Graduation!

So this day marked the start of the rest of my life, scary I know! However I put that thought to the back of my mind until I got through the ceremony without falling over on the stage! 

We had an early start so I went up to northampton and stayed in my friends new cute apartment. Getting our gowns didn't feel real, all I kept thinking was 'did I really do this'! 

The ceremony was not as boring and as long as I expected which was a relief, meant we had the rest of the day to enjoy! After some photos and a few drinks, the three of us took our parents for a meal (well they treated us) at cromwells cottage a lovely little pub on the outskirts of Northampton. It was a lovely day to celebrate, but also scary because it's our entrance to the real world! 

Malaysia

 I got the chance to stay in Malaysia for a week back in June and I have to say I didn't find it as impressive as I was hoping for. We stayed in Penang, Kuala Lumpur and Melaka, as we worked our way down the mainland. 

I think the reason I didn't find it as impressive was due to the fact that is wasn't much different from other cities you can visit. In Penang we visited a few temples and then took a walk around to see all of the street art, they were pretty cool! 

Kuala Lumpur was my favourite out of the three but that was probably because it was more westernised, so along with seeing the palace and the Batu Caves (definitely worth a visit!) we spent time eating in Nandos (yes nandos, we all got very excited about this!) and drinking prosecco in nice restraints, shopping in China town (they offered us a lot of 'real fakes') and we even ended up in the cinema watching the minion movie one night, it was a strange feeling leaving that cinema, it felt more like we were back in England, despite the weather (obviously). 

In Melaka we got a tour of some of the city on decorated Trishaws, myself and Yaz went on the frozen one, but there were all kinds from Hello Kitty to The lion King! We then decided to visit the 'best' water park in the area, after going to one to find a pool in the back of the hotel with was 'shut for maintenance'! The 'best' Waterpark there turned out the be the worst we had visited, on arrival we were told that 2 rides were shut, out of a choice of a lot we didn't think this was too bad. Upon entering however we came to realise that the only open rides and pools were the kids pool, four rides, on which you had to pay to buy a dingy to go on, and the wave pool which didn't quite have enough water in for waves and was were an off cloudy colour! A lesson was learnt that day: always research waterparks in different countries before hand! 

Thailand- Phi Phi Island and Krabi

After our night in the homestay we moved onto stay in Krabi for two nights, this is the part I was most excited for. We started it off by taking a day island tour by boat, visiting a few of the Phi Phi islands including Bamboo Beach and Maya Bay where the film 'The Beach' was set. The speed boat was very bumpy especially at the front, one of the ladies on our trip nearly flew off, it was a great way to see all the amazing views though! The water was clear blue with white sandy beaches with lots of small cliff-face limestone islands, it was literally paradise! 

We then snorkelled for the afternoon, which wasn't as great were expecting due to the water not being as clear, however there were still loads of fish, and jellyfish! 

We spent the rest of the time here getting cheap Thai massages (they are so worth it), exploring the area and seeing what the bars were like, it's definitely a place that everyone should get the chance to visit in their lives, well Phi Phi more than Krabi.

Thailand- Khao Sok National Park

So I've been a bit behind on blogging for the last week due to being busy and sickness (it's bound to happen when your here). So my next few posts may be a bit random and of varied things throughout the week.

On Wednesday 17th we took a day lake trip around the Khao Sok national park, I had seen pictures of the beautiful rocks and cliff faces before so was pretty excited! We arrived and as soon as we got on the boat we found ourselves in torrential rain! It stayed like this for pretty much the whole day which made the views very different to what I had seen in the pictures! However it was still amazing too see, we got taken to the famous three friends rocks first, before going to land to hike to catch a bamboo boat to a coral cave. 

The coral cave was a lot bigger than I expected and the inside did actually look like large fry bits of coral. However the darkness and the spiders did make it a bit more scary. 

We then tracked back through the rain over the hills, to get back on the boat to head for lunch, by this point in the day everything was wet, it is weird being in a place where you are soaked but can still manage to sweat at the same time! 

They had many little 'resorts' dotted around the national park made up of little wooden huts floating on wood and barrels, we stopped at one for lunch and a swim and kayak in the beautiful and warm green lakes they water was 28 degrees! After this all I was looking forward to a nice warm shower, turns out ours didn't fancy being warm, so it was a cool one for us! 

Thailand- Over night sleeper train

16/06/2015

The over night sleeper train was an experience and something I am actually glad to have done, I probably got about 2 hours sleep, due to the lights being on all night, and the fact at the train swayed from side to side and jolted a lot! I tried to sleep for most of the night with my hoddie on backwards to block out the light but everytime I was drifting off the train jolted! If you happen to go on one, I would advise you to avoid the toilet as much as possible, everything goes straight into the tracks, and as the journey goes on the smell gets worse!

We arrived at Suratthani rail station to stop for some breakfast before getting a lift in the back of a truck for the 2 hour journey to the hotel, all I would say is it wasn't the comfiest! 

We arrived at the hotel and had the rest of the afternoon to chill and see what was around, after a dip in the pool and lunch we all decided to go Canoeingn. It was really good, we stopped to swim in the river and jump off a rope, we also got to see the amazing views of the Khao Sok national park. Followed by dinner and a few cocktails and pool in one of the few bars in the area.

Thailand- Canal Journey

15/06/2015
Still in Bangkok we headed out to the canals by public bus, luckliy for us it wasn't so busy! We got to the canals and I was shocked to see the amount of pollution in the area and river, especially as it is the Kings river! The water was brown with the sides were full of rubbish, we then got onto and long thin boat and were told to wear life jackets, worrying, the river is the last place I wanted to end up! The boat trip was actually a lot better than I was expecting, we saw loads of fish (God knows how they survive in that water), we also Water Monitors some were huge, they are like lizard kind of animals!

We then went onto the Pho Wat temple which was huge and we saw the largest lying down Buddha in Bangkok it was 46m long and 15m high! It was huge! 

We then walked around the rest of the temple and learnt a bit about monks, I did not know that they can stop being a monk in order to have a family and then become an monk again later in life, because as a monk they cannot touch females! 

We then got a proper Thai massage, she managed to click bones in my body that have never been clicked before! And then went back to Koh San Road for lunch before spending the rest of the afternoon in the pool before our over night sleeper train.

We then headed to the train station for our overnight train! It was a lot better than I was expecting, I had visions of hot dark and mouldy, but it was actually very clean, cool and light, I will update you on the next blog to how we slept...