The next stop was Siargao. We were at the airport, passed the gate to board, where we saw we would be flying via a propelled plane. It was a funny experience, and although windy it was fine.

Once we arrived in General Luna we were staying in a hostel for one night before we moved onto a place I booked for my birthday. However, disappointingly, once we arrived at the place for my birthday we saw a lot of construction being done on the place, we still said we would try to make the most of our time there. That day we went to go check out “Cloud 9”, which is a famous spot for surfers, and one of the main highlights that draws people to Siargao. I was eager to have a lesson, so Laura relaxed on the beach with the intention of also having a lesson on a later date, whilst I went off. It was a good experience, and I was almost getting the hang off it until we had to cut the lesson short once I landed on a rock from the tide coming in.

The next day was my birthday, but quite sadly Laura fell ill overnight to what at the time we could only assume was some kind of bug. We decided it would be best to go to a medical clinic, where they confirmed she had a bacterial infection. So unfortunately we had to spend the majority of the day inside our room so Laura could recover on antibiotics. Thankfully, we did manage to still get to a really nice restaurant we had booked for the evening, where we had some great food and listened to the live music.

So the next day we checked out and moved to a hostel, where we would be staying for a further 3 nights. Laura was feeling a lot better, but our luck turnt from bad to worse. Throughout the day I started to develop a terrible migraine, which kept me up all night feeling nauseous. This was strange as it seemed quite unrelated to Laura being ill. So unfortunately, with Laura feeling better but me now feeling terrible, we basically spent the majority of the rest of our time in Siargao leaving our room to go get food and then returning so I could lay down.

All in all, Siargao was disappointing. It’s a beautiful place with more palm trees than I’ve ever seen in my life. The surfing looked great, and I had heard the nightlife is also supposed to be pretty good. I still enjoyed it as much as we could, there is tonnes of quirky shops and some really great food too, I just wished we could’ve experienced Siargao’s full potential. The only silver lining is that we had both been pretty lucky to come this far in our travels with neither of us being particularly sick, and that it came at near enough the same time to both of us. Siargao will definitely be high on the list to return to, if I can get the chance to go back to the Philippines!

Onto another bus, heading to Oslob. Now with Oslob, the vast majority of tourists visit here for one thing only, and that’s to swim with whale sharks.

A friend recommended that we should stay at “Sharky” hostel, which is right next where the boats leave for the whale shark trips in the morning, so this means you can be on the first boat out in the morning. I’m sure in the town of Oslob there is more to do, but where we were there wasnt really anything at all, so we just ate and got an early night. 4.30am our alarm goes off to get ready, obviously feeling super tired but powered through. I’ll be honest, the thing with the whale sharks is it is a bit of a moral dilemma. They aren’t exactly forced to stay by any means, but they are baited with food and stay there whilst so many boats go out throughout the day and people swim near them. I’m still glad we did it, as I didn’t really feel like it was cruel but just the sheer amount of people who they have doing it does just leave you thinking. Needless to say, i can imagine it isnt an experience you’ll get to do many other places, and even though they are absolutely huge, they are completely harmless (though sometimes you do need to swim out the way of them!).

The same day, we jumped on another bus, to take us all the way back up to Cebu city which took about 4 hours. We toyed with the idea of flying the same day, but in the end we chose to spend a night at a hostel and fly in the morning. We spent the night at the hostel, ordering a takeaway and recharging before our flight out of Cebu.

After Bohol it took most of our day to get to Moalboal. We had to get a taxi to the pier, a ferry, a taxi to the bus station in Cebu and then a bus to Moalboal. We eventually checked into Chief Mau hostel, which is another I would really recommend. In the evening we had the most delicious burger, it may be because it how much we missed western food but it was great!

For our first full day we had to wake up at 5.30am to be picked up for the Kawasan Falls Canyoneering trip. This was probably the most anticipated trip we knew we were going to do in the Philippines, and we chose to book this private tour a friend recommended to us. It was a funny experience, to book it I messaged him on Instagram, and then we were picked up on a motorbike were me and Laura both were on the back and taken to the beginning of the canyoneering. We specifically wanted to go as early as we could because we had heard how busy it gets with all the tours. We had the most unbelievable time! Our guide was so good, he was happy to take millions of pictures for us, and told us all the good spots to jump from. Halfway through we reached a swing that one of the locals had made, and you could pay a tiny amount of money to swing off a rock and jump into the water, I didn’t want to leave it was so fun! At the end of all the jumps and climbs we reached the Kawasan Falls. Words cant even describe how blue the water is! It looked like gallons of Gatorade it was that unique of colour. Unfortunately this bit was crowded with people, but our guide told us its because it is summer and many people live close by, to it was busy with local families.

The next day we planned to have a day of snorkelling. Just when I thought our trip to Moalboal couldn’t get any better after the canyoneering, about 30 seconds into Laura and I going into the sea we FINALLY saw a sea turtle. We were swimming right next to it for ages with no one else around, watching it eat the grass and swimming about. It truly was amazing, since we had left home the main thing we had spoke about nearly every place we have been is we were desperate to see a sea turtle, and within a minute of swimming from the shore in Moalboal we see one with no one else around! Eventually other people joined us in observing, but for a long time there was no boats or anything. To top it off, throughout the day we saw 2 more turtles, one small one and one giant one. Although seeing the turtles was obviously a big highlight for us, this isnt the main reason why snorkelling is a big thing to do in Moalboal. For some unknown reason to the locals, millions of sardines are staying a few metres from the coast, and you can swim right up to them and see them creating a huge wall as they swim, and swim right through them as they create a hole for you to swim through. It was so cool to see but unfortunately it was quite dark to get any good footage on the GoPro. We spent the night in Chilli Bar having some drinks and dancing, it was good fun but we were definitely feeling tired from the last few days.

Moalboal was surprisingly one of my favourite parts of the Philippines! Aside from the canyoneering and seeing the turtles, it was just a nice area with friendly people and just enough options for food that it doesnt feel too touristy and keeps the local feel to it. Granted we weren’t staying in the town, but I really enjoyed the area we were in by the sea. I also had another chance to play some more basketball with the locals which they of course, were really good in flip flops again! 

We were leaving Nacpan after a nice and relaxing time there. We were having to get a 6/7 hour minibus to Puerto Princesa, were we would just be sleeping over and flying in the morning to Cebu.

The journey was long, mainly because the driver would pick up people off the side of the street along the way to drop them at various locations, at one point there was 18 people crammed into this 11 seater van! When we arrived we didn’t do much, except I got a haircut for the equivalent of 80 pence!

Once we landed in Cebu we stopped for a quick lunch at Jollibee. We were told we had to try this fast food chain, it was nice but quite strange (I had a one piece of fried chicken with some spaghetti bolognese!). We then took a taxi to the pier and hopped on a ferry to Tagbilaran, which would then get us to Bohol.

We were staying in “Chillout Guesthouse”, which was slightly extra in price but the place was beautiful with trees and bamboo so I think it was worth it. In the morning we decided to rent a moped, although I had only really driven one once before, our plan for the day was too far that a taxi would cost way too much. So first we drove for around an hour to the Tarzier Monkey Sanctuary. These special breed of monkeys are so unique. They are the size of your palm but have the biggest beady eyes ever. We walked round the sanctuary and saw them sleeping on branches, but you had to be very quiet otherwise they could literally just die from a heart attack.

After seeing the monkeys we got back on the moped and drove a further hour or so to the famous Chocolate Hills. We parked the moped and climbed the stairs up to the viewpoint, where you could see thousands of these hills pointing out of the ground. It’s not like anything you would have seen before, it looked amazing! After some lunch we started the long drive back to our guesthouse. The long drive back would not have been a problem, however, the heavens opened and rain was pouring down. Luckily we did have a rain jacket with us, but driving back on bendy, wet roads squinting through my sunglasses wasnt the best of experience! Despite the rain we did make it back in one piece, so it was only right that we celebrated with some beers watching the sunset.

Our time in Bohol was obviously very short, and I’m sure there is way more to do than what I experienced, but I’m glad we were able to see the main reasons we decided to come!

We decided after Coron we would go to El Nido, via the “fast ferry” which took 4 hours. Once we arrived I realised that we had booked somewhere to stay, not in El Nido, but in Nacpan. El Nido is known to be very touristy, with lots of shops, bars, restaurants etc etc. However we were staying about a 30 minute drive away in a small village. Although it was quite annoying we were so far from where a lot of things were happening, we were only a short walk away from arguably the nicest beach (Nacpan Beach) around El Nido. Plus we read reviews of our hostel that if you still want to party then you can go to the Mad Monkey hostel on the beach and have drinks there, and have the benefit of walking back to get a good nights sleep. We were staying at “Where 2 Next”, which was a nice little hostel.

After we checked in we went to a the beach to see what it’s like. The sea was so clear, and once you was in looking back at the beach it looked amazing with all the palm trees and greenery. That night we thought we would go to Mad Monkey for few drinks, but we found out that there is actually a free bar between 7.30-8.00pm. We were then roped into joining a music quiz and teaming up with some other people to create the team “2 Easy”. You got a point for each correct answer and an extra point if you came up and sang the song. We didn’t sing any songs until the end where me and Laura went up food our rendition of Post Malone. To our surprise, we won! Looked like the team name suited – toooooo easy.

The next day we had to go back to El Nido to start “Tour A” an island hopping tour we had booked online already. Along the tour we visited the beautiful “seven commando beach”, and a nice snorkelling spot before having a tasty lunch which was all prepared on the boat. We were then taken to hole in a rock to go through to the “secret lagoon” before then going to the last stop, the “big lagoon”. We were told that to get there from where the boat was parked, you can rent a kayak for two people or you can swim if you like. We decided that we had spent too much already and decided to swim, which wasn’t that short of a distance. I’m glad that we didn’t stay on the boat and we went and saw it, but it was tough swimming back against the current. Maybe we should’ve paid for the Kayak, especially as Laura was slightly traumatised that she was bitten by a fish.

The next day we spent most of the day on sun loungers at the beach, before we went for some drinks at Mad Monkey in the evening. Hindsight is a wonderful thing… looking back on it, we shouldn’t have tried to drink as much as we could in the free 30 minute bar. This coupled with the shots this flashy DJ from Los Angles was buying us, did not end too well. We were both feeling quite ill and Laura ended up getting a nice bruise from falling off the stairs to bed.

The next few days were spent kicking back at the beach. There was a nice beach restaurant which we ate at most days, that did a really good burrito! It was refreshing to take some time to relax, not having to travel and not doing any activities.

What a hectic day. It started with an early flight from Chiang Rai to Macau, where we would then have a few hours layover. We spent the time in the airport lounge so that was a nice change to eat and drink whatever we liked. We then had took our next flight to Manila, which would land approximately 4.30pm. We had planned to do the overnight ferry from Manila to Coron, as it would work out a lot cheaper and we didn’t want to spend any time in Manila anyway. However, the ferry only leaves once a week on a Friday, the same day we were landing, leaving at 7pm. Our tickets said that boarding closes at 6.30pm, and factoring the time to get our bags etc, we knew it was going to be tight but the drive should’ve only been about 20 minutes. Once we walked out the airport – chaos. Hundreds of cars and taxis everywhere, all hardly moving. We booked a grab taxi which took a long time to arrive, and due to the traffic the drive was looking around an hour. Credit to our driver, he was weaving in and out to try and get us there as quickly as possible. I think we arrived at about 6.50pm, and ran with our bags and just managed to check in and board the ferry. Needless to say, we celebrated with a beer on the ferry.

We were excited getting off the ferry, the sun was shining and it was so warm. Thailand was hot but this is the kind of warmth you can sit at the beach all day in! We were staying at Joval Homestay, and was warmly greeted once we arrived. Reggie gave us loads of information about things we could do, where we could go for food, and travel arrangements if we needed them. After having some lunch we then took a tricycle to spend the majority of the day at Cabo beach. The beach wasn’t that big but was still nice. Whilst we were in the sea some Philippine kids were chatting away to us and were amazed at the colour of Laura’s skin! In the evening I decided to go play some basketball, as there are courts everywhere I decided to buy one from a shop earlier that day. I went to court at the police station, where I joined a few teens playing.

The next day we decided to get a tricycle to Siete Pecados. This is a marine protected site which we were told is a great spot for snorkelling. Two young lads took us around the 7 rock formations on a little boat, where we jumped out a different spots and took a look underwater. We saw lots of colourful coral and an array of fishes, however the current was so strong we were being conscious of not being pulled away! Plus we still didn’t see a turtle, so our quest to find one goes on… Once we arrived back at our hostel we dropped some things off and went to climb Mt Tapyas. The climb wasn’t too difficult, as it just consisted of continuous steps (I think around 700?). Once we were at the top we sat on the bank and were rewarded with a beautiful sunset.

Another early start to the day, as we had booked one of the day trips Reggie had suggested. First we were picked up in a van, and driven to go get breakfast whilst making a stop along the way to view a Catholic Church. After breakfast we were taken to Calauit Wildlife Sanctuary, the main reason why we booked this day trip. The sanctuary was home to wild Giraffes, which obviously sounds peculiar for the Philippines. We learnt that they were acquired from Africa in the 1970s for reasons we couldn’t quite hear, but the giraffes that are now on the island were all born there so they are completely wild. They are free to roam where they want and live there, as well as some small zebras and deer. We were allowed to feed them whilst we were the ones behind bars (human zoo?), and stroke them whilst feeding. It was definitely not something I expected to do in the Philippines but it was amazing nonetheless! After lunch we were then taken on a boat to black island. The name is given due to the black rocks rising on the island, and also that the sun sets behind it so apparently later in the day from the mainland the island looks completely black. The island had a beautiful beach which we snorkelled at, and we also went inside a dark cave that was there which was really cool! It was a long journey back to our hostel, and a long day overall, so we had some dinner and took an early night.

For our last day in Coron we went back to Cabo beach and decided to spend all day there. We both did a fair bit of reading, taking some dips in the sea and trying not to get too burnt! That evening Laura decided to call home, so I took the opportunity to go and play some more basketball before we left Coron. It seems that it is very rare you can join in if there are already teams playing, but once one game finally finished I was recruited to join a team to play if I wanted to wager 100 pesos against the other team, this is the equivalent to about 80 pence so I didn’t mind if I meant I could finally play. Although we lost it was still a good cultural experience to join in with the locals national sport, and to see guys in flip flops and bare foot making loads of shots!

We decided to have a quick stopover in Chiang Mai for a night, as it would take too long to travel from Pai to Chiang Rai (where we would be flying out from).

The evening was quite uneventful, we just stayed at Hug Hostel again and had some food down the road. We then made our way to the bus station and got a coach to Chiang Rai. After another long journey, we eventually checked into our hostel and then jumped straight out to go see the White Temple. This was definitely unique to see, unfortunately we couldn’t go inside as it was closed but we could walk up to it and around. There we saw strange statues at the bottom, of human skulls, and some kind of serpents coming out.

North Thailand surpassed my expectations. I was more interested in the southern islands which are known to be more beachy and party like, but we did some amazing things in the north such as the jungle trek and of course the Elephant Sanctuary. We also met some friends along the way so that was an added bonus. I would definitely recommend visiting, and I’d love to go back to see more of Bangkok and Pai in the future!

To get to Pai we chose to get the 3 hour minibus from Chiang Mai. We had been told by multiple people that this route is notorious for the amount of bends and turns it has, this mixed with the fact we were crammed right at the back of the mini van, I wasn’t confident about my travel sickness. Luckily I felt fine and had Netflix to distract me.

Pai is a small town, and the extent of my knowledge towards it before going was that it’s a little quirky, not too much going on but is quite social. We arrived at the hostel we were suppose to be staying at for 3 nights. We had our own little bungalow which was nice, but you could tell the hostel would be much more beautiful w thin towards the rainy season, as it was quite dried out and the view into the distance was covered by pollution. . There wasn’t anything necessarily wrong with the hostel, but the fact we were about a 45 minute walk from the town, down some secluded roads, and taxis stopped at 10pm made us think maybe we should relocate to give us some flexibility with our evenings. We said we would have a think what we would do.

The next morning we decided we would rent a scooter, which would give us more flexibility and ease of transport, and we would stay one more night and check out a day early. The plan sounded good, except neither of us had written a scooter before. Laura found that she could drive herself but struggled with me on the back, so we decided I would drive. Once we left our hostel the fact that we got lost for about 30 minutes gave me some time to practice driving haha. Eventually once we got to the town we looked though the shops and had some lunch. We decided that as we had the scooter we might as well get use out of it, so we drove to the canyon to have a look. Our plan was to watch the sunset over the canyon, but due to the pollution it didn’t look likely you would be able to see it. We stayed a pet while but suddenly realised both of our phones were about to die, and we needed the maps on our phone to direct us back, so we shot off quickly to get some food before getting back to our hostel. Even though it was shakey at parts, my driving wasn’t too bad and we only fell off once as was going like 5mph, so a success I thought!

In the morning we had a free yoga class that our hostel was providing. It was a good way to start off the day but it wasn’t all that easy! That’s where we met George and Izzy, and made plans to meet up with them later that night. We then checked out and took a taxi over to Purple Monkey hostel, which was only a short walk to the town. For lunch we went to “Om Garden”, which I would really recommend, they have loads of healthy food available as well vegan dishes, we had a huge pesto chicken baguette. After walking down the evening market and having some dinner, we had a few drinks until we met up with George and Izzy. We spent the night drinking at various bars and ending in “Don’t Cry”, which basically anyone who wants to stay up past midnight goes to. For the walk back to the hostel, drunken food doesn’t get much better than a toastie from 7-eleven!

In the morning we checked out of purple monkey, we Laura’s brother had paid for us to stay in a villa for Laura’s birthday present, so we checked into “Family Zen Boutique”. We were given some delicious Thai tea when we arrived, and then shown to our room. The villa was very luxurious, and the pool was especially nice. We decided that we would get use out of it and pop out for a early dinner and then spend the evening with some drinks in our room.

After breakfast we went back to Purple Monkey to check in for another nights stay, where George and Izzy were now staying as well. Even though my scooter driving a few days ago wasn’t terrible, we decided to up the ante and get one with a little side car attached. As you can imagine, it was way easier to drive, so we decided to drive a bit further out of town to the bamboo bridge. The area was quite dried out but it was still nice to see, we then stopped at “I love you Pai” cafe on the way back. It’s a really funky cafe where you can sit on the rooftop in hanging egg seats looking back over Pai. Once we got back to the hostel we sat by the pool with George and Izzy, and met some other people they knew. We spent the evening with them drinking, before going back to our hostel for a quiz night.

Before having breakfast at Om Garden, we hopped on our mini van which would take us back to Chiang Mai for a night. Unfortunately this time the journey was spent trying not to throw up!

Getting to Chiang Mai for us meant getting the overnight sleeper train. It was quite funny to see it all take place, a couple at a time the carriages would arrive and violently crash into the previous one, before they eventually connected them. Then once on the train you put your bags down and sit in a little chaired booth, and eventually someone would come round and collapse the seats into a bed, and make the top and bottom bunk beds. There wasn’t tonnes of room, and the air conditioning wasn’t working, but it wasn’t all that bad! There was a strange drunken man talking nonsense to us, but it turned out that the strange man did us a favour by telling us we could get some money back because the AC wasn’t working!

Once in Chiang Mai we checked into Hug Hostel. Tired from the travelling, we didn’t do too much in the day time other than a walk. In the evening we had some drinks on the rooftop bar of our hostel, and met a nice American couple. After some drinks and then some street food down the road, we had intended to go to the number one bar there “Zoe In Yellow”. However once we got there was shut, we were clueless until we learnt that there was an alcohol ban that night due to the upcoming election in Thailand, so we had a soft drink in an Irish pub before ending our night.

In the morning, we had intended on renting a scooter and going to the Doi Suthep temple and then a waterfall. However whilst we was waiting in the reception of our hostel a Dutch guy came up to us asking what we were doing today, I thought he was trying to sell us something but it turned out he wanted to go to this water park at a canyon, and because it was quite far out he was looking for people to split the taxi with. We ended up cancelling the scooter and going with him and two other girls he recruited, and taking one of the red taxi vans there. We were going to a huge canyon that is filled with rain water, and there was an inflatable water park inside. I had a great time, we did cliff jumping, throwing ourself of inflatables and trying the water pogo thing; although Laura hurt her neck so she sat at the cafe for a while. We then went back to the hostel for some rooftop drinks, where some others joined our group for the evening. We all walked down to the Sunday market, multiple roads stretching long with crafts people have made, and various food vendors; It was pretty interesting seeing all the different things on sale. We then went to Zoe In Yellow and had fun drinking and dancing until it closed at midnight.

We had to get up early the next morning, as we were being picked up to go to Elephant Nature Park. After a long drive we finally arrived, and were taken to be briefed. We first fed the elephants from a balcony area, feeding them watermelon and bananas. But once we had finished we took a walk, where we could really see them up close and personal. Throughout the day our guide taught us about the elephants and how they were rescued, and the sanctuary itself. It was quite funny that the sanctuary also homes many cats and dogs, so as we were walking to see the elephants, dogs would be happily roaming around next to them. We then got to feed the elephants close up, and was able to take pictures and stroke them whilst feeding them, “no food no friend”! We were then given a buffet lunch with loads of food on offer, which we had whilst talking with an older American couple who told us about their travels since they have sold their home and gave us lots of advice. After paying a quick visit to the cat village we carried on the tour, where we got to watch the elephants bathing. This was the first time we got to see baby elephants too, who were splashing about playing in the water, it was so cute to see. We had a really great day at the sanctuary, something which we knew we wanted to do since we had even planned to go travelling, so we were really glad it surpassed our expectations! After the long day, we had took an early night.

On 19th March, we packed our bags to move on. As it would be Laura’s birthday the next day, her parents kindly paid for us to stay in a nice hotel for two nights. We were staying at Hyde Park Residence, and if you are looking for a quality hotel I can really recommend them. The service was great whilst we were there, they took our bags, gave us lots of recommendations of places to go, and even had a free shuttle into the town. In the evening we took the shuttle into town and had an amazing pad thai from a man with an impressive moustache.

The next day was Laura’s birthday. We started the day with the delicious breakfast the hotel provided, and then we took the red taxis up to the Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep Buddhist Temple. We spent some time observing and walking around the golden temple, taking in the sights and viewing the people worshipping, before we then took a short travel to a waterfall. We spent the majority of the day sitting up by the waterfall relaxing, and looking out into Chiang Mai city. We then went back to our hostel to get ready for the evening. I had decided to take Laura out to the restaurant “The Service 1921”. We arrived and the place was so quiet and tranquil, which felt strange but satisfying when you compare it to the usual noisy streets of Chiang Mai. The whole theme of the restaurant is that you are some kind of secret agents, and you are first handed your “mission” in a big envelope which contained the menus. We both ordered a few small dishes which all tasted amazing, I asked for the bill in which our waiter replied “mission accomplished”. We spent the remainder of Laura’s birthday in the hotel with some drinks.

The next day we had to be up relatively early, as we had booked to do a jungle trek. We were picked up from our hotel and to our surprise we were the only ones doing the trek along with our guide. The trek wasn’t the easiest, it was a very hot and humid day, the air felt very heavy and the first couple of hours were mostly up hill. We took plenty of short breaks until we stopped for lunch at secluded waterfall. Along our trek we saw a snake but luckily only a small one! We visited a village where we purchased a few things. We finished the trek meeting up with our transport, but we couldn’t believe that our guide was setting off the do the whole route in reverse with a couple who just arrived! In the package we purchased for the trek it also included bamboo rafting, so we were then taken to a river a short drive away. We basically sat on this long bamboo raft as this man and his young daughter stood and paddled us along this lazy river, it was quite relaxing but it was more fun to see the amount of locals along the river with their speakers and beers enjoying themselves. Once we arrived back to the hotel we had to take our bags and check into our last hostel for one night. We felt quilts shattered from the day but we did want to go see the night bazaar before we left. Similar to the Sunday market, we looked around the stalls people had set up, before having some dinner where we tried barbecued crocodile! The texture was strange but it didn’t taste bad at all. We then turned in for a early night, before we would head to Pai the next day.

Sadly leaving Japan, we boarded our flight to start our trip to northern Thailand. Suddenly we had left the cold and rainy climate of Japan, and entered the warm and humid climate of Thailand. We took our first grab taxi to our hostel, which is essentially the same as Uber. We stayed at a hostel called Bed Station, I would really recommend them. The hostel was quite efficiently ran, there was a lot of staff, and there was a gym, a swimming pool, and a bar/restaurant.

After a few beers by the pool, we went to Khoa San road, which was only round the corner from our hostel. Here there is a night food market, with bars and restaurants either side of the road, and street food down the middle. Before food we sat in a bar and had our first bucket cocktail, your choice of spirit and mixer served in a sand bucket. Whilst we were sitting there, after quite a lot of convincing Laura, we both bought and ate a scorpion. Once you get over the sensation of what it is your eating, it actually wasn’t too bad although it did leave a strange aftertaste. We both had some street food to wash the taste away, Pad Thai and I had a curry.

We spent the next day walking around looking in the local shops, and spending some time in the pool at our hostel. Once it was dark we did the same as the night before and had some drinks and food at Khoa San road. However we decided that instead of staying there the whole evening, we would go to Soi Cowboy. We had been told that this is one of the places to go to experience seeing “lady boys”, something we thought was a right of passage whilst in Bangkok. We ended up just having a drink in a bar that we were told didn’t have an entrance fee. It wasn’t long before we ended up going back to our hostel, it was all a very weird experience but I guess that’s part of Thailand!

The next morning we decided to get a massage before we checked out of our hostel. We then made our way to the train station, as we decided we would use the overnight sleeper train to get to Chiang Mai.