15th - 16th April 2011

Place: London - Mumbai - Bangkok

Weather: Freaking boiling!!

And so the blog begins again…

I can't believe I am travelling again; it has come around so quickly! This time I know what to expect more though, which whatever people say is definitely not always a good thing. I do not like the fact that I know what homesick feeling I am going to have for the next few weeks, I don't like the fact that I know it's going to be really hard to have a chance to speak to my family because of the time differences. But I do like that I know the homesickness will fade, I will have the most amazing experiences of my life, and that I will come back an even better person!

I'm not going to write in as much detail for this blog since it took me an age to read the last one let alone write it! But I'll keep in the main parts which made the trip the best.

I woke up at 4.30am and immediately thought "what the hell am I doing!!!!" Like I said before, I knew the feeling that was coming and it definitely wasn't good that I knew it, because in my head it built to be a hundred times worse. I hate leaving my family behind, and the fact that it is for five months this time means that my head is shouting to me to not do it. It is so hard to walk away once you're at the goodbye point I absolutely hate it and feel like crying now just thinking about it.

The flight over alone was strange. It was harder than last time as I had no one to distract me from the fact that I had left my comfortable life behind and was about to do the most challenging thing Ive ever done. I managed to stay composed though and watched the films and had a little snooze to take my mind of things, I also managed to squeeze in a little of the work that I had bought from StyleGlaze that I hadn't managed to finish whilst there, but it wasn't happening since the plane was a bit bumpy.

It seemed like a fairly short flight since it was only 9 hours on the first part and the second part from Mumbai to Bangkok was only 4 hours which I slept between 2 and 3 hours of. My favourite part of the journey was the fact that I managed to get a free bottle of water at Mumbai airport because I only had my cash card and no cash to pay for it, so the sales assistant bought it for me J very sweet, and I definitely needed the drink after having three curries on the plane in the space of 15 hours! It was even curry for breakfast! When I got to Bangkok even the smell of a curry made me feel icky.

After being picked up from the airport by Mina the ThaIntro Guide, I had an hour power nap in the room before meeting a few of the girls in the bar area to head to the world famous weekend market. I went down with Aimee, who I am sharing a room with, and we met Andrea and Carly who were already sitting at the bar. We all got a taxi to the market together and spent about an hour there. It was nice apart from the pet area which was just cruel! The animals were in such small cages and some even had string tied around them so they couldn't move. The fish were kept in bags, like you would have when you buy them, and they were laid along the pavement for people to buy.

Apart from that the market was great, it had loads of ornaments and clothes and jewellery, all thai style. Once we had looked around everywhere we head to a huge mall with about 7 floors and sorted out bits like mobile phones and I bought some sunglasses for about £3!

After going back to the hostel, Andrea and I went for an explore down Khoa San Road looking at the stalls and doing a bit of bartering. I managed to get 50 baht off some Havainas flip flops so they cost me 150Baht in the end, around £3.

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing in the bar; I had a coffee shake to keep me awake whilst we looked at the tours the hostel offered. I was tempted to go on one but thought better of it since I would have had to be up at 6.30am and was shattered as it was. I couldn't believe it though when I looked to the table next to me and saw a guy called Aaron who actually was in my year at school! I asked him if his name was Aaron and it was him, and he actually said I thought it was you but wasn't sure. The world is far far too small!

We met Mina at 8pm to go for a meal at a cheap restaurant which was really nice and the atmosphere around the hostel at night is amazing! We went to see the pool that we could use for free, which is where we were thinking of heading the next day, and then head back to the hostel where I left the rest of the group to be boring and go to bed.