for the gorgeous beach until the midday sun and our drooping eyelids meant we had to go and nap until 5pm, then we got up and hit the town for another fab meal and a few cocktail buckets!

Today we went to Vinpearl; a great waterpark/aquarium/themepark island reached by cable cars, with white sandy beaches, animal shows, water fountain displays and more fast food restaurants than you could shake a chopstick at. Personal highlights include being mesmerised by the huge stingrays, eating too many cornettos and screaming all the way down the waterslides like I used to as a wee nipper.

Tomorrow we are hitting the beach (I'm finally moving on from SPF 50 to 30) before getting another sleeper bus to Hoi An where we will hopefully get some lovely clothes made for cheapy-cheap! Off to do some internet reearching now, net-a-porter here I come!

My Visit to Cambodia!

Suor Sdei from Cambodia! A land of friendly people, tragic history, very skinny cows and pyjama-clad women!

My 7 fellow travellers and I arrived in the bustling capital of Phnom Pehn after far too many hours of travelling from the Thai islands. On our first night we found a basic hostel in a back-packer area that had less-than luxurious rooms but my much-sought after hammocks on the wooden "floating"" structure that jutted out over the river. We watched the movie "The Killing Fields'" in preparation for our next-day plans, which turned out to be upsetting but poignant and worthwhile, and we made friends with the friendly Cambodian staff, who later robbed my friend's phone from our room!

The visit to Cambodia's largest killing field invoked high emotions as we thought of the of the 3 million people who died at the hands of the Khymer Rouge up until 1979. It was hard emotionally as in the soil you could see human teeth and fragments of cracked boned from the victims of the Khymer Rouge that were taken here to be killed. Before the prisoners were taken to a hushed-up Killing Field to be executed, they were imprisoned in a former school called S21. We visited here next and were shocked by the tiny bare cells the prisoners were filed into, and the hundreds of pictures of emaciated victims.

That night we had a few pre-drinks by the river (literally, we were on the Mekong river bank wall with our own shop-bought drinks talking about which cocktails we would love to have instead). A great night out ensued in which we finally got to drink the cocktails we'd been drooling over, and have a ruddy good dance to the resident DJ (who was actually great and mixed in all our requests!).

 After a 6 hour bus journey the next day from Phnom Pehn to Siem Reap, we found some cheap lodgings ($2 a night) and went for a fabulous meal at a Cambodian restaurant, where our entire bill (for 6 meals, with rice, drinks, tea and fruit) was $26. Happy student travellers! My friends would recommend the traditional beef lak-lak and the fish curry that is served in a hollow coconut, in case you re ever in the area.

On Saturday we visited Angkor Wat; the magnificent temple complex near Siem Reap (where Tomb Raider was filmed!). We hired tuktuks for the day and got up at 4.30am to make it in time to watch the beautiful sunrise, and explore the different temples before the stifling midday sun kicked in. The temples themselves were vast and imposing but so intricately detailed that we were in awe; needing to just 'have some me-time' to soak up the magical atmosphere. Many mesmerising temples, nasty monkeys and persistent kids trying to sell you something later, we went home for well-deserved naps. Later that afternoon we visited the central market and sampled some more of Cambodia's culinary deights before booking our 13 hour bus ride to Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam at 6.45am tomorrow morning.

I am not looking forward to the journey but Vietnam itself will hopefully be awesome!

Thai Islands for my 20th!

This week my fellow travellers and I have been sunning ourselves on some of Thailand's most beautiful southern islands, and it has been wonderful.

From Chiang Mai we stayed one night in Patong near Phuket, which didn't float our boat, but after the world's most tiring day on multiple buses, tuk tuks, minivans, coaches ferries and a taxi we arrived on Ko Samui; a stunning island with a buzzing nightlife on the east side of Thailands southern strip. Samui was beautiful but quite commercial, and we had a fun night out here where we shared our first notorious Thai "bucket'', played pool and wondered who was a tall thai woman and who was a (convincing!) ladyboy.

After Samui we got the ferry to Ko Phang Nga where the infamous Full Moon Party takes place. Here we met 3 friends from England, making our terrible twosome into a fabulous five (soon to be an excellent eight!). As I was meant to be meeting three friends and staying with them but this fell through, I bought a lilo and camped on the other girls' floor in their luxury beach apartment. To thank them I bought lots of buckets, straws and a big bottle of "vodka" for us to share (it did not turn out to be vodka but it definately was alcoholic!). We had a fantastic night out on the beach drinking buckets, watching the fire poi shows and laughing at those silly enough to skip in a fire rope only to trip and land on the flames.

The next day we did a day trip to Ko Tao, which is a smaller, less commercial island to the north of Phang Nga. Our guides took us snorkelling, which turned out to be fabulous after I had recovered from a bout of sea-sickess (or hangover maybe) and aside from my first experience of being sick in the sea this was actually pretty fun! We also went to a STUNNING island and had a delicious buffet lunch then sunbathed on white sands and in turquoise waters :)
That night we went to the Coral Bungalows pool party, which started well but ended on a dull note when a guy jumped from one table to another, slipped, banged his head and had to be taken, covered in blood, to hospital. We left and returned to the atmospheric beach where my friends were tackled by some crazed men and one lost her flip-flops, so had to scrounge around for another pair for the journey home!

We stayed on Ko Phang Nga for the Full Moon Party on the 26th June (my birthday is the 27th!), for which I bought UV paints to decorate my roomies (and inadvertently the room itself) with. Not that all our efforts lasted the night- it rained! We just had to "embrace it" and dance on the beach with wet faces and soaking hair. I learned the verb; "to Dub", and will be "Dubbing" a lot more on this holiday I am sure!
At 5am we showered and got ready for our journey across sea and land to the east islands at 6am, finally arriving around 5pm (!) and in the evening we watched the England game (4-1 = embarrassing, but made better by Mai Tai cocktais and the biggest shot I've ever had- thanks girls) and watched the mesmerising fire shows on the beach

Today we were meant to be kayaking around the island and snorkelling on the beach where they filmed 'The Beach', but as it is raining we have to go tomorrow instead! Then it's back to Phuket to meet 3 of our other friends at last and travel to Cambodia via Bangkok.

Written with love and happiness from the Thai Islands!! x

Chaing Mai- Thailand!

Sawadee Ka!

I greet you in Thai because that is where I am writing from; the northern Thai city of Chaing Mai!

My fellow travellers and I flew 7 hours from Heathrow to Bahrain, and a further 6 to Bangkok, then my friend and I flew up to Chaing Mai, arriving around 8am on Sunday morning.
Aside from a few initial setbacks (having to run to catch my train to London, needing to crack the crap padlock off my bag after losing my keys etc) everything is fine and I am having an AMAZING time!!

Here's a quick run-through of my activities this week:

On the Sunday we arrived we attempted to 'power through' our jetlag and explore the city, but the heat and the fatigue got the better of us and we had to sleep it off before the Sunday Night Market held in the city centre. The market was so much bigger than anything I could describe, it literally took us hours to walk round half of it but it was so atmospheric, and gave us a much better view of the city than our first tentative dragged steps that afternoon. The items being sold were as varied as the people browsing; from homewares, jewellery and clothing to instruments, massages and black coconut jelly. Trying to find our way back to our (2 pounds each a night) hostel proved difficult, as we spent 4 hours aimlessly searching street after street; finally stumbling across it at half 1- thank God!

The next day we accidentally slept in until half 5 (which is acceptable because we had been travelling for a whole day), much to the amusement of our hostel staff when we rose and said "good morning". That night we went to an awe-inspiring temple then went to a bar and met some lovely Argentinians who introduced us to their English friends at their hostel. Their hostel had a POOL and was far better than ours so the next day (hungover after an awesome night out with our new friends!) we moved in, haggling the price down to the same as our 1st hostel.

Tuesday we haggled for and booked a trek and went to another night bazaar (and found the most amazing ice-cream and Mac make-up for super cheap!), deciding to try some unusual Thai food from the street stalls. The green sloppy fish in a bag and the spicy snails we tried were inedible, as was the "sausage" that definately wasn't a sausage, the oily fried maggot grub thing and the orange fruity sweet that was far too sweet even for me. On the plus side though they sold sushi for 5 Baht a piece (around 10p) and we had some lovely pad thai noodles!

Wednesday was trek day, and after deciding that a 3-day trek would be too hardcore for us girly girls we plumped for a busy 1-day Trek that began with a visit to a beautiful orchid and butterfly farm. After that we had an AMAZING elephant ride where I got to sit on our elephant Menchan's head behind the guide! I loved this part of the day as it was peaceful riding through the jungle but also fun as the baby elephants were really playful, we fed the elephants bananas and had to hang on for dear life whenever we went downhill! After that we went white water rafting, which wasn't as intense as I expected it was more amusing singing along with out excellent guide, all bouncing on the raft sides whenever we got stuck between rocks and squaling when we saw water snakes. After that we swatted the flies away from our Thai buffet then had a 40 minute hike up and down the hottest dryest and steepest mountan-sides I've ever experienced, but when we got to a stunning cool waterfall our happiness was restored.
Following a quick swim we went bamboo rafting down the river, which was so peaceful (if you forgot about the cricket and unidentifiable jungle noises) and a great time to reflect on what a wonderful week we'd been having so far. We then visited the long-neck Karen tribe and were shocked by the TVs they had in their 'primitive' village and how money-orientated they seemed to be. Rather than giving them money me and my friend left our trainers as they probably mean much more to them than they do to us. On returning home absolutly knackered we had a delicious meal of vegetable spring rolls and pineapple rice and hit the hay.

The next day was 'chill-out day', but ironically I ended up very sunburnt from one too many dips in the pool wearing a 'water-resistant' (but not waterproof) suncream. We returned to the night bazaar to finish the remainder of the market, but the sun had exhausted us so we were sensible and had an early night.

Friday was some more sun-bathing to try and even out my skin tone (at the moment I am like Ross in Friends when he gets spray-tanned repeatedly on the same side) and we attended a fabulous cookery course with Siam Rice Cookery School. There was only myself and my friend in the session so we became really close with Nancy, her funky husband Pot, their adorable baby and their extended family and friends. We were taken to a market to learn about the ingredients and then learnt how to make 4 dishes each plus how to make curry paste from scratch, and I can honestly say it was the best curry I've ever tasted! We were given a certificate and recipe book to bring home so no doubt when I've tracked down some ginseng and lemongrass I'll be a top Thai chef in no time! See the pics here!

We bought a bottle of interesting-tasting Thai whiskey from the 7/11 and had a glass or two with Coke while we waited for the England game to start at 1.30am Thai time, which turned out to be a disappointment but a good night at the pub making friends!

Saturday (today!) we've just relaxed and read by the pool, went for a greek meal (Thai is lovely but I wanted something that wasn't noodles or rice!) and are going to a temple and the huge Saturday Night Market tonight before we hit a few cool Reggae bars down town for our last night in Chiang Mai.

All in all a wonderful week in the charismatic city of Chaing Mai. Tomorrow we fly down to Phuket and travel across to the eastern islands ready for the Full Moon Party on th 26th.

Wish me luck! x

And So It Begins...

Well I'm packed and ready to go on my travels round South East Asia!!

I'll be posting on here every time I go to an internet cafe all about where I've been, what I've been doing and any other things that might take my fancy, for example cute things I've seen or funny stories to tell or interesting things I hear.

Assuming the computers I'll use have some way to upload pictures from an SD card then there will be images to compliment my tales- if not I'll be adding these when I return (hopefully safe and sound with SD card still in my possession) at the end of July.

Tonight I'm going to London to stay overnight with a friend's brother as we have to get up at the crack of dawn to make our flight. We have a stop-off in Bahrain then it's on to Bangkok, and pending on no delays, my friend and I will be leaving our other friends to spend a week in Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. There we are hopefully going to do a 3 day trek, ride the elephants, get a well deserved Thai massage, maybe do a cookery course and sample the delights of Chiang Mai nightlife!

My (massive) rucksack is stuffed with mosquito repellants, malaria tablets, SPF50 and 30 suncream and medication for all ailments. I am taking no chances.

Aside from holiday buys like bikinis and thin towels and coloured eyeliners (yes these are necessity even when backpacking) I intend to find a special item or 5 out there to bring back a slice of the Orient with me, and am especially looking forward to getting something tailor-made in Vietnam.

Anyway enough for now, wish me luck and I'll post again soon from Asia!