I've arrived!
Yesterday, after a slightly emotional goodbye to my boyfriend in the day and then my parents at airport security, me, Vicky and Vix (two Victorias!) were finally on our way.
The Qantas plane was a Boeing 747, and I was slighty apprehensive about such a long flight, but it was actually incredibly smooth with only a tiny bit of turbulence. We got dinner after take off, followed by a bag of snacks for the nighttime, including a packet of Polos which I thought was a nice touch, and then a couple of hours before we landed we had breakfast. At breakfast time it was about 7am English time but about 2pm Thai time so it was a bit confusing. I watched two films, The Kids Are Alright and Despicable Me, along with the Simpsons and Wife Swap. When I wasn't watching TV I was sleeping or watching the flight path on my screen. When we landed at 4pm Thai time, it was still 33 degrees! We found our way out of the airport and got a shuttlebus to the bus terminal. The bus we actually had to get was a minibus, full of Thai people who I assume were on their way home from work. We met two nice Pakistani guys on the bus who had just arrived for a 10 day university trip. They were commenting on how expensive Bangkok is compared to Pakistan, and we were saying how cheap it is! The Thai people were really friendly and showed us where to get off (we would have had no idea) - it only cost us 50baht for at least an hour's journey - that is £1! We found our hostel quite easily, although the road it is on is quite dark and it was a bit scary. Bangkok seems so busy and dirty that it was a bit of a culture shock. When we arrived I was really tired and boiling hot and was starting to think that maybe I wasn't cut out for this travelling lark. We went downstairs and had dinner, I have decided to be a vegetarian for this trip, so I had vegetarian noodles. The veg was really fresh and it was so nice. My meal and a bottle of iced tea cost me £1.60! My phone speaker is broken so I can only make calls with my headphones (which I also slightly broke on the plane so can only hear out of one ear unless I wiggle the wire), and one of the zips on my nice new bag is broken which has made a bit annoyed as I have lost a useful zip compartment, but at least we are here in one piece.
Now we are back in the room and have sorted our bags out, tomorrow we are going to head into the old town and find somewhere different to stay tomorrow night. I am feeling much better now I have eaten and washed and have a plan for tomorrow, so hopefully I will find that I am capable of this backpacking thing after all!
This hostel has free wifi so I am writing this on my phone - hopefully this is the case throughout my trip and I will be able to update you regularly.
The adventure has begun - keep reading!
Xxx