Our Epic 24 Hour Journey to Bangkok

The journey started with the Nineham family picking both myself and Bie up from our houses, and driving all the way down to Heathrow Airport.

In Heathrow Airport

As you would expect, there was some cracking tunes put on by Tony, which was accompanied by a pot of biscuits and some sour fruit pastels (which really aren’t half as nice as the normal ones). We arrived at the airport in no time.

We wanted to have a photo in front of the Bangkok flight screen with our sexy bags but sadly we couldn’t do it. At this point I noticed the first class check-in desk for Abu Dhabi and immediately decided I didn’t want to go backpacking anymore, I wanted to get on that flight and live the life of luxury instead.

It had it’s own special gold barriers, a gold luggage carrier like you get in nice hotels, a very attractive friendly lady waiting to meet and greet you, and more importantly there wasn’t any queues. Then and there I set myself a new ambition for this trip, to find myself a millionaire and live in Abu Dhabi like they do in Sex and the City 2.

I realised that until that day comes I should probably crack on with my around the world backpacking to kill time.

So, we after the lady at check-in got her head around the fact that we’re not flying back from Mumbai, we went through to departures and had a lovely meal in Garfunkles. Bie chose the BBQ Chicken and Bacon Burger, Nineham had a Roasted Veg pizza, and I opted for some sort of creamy pasta dish. All of which were delicious! Our waiter was a funny man too.

Final English meal

The first part of our journey to Thailand was a 8 hour flight on Jet Airways, where we were seated in the middle part of the row. Surprisingly time seemed to go fast as we had fairly big seats, our own TV screens, films, games, music, pillows, blankets and of course, each others company.

Our first plane meal consisted of various different parts, some of which I’m still not sure what exactly they were. I chose the vegi option which was a sort of curry and rice dish, with a bread roll, a pot of potato salad, a very strange lemon yogurt/ mousey/ custard thing and a vile chapatti.

After this most of the plane seemed to go to sleep but I was too busy watching Footloose. When I finally decided to try to sleep, they decided to wake everyone with breakfast. Excellent timing.

The breakfast was made of a blueberry muffin (why not chocolate I don’t know), a fruit salad, and some orange juice. Not bad for a breakfast, but all I wanted to do was sleep as I hadn’t even had five minutes of the old snooze time.

Just before the plane had to make it’s decent, me and bie decided to go for a quick wee. This ‘quick wee’ turned into one of the most frustrating toilet trips of my life. The three people in front of us all decided it was the perfect time to wash/ change their clothes/ and what I can only presume to be an emptying of their bowels due to the double flushing we heard.

Money!

Why would you decide to do any of these things as the planes about to decent to land and there’s a massive cue stretching up the aisle, I really don’t know.

When we finally landed in Mumbai, we were met by a very unorganised and unfriendly airport. Going through passport control and customs was an absolute joke.

It wasn’t clear where we were suppose to go or what we were suppose to do as each member of staff told us to do different things even though they were standing about two metres away from each other.

Our hand luggage was just piled up with everyone else’s stuff, nobody was there to move the bags along, so we physically couldn’t reach our bags. They didn’t check our passports and boarding passes properly either, the guy who looked at mine said it was fine, even though he couldn’t even see it as it was upside down, only showing him the advertisement printed on the back.

The excellent level of treatment was continued throughout the entire airport, with no announcements being made about our flight being delayed. Always helpful.

Our flight was only delayed about an hour or so, but it was the worse possible place to be delayed. When we were waiting in our departure lounge, we had to put up with 90% of the men staring at us constantly. We even sat in the corner to limit this from happening, but it didn’t stop them from very rudely staring and having absolutely no shame at creeping out and intimating three young women.

Two middle aged men even moved to sit in the seats opposite us so they could watch our game of Uno and us more intently. No matter what age/ race/ nationality etc you are, this is not acceptable behaviour. We had to leave the departure lounge in the end because it just got too horrible.

This second part of the journey was a shorter one, with the flight only being about 3 ½ hours. It seemed just as long as the other one though, due to the lack of sleep and the fact that the plane was a lot smaller and not nearly half as nice.

There was also no entertainment at all, and a meal which really wasn’t very tasty. There was a strange ‘After Mint’ sachet which we all presumed to be a chocolately sweet thing like you get in England, this was not the case. It turned out to be seeds in a sachet that smelled like herbal tea. I would of guessed you put them in hot water, but then I saw some other guy just tipping them straight into his mouth. Yummy!

Bangkok airport was nothing like Mumbai, it was very clean and modern, but most importantly it wasn’t full of rude Indian men. We got a taxi to drop us off at the end of Khao San Road where we were staying but it took us about an hour to find our hostel.

When we finally got into our room I discovered the brand new padlock I bought was jammed and I couldn’t get into my bag. We tried every combination and every possible way of getting it open but we couldn’t.

In the end we had to ask the none English speaking man at reception to help us open it. We tried different appliances to try to prise it open, but in the end he had to simply smash the living daylights out of it with a giant hammer type thing.

After all this excitment, we went to bed.

Preparing to Travel

On Friday me and two of my girlfriends will be leaving cold and windy England and heading for warmer climates.

We are embarking on a six month around the world trip, visiting South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, North America and Canada (if we have time). We have no idea what we will be doing in these places or in fact if we’ll like them at all, but that’s what makes it an adventure.

Everything I'm Taking

Right now however all I’m focussing on is making sure I’ve got everything I need to take away with me. Most people seem to think all you need to do is grab your passport, have some money and pack a pair of flip flops and you’re good to go. This couldn’t be further from the truth!

You have to think about the practicalities of each item you put in your bag. To start with there’s the medicines: rehydration tablets, insect repellent, water purifying tablets, plasters, anti-septic wipes, hay fever pills, malaria pills, sleeping pills etc., plus all the vaccinations you have to have a certain amount of time prior to travelling.

Then there are all the cosmetics and toiletries: make-up, lip-balm, sun cream, after sun, moisturiser, shower gel, razors, face wash, shampoo, conditioner, sponge, deodorant……all of which need to be properly sealed and the right size.

Paperwork is another thing I didn’t think I’d be spending so much time doing. Applying for Visas, photocopying my passport and driving license, printing off all confirmation of flights and excursions booked, finding the correct travel insurance, setting up direct debits, telling the bank where I’m going and when, reading what the embassy guidelines for each country. I swear it is a never ending list.

And then there’s all the unexpected things you need to do or buy; having to get the bank to issue you a new credit card as yours expires whilst away travelling, buying a travelling washing line, travel size toothpaste, a pillow case, a torch for the places which don’t have electricity, a padlock…

I think I have most of this sorted now though, there’s only a couple more things to do then I shall be ready. I’m sure whilst I’m away I’ll realise I didn’t need some of the stuff I thought was so important now, just like I’ll wish I had thought of taking a hundred other things. It’s very hard to predict what exactly it is you’ll need on a six month trip which spreads across more than six very different countries.

But as long as I have my passport and some clothes on my back I’m sure I will be fine.

Or maybe I’ll just go naked, save on the packing.

A Luffbra and Notts Birthday Weekend

The weekend consisted mainly of consuming a lot of different alcohol, losing things (including our dignity) and having a bloody merry old time. A weekend of epic proportions.

The Norton Family

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Friday: A night in Loughborough

The journey up north in Bianca’s tiny KA was somewhat of an experience. We filled the non-existent boot to the brim, laid duvets and pillows on the seats, and stuffed food and drink into every crevice in the car.

After reminding Jack that he actually had to shut and lock his own house up before we left, and doing a million point turn in Matt’s driveway, we were on our way.

I had brought some old CDs with me as we didn’t have an iPod dock or anything fancy like that. The combination of Five Greatest Hits, The Pepsi Chart Show and Now 54 really made us want to party, and party hard we did all the way up to Loughborough.

Army time

We stopped off at some random but pretty country pub to wee and buy chocolate, but as they only sold Mars bars, I was forced into buying peanuts out of embarrassment.

We hit some traffic when we were close to Luffbra, which meant it took us about 4 hours in total to get there. We did learn that Jack used to eat so many apples that he thought he’d turn into an apple though.

We also decided we would reintroduce the word ‘funky’ into people’s vocabulary.

Ryan’s House and the Union

After we had found Ryan’s house and carried out some excellent parking, we ate some delicious spag bol which Ryan the lion had very kindly made for everyone. The house itself was a pleasant surprise too; none of us expected him to live in such a clean and tidy place (no offence Schlank).

When we had finished getting all dressed and painted up as army people, the drinking started. We had one bucket which was filled with a lot of wine, cranberry juice and Archers. Apparently Nineham smashed up half of Tesco whilst buying the booze, she was being too rowdy again.

There was a fair few of us drinking in his sitting room as his housemates were coming out too. They were nothing like I expected after meeting his housemates last year, very different but all lovely, even though they like to have the music up so loud the house shakes. As I was celebrating turning the grand old age of 22, I am too old for a ‘racket’ like that so turned it down sneakily.

Find the gun...

Walked to the Union where we continued to drink many a beverage. How many beverages exactly I could not tell you. The weird thing about their Union was that it was freezing! The place was massive though and a lot like a maze, I didn’t know where I was at any given point in the night.

A lot of dancing was had by all, the Baking Tray and Lunge moves were pulled many many times. I’m just too good a dancer for my own good some times. A couple people pulled, a few arguments were had, but mainly we all just had a banging night (no pun intended).

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Saturday: Moving to Nottingham 

Woke up on Saturday morning to be sharing a bed with the beautiful Nineham, and in a room which was hotter than the sun!I did not feel too special that’s for sure. The heat was making me feel more and more sick, so I had to go and hang out in the hallway for a while cooling down.

Spaghetti Cake

After, we all just sat around not doing much for a while, then they started singing Happy Birthday and brought in a chocolate cake with uncooked spaghetti in it (instead of candles). I loved it!

Obviously I was in no state to be eating chocolate cake so had to just hold on to it until later.

People got showered and packed and ready to go to Nottingham. It wouldn’t surprise me if there was a video or two of the girls showering somewhere on the internet. Pervy boys.

Jack and Matt had to go home, so just the famous five were left.

We could only fit us three girls in the car so Ryan and Sam had to get the train. They missed out on helping teach Bie all the ingredients of the Sandwiches and Burgers that Giraffe do. I have to say I wasn’t too impressed with their list of burgers, they should take some tips from Handmade Burger, delicious.

Anyway, we were all starving so went to a pub called the Gooseberry Bush. Why it has such a silly name I do not know. Whilst we were waiting for the boys to arrive, we shared a large plate of nachos because we’re all impatient fattys.

Serious army men

The food was pretty good but the service was shockingly poor. We actually thought the waitress was going to tip the gravy over Ninehams head at one point. Luckily she didn’t, although it would have been hilarious to watch (sorry Nines).

Drove to Sam’s house but we had to park up the street because apparently there’s a crazy family living opposite who might take the car tyres…welcome to Nottingham.

The house was more like a student house than Ryan’s, but still a very good place to stay in. I am sad we never got to make it onto the wall of shame with our photograph, but I’m sure we’ll pay another visit at some point and get up there.

Spreading the love

By this point we were all pretty hanging so watched gymnastics on TV for what seemed like hours. We learnt scoring 15 was good. We also Googled what the difference between white and brown vinegar is, it was extremely interesting.

Heading to Town

Getting ready to go out seemed to take an awful lot of energy, but when we were done we started on the vodka again. Well Bie had gin because she’s secretly a middle aged man.

Ryan turned hipster for the night and wore one of Sam’s t-shirts, he even rolled up the sleeves for a bit! Pre-drinking consisted mainly of us talking about tickle buttons, PBWs, poking and anything else rude and silly. My favourite story of the weekend however was Nineham’s tale about a bag of poo (you’ll have to ask her for the details). Hilarious!

Firstly we went to some bar called Coocoocachoo or something like that. Sam advised us to get the super strength cocktails, so of course we did. I felt like I was drinking a tall glass of tequila! We moved onto some other place called BRZ? where you can get triples for singles. I think this was the turning point of my drunkenness.

We met my friend Rachel from uni and her friend in there, I was so excited to see her I think I hugged her about 5 times. We danced and drunk some more, some people then went to Walkabout.

When we got back to Sam’s all I remember doing is eating a hell of a lot of pizza with Nineham and getting into bed with Rachel. The rest of the night is one big blur I’m afraid.

……………

Super strength cocktails

Sunday: The Return Home

In the morning I remembered I had lost my heels (I took flats out too) and that I was told by the taxi man to ring back at 6am to see if they’d been handed in. We then discovered that someone had carried my shoes home for me and that it was most likely Ryan who carried them.

What makes this funny is that Ryan was the one helping me look for them the night before, all the time probably carrying them in his hands, but with neither of us noticing. Alcohol is a crazy thing.

We had to leave at 12 because stupid Bie said she’d work at 5 o’clock, and didn’t know how long it would take to get back. So we missed out on the monging out in front of TV for hours and stuffing our faces at a pub somewhere which was sad, but couldn’t be helped.

Pretty Ladies

The drive home was somewhat of a challenge. I didn’t want to open my mouth in case I accidently vommed everywhere, and Bie couldn’t speak because she had to concentrate so much on not hitting another car.

So we travelled in silence for a good half an hour until we both felt better. You’ll be pleased to know the make-do sick bucket (empty Quaver packet) was not needed, and we did not hit another car, person or animal. Winning.

 

It was another awesome weekend away with the Norton family, it was a shame not everybody could make it but it was still epic! So thanks for a banging birthday weekend!

Day 7 Monday: ‘Everybody loves a Slinky’

The last day of our ‘oliday!

The group minus Willy

We had to be checked out by 12 which I think is far too early! We made it down in time though so then led by the pool on the grass as there wasn’t one empty sunbed again. We didn’t lie on any sunbeds all week as the sneaky sneaky Germans and Scandinavians did that stupid pathetic thing of putting towels down on the sunbeds at like six in the morning. Clearly we were not going to get up early to do this, so settled for lying on the grass or sand.

Not too much happened today except the fact that Sam  and Jack were hanging out their arses!

Jack tripped up whilst walking over to us which was very amusing, and then when Oli said good morning, Jack replied with a shake of the head and looked like he was about to cry. It’s not surprising though as he did drink virtually a whole bottle of peach schnapps, and a fair amount of the strawberry schnapps, and then bought another bottle on the way home.

As we didn’t have a room and they didn’t provide a shower or change room which is totally ridiculous for the size of the hotel, we had to shower outside. I found it very weird that I was showering next to the kids pool but it had to be done. The water was boltic too! Not enjoyable.

We went to the Chinese restaurant up the road and once again they decided to just put more chairs around two small tables, instead of simply add another table- idiots. We ordered a variety of foods but everyone had to be quite careful as most of us had nearly used all our moneys up. Playing with a rainbow coloured slinky was very fun throughout the meal. Surprisingly my chicken in black bean sauce was delicious! Everyone else seemed to really enjoy their meals too.

We tried to get Willy to experiment a bit but he refused too. He is a naughty squid.

We had to mess around in the hotel for a while until our lift came and I had just gone to buy some animal shaped biscuits when the coach turned up. I was very upset with not being able to buy such a fun snack but heyho.

Chillin by the pool

The airport was very strange. They didn’t seem to care that there is protocol to follow, or a certain way to behave whilst working in an airport, they just did what ever they wanted. When we had checked in we went up to the second floor where there was a couple of shops and food places which was all under a massive tent like roof. Me and Bie went to spend our last couple lev in the duty-free but when we got to the till we were told we would have to wait another ten minutes whilst they swoped shifts. So we had to stand there whilst she counted out all the money that was in the till, she just left notes and notes right in front of us. When she had finished counting it she just put it into a see through carrier bag and handed it to another sales assistant over our heads. Security is not a priority in the Bulgarian airports.

After waiting for about 20mins to buy one bag of Bagettis and some mock Pringle’s, we sat with the others. An announcement for our flight was called but Rich said it wasn’t right. She then did another tannoy announcement saying she was wrong and that they were boarding for Amsterdam, not Cardiff. Once again another example of Bulgarian stupidity.

After a very long time and no news of check in, we decided to move down stairs just in case they called for us. They didn’t call at all, they didn’t announce our flight was delayed, they didn’t write it on the screen, they simply told us nothing. Everyone was getting a bit agitated and annoyed as nobody knew what was going on. It was a bit ridiculous. Then a woman said over the tannoy, ‘boarding for the Cardiff flight will happen at some point soon’. Brilliant.

Eventually we boarded the plane and the pilot explained why we were delayed and apologised. I really don’t know why they couldn’t have done that in the airport where you really want and need to know that information. Anyway me and Nineham spent my Euros and got ourselves a muffmuff and a hot chocolate to help pass the time.

We landed in Cardiff only to find that my suitcase strap had vanished, Ninehams and Richs cases were open and that our stuff had been tampered with. The fucking Bulgarians in the airport had gone through all our stuff! I was very mad and was going to complain tomorrow. Oli and Rich drove all the way home, safely returning us to our humble abodes at 6.30am.

All in all the family holiday was a bloody hoot! HARVEY!

Day 6 Sunday: Sam’s 21st Birthday

Woke up feeling very merry and happy, later discovered this was because I was still drunk and hadn’t got to the stage of my hangover yet.

The Birthday Boy

When I first walked into Nineham’s room, I decided to play the game ‘Ghost’ on her, she really enjoyed it! We were both giggling like school girls at just about everything. I couldn’t stop laughing at one point so had to hide my head under the covers whilst the boys were there.

Ordered food in the hotel restaurant at about 2.30 but none of us really wanted any. I decided on having the children’s chicken nuggets and chips as I really didn’t want anything. I felt so awful I didn’t move at all for a good ten minutes, and then I felt a little too sick to be sitting there so I ran off to the outside toilet.

The first time I just hung out in there but the second time I ran to the toilet I threw up a couple of times. The lifeguard heard it all as he was just sat outside the toilet, he should have none I was going to do that, I looked like death.

The food came out and I don’t think I’ve ever not wanted to eat something as I did then. Bie stared at her pizza for a while before she decided she was going to eat the whole thing. It took her like an hour to do it but she conquered it in the end, it was the Mount Kilimanjaro of pizzas. Nineham on the other hand munched down on her burger like she didn’t have a care in the world.

We led down on the grass for a while trying to recover whilst the boys went off to go on a pedalo on the beach. We later heard shouts of ‘Dando’ and turned around to see Oli cruising along by the hedge waving. They had hired Segways!

Sexy Simon Cowell!

All of them were zipping up and down in formation and causing many traffic jams. They let us have a spin too but I wasn’t told how to change gear so I just cruised along at a very slow rate whilst everyone speeded off. A random group of boys on the lower balcony were shouting very rude things at me and laughing but I couldn’t move any faster so had to just put up with going bright red and looking like a right knob.

The lads then disappeared into the sunset on their Segways and we never saw them again.

JOKES!

They just rode off and hired a pedalo on the beach for an hour. We stayed at the hotel and when they returned they told us how much we would have hated it. Apparently there was millions of jellyfish everywhere, and not just the baby ones, there were gigantic ones too! Rich told me there were stingrays and eels too, but I later found out he was telling porkys the naughty squid.

Evening Celebrations

Trying to keep Sam out of Oli’s room and not let him find out what we were doing was extremely tricky!

We blew up balloons, stuck banners on the wall, wrote cards, and displayed the presents on the coffee table. The bloody balloons kept on popping though which caused us all to jump many times.

When Sam walked into the room we sang Happy Birthday and let him open his presents. We got him silly children’s gifts like marbles, glow-sticks, a Frisbee,  water balls, a blow up punching glove, a watch with a ball puzzle in and a couple of bits and bobs.

He read threw the cards we gave him and he seemed to really like them. We then dressed him up in the banner and beer glasses, with all of us wearing our stick on moustaches. Mine was called ‘The Hercules’.

Off we trot to our favourite eatery the ‘Salt & Pepper’ to have some food. Lots of people were staring at us and especially at Sam as he was covered in moustaches and other shizz. The rule of the night was that if anybody started to sing the ‘Blackbird’ song, then everyone had to join in, no matter where we were. We did agree to keep it quiet if we were in a restaurant though, very mature of us I think.

We had some games to play in honour of Sam turning 21. Firstly we started with the sophisticated game of Pass the Parcel and strangely enough it ended up with Sam winning the present which was three flavoured condoms!

The next game was a picture quiz which was simply just pictures of Sam from different occasions. The aim of the game was to identify where and when the photo was taken. The simplest of all was the panda bum picture, but Sam did not recognise it at all and thought it was some random other night, the silly goose.

The final game of all was The Sam Quiz; 21 questions about Sam. Everybody had to guess the answer and then he had to reveal the truthful answer. Of course this didn’t happen as Sam was clearly telling some porky’s on some of the questions but we did find out that he prefers hoops to beans….vital information to know!

At some point during the night, Jack tried to give Kate (the waitress from the other night) £20 for being the nicest girl he’s ever met in the world. We three girls naturally took offence to this as we are the nicest girls in the world!

Lads! Lads! Lads!

We left ‘Salt and Pepper’ in search of a Karaoke bar and found one relatively quickly. The only problem it was full of old people who clearly didn’t want us to join the party. People say youngsters are rude, but it’s not us, it’s the old people who are rude and don’t want to make friends!

Never fear though, we went further up the road and discovered another Karaoke bar called ‘Jacks’, or at least I think it was called that. We stayed there a while and drank and sang. They then stopped letting us sing so off we ran to find the next place.

Sam decided we were all to run in and order a drink, drink it, and run out again in a total of 7 minutes! We accepted the challenge like Barney from How I Met Your Mother. In we ran but we didn’t ever leave again. We stayed there the remainder of the night singing a whole host of songs. The best performance of the night was by me, Bie and Nineham when we sang ‘Spice up Your Life’ by the legendary Spice Girls! I even did the dance moves.

The final song of the night was sung by Jack and Sam who started with an intro to the band and song by Jack. It was like he was trying to rev up the crowd by talking to them, although by that point we were the only crowd in there! They sang very well but at the end of the song Jack decided to throw down the microphone on the floor and walk of stage and out the building. So very Rock and Roll!

Segways!

The girls and Willy left to walk home, leaving the other boys to get food. On the way home we saw an extremely drunk English man passed out face down in a hedge, with two taxi drivers trying to pull him out. Was a little worrying but he was alive so we kept on walking back to the hotel, only to find there had been a power cut.

No lift or lights so had to walk up to the 7^th floor! We all arrived feeling rather hot and sweaty, but nothing could be done about it as we had no air con and our fridge had turned off so our water was warm. It also meant we had to wee in the pitch black as we had no lights or windows in our bathroom, was an experience!