First of all we just want to say a big thanks to our friends, family and colleagues for your kind words, gifts and amazing send offs. We have some well earned hangovers. Now on to start our adventure of a life time.

One year around the world!

Shaun and I have packed in our jobs, put our lives into a backpack and are heading off on a round the world tour. We have a route planned and a ticket booked through Round the World Experts crossing 4 continents. Our route is:

London > Bangkok > Sydney (via Singapore for short stop over) > Christchurch > (out of) Auckland > LA > Ecuador (via Miami for short stop over) > (out of) Sao Paulo > New York > London

Our flights cost £1810pp.

First stop: Bangkok. Bangkok will be the hub for our travels around South East Asia. Bangkok is familiar territory for us having visited in 2008 during our month travelling around Asia and more recently at the start of this year.

‘World Traveller’ YESSSSSS!!

10 October

I will begin our diary from 10 October, the day we arrived in Thailand but I want to take you back just a few days prior. We left home early on 10 October, with massive hangovers, and flew to Gatwick wandering around Crawley in the rain and spent the night in a hotel . The next day we got the bus to Heathrow to catch our night flight direct to Bangkok. People from the Channel Islands will understand the struggle.

All the backpacks. Ready to leave Guernsey.

After flying through the night with Qantas Airways we arrived in Bangkok at 3.30pm Thai time and got a taxi straight over to our pre-booked hotel, Amarin Inn. Our taxi driver didn’t even know where it was but we spotted a sign on a building which looked as if it was falling down. As we crossed the road it turns out our hotel was actually 50 meters down a dodgy looking back ally way. It looked awful. We had already booked to say here 3 nights but as we were checking in we decided to change it to 2 instead and we hadn’t even seen the room yet.

The room itself wasn’t too bad for 650 per night (about £6 each a night). It’s tiny and clean-ish with air con, thank God (because its 31 degrees outside), and even a tv. However, Shaun opened the bathroom door to reveal a 1×2 meter room with no shower. After panicking we realised there was a ‘power shower’ attached behind the door.

We got showered (I had a cold one, and Shaun had a hot one after he figured out how to switch it on) and headed for the infamous Khao San Road, we have walked these streets before so found it quite easily. We sat down and had our first of many Tiger Beer and noodles and thought ‘this is it for 10 months’.

11 October

Our first full day on our big adventure we spent in bed trying to recover from jet-lag. As soon as we felt the momentum we headed out for some chicken noodle soup and got a tuk tuk tour for 10 baht each for however long we wanted. For today only the government gives yellow tuk tuks free gas so the tuk tuks charge people 10 baht to go anywhere. We wanted to go to the Grande Palace but its only open mornings so a random Thai guy told us to go to these other temples which were free today only. We went to the Lucky Budda (Desanukarem), then a fashion house, then to Marble Temple (Wat Benchamabophit), another fashion house (which had to be included so the driver could get his free gas apparently) then back to Khoa San. We felt so guilty giving him 50p for all that driving and waiting.

Bangkok is a city of incredible juxtaposition.  The beautiful monuments and palaces share the same roads as brand new shopping malls.  I guess there is some beauty to it but it makes it a pretty crazy place to travel around.

In the evening we hit the road next to Khao San and had our first curries (Green for Shaun, Masaman for me, yummy), just after we sat down it started hammering down, monsoon style.  We had to walk through the road turned river on the way back.

Tomorrow we are off to find some sunshine and have booked a 3 hour coach to Pattaya tomorrow morning. Even Shaun is looking forward to chilling on the beach.

A la perchoine,  Jodie & Shaun