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Showing posts from September, 2017

Thai Islands: Phuket & Koh Phi Phi

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So I've got ridiculous travelling blues right now. I've been at Uni for just over a week now, and all I can think about is how much I want to be back on the beaches of Thailand, which sucks. It's probably a bit cruel to make myself write about it while I'm feeling so low, but I was looking at the pictures anyway so lets do it. From Siem Reap we flew to Phuket, the largest of the Thai islands. My excitement to finally be reaching the Thai islands was off the scale, I was hyped and I had good reason to be, look at that birds eye view! We managed to find a huge room in a strange English/Russian pub thing, it was a bit weird but it was £8 a night and I was not complaining. We were a 10 minute walk from the beach and in the centre of town, so we did good.  Phuket was very strange for me, mainly due to the large amount of Russian tourists. You hear Russian being spoken in the streets more than Thai or English, there are Russian signs everywhere, and Thai restaurant sta

The Start of Something New: University

I just wanted to write a little life update as it's been a while since I have posted or been very interactive at all. So here goes. I moved into University 3 days ago and at the start I was extremely excited. My family dropped me off and helped me with my room before we headed out to do a food shop. I really loved how they stayed for so long and helped me out. None of my flat mates were around at that time, but I met most of them that evening and the next morning. I was feeling great the first day, all ready to start university life... and then I just wasn't. For some reason, the second night got to me, like really got to me. I think the fact that my boyfriend moved into his uni that day really just confirmed everything in my mind. That this is it, this is where we are going to be now for the next 3 years, this is what we are going to do and that freaked me out. My family are doing up our house while I am here, which means when I visit back home, my room won't be my

Siem Reap and Angkor 'Waaaaat'

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Siem Reap Night Market Most people visit Siem Reap with the intention of going to Angkor Wat, and we were the same. Siem Reap was a really cool city, but with all the adventuring around Angkor Wat, we took things pretty chill there. We really enjoyed the night market, where we were able to barter for our souvenirs and eat rolled Asian ice cream from one of the million stalls that were selling it. We also enjoyed some of the modern cafes such as Fresh Fruit Factory (best smoothie bowl in the world, seriously) and The Missing Socks Laundry Cafe, where you do your laundry while eating their famous waffle burger. We decided against going to The Bug Cafe though, crickets aren't really my kind of cuisine. We stayed in a really good hostel with it's own restaurant and bar. It felt like more of a hotel than a hostel, those are by far the best kind ;). The only problem we had was an incident with an unwanted cockroach at 4am, which had landed on us while we were in bed...there

An Island Paradise Getaway

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Our next stop was Koh Rong, the second largest island in Cambodia. We had booked a beach hut on a private beach with Palms Beach Resort, and we were super excited. We had to take a ferry from Sihanoukville which took about 30 minutes or so. Once we reached Koh Rong, us and a group of 4 guys who were also going to our resort, had to take a longboat to the other side of the island. We were getting splashed pretty badly by the waves on the longboat, when once of the men driving it told us it would take 3 hours to get there! We weren't sure whether or not he was joking, so we were relived when we got there just under an hour. Once at the resort we went into the beach bar to get all the information we needed. It turned out the resort hardly had any water so you had to flush the toilets yourself with buckets (ahhhhh nightmare) and the only place with wifi was the bar. Also, the power cut out every morning from about 6am-10am, which meant no fan during those hours (that wa

Along to Phnom Penh

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Now this might just be me, but I honestly feel that Cambodia doesn't get enough credit. Phnom Penh is one of the coolest cities I've ever been to, but I don't really know how to explain why. I just thought the buildings were beautiful and there was a nice chill vibe. There are tuk tuks everywhere so you can always get to where you need to go, there's great food (we got a curry on our first night!) and everyone was friendly. We also randomly stumbled across people signing up to do a race around the city, so my boyfriend got a chance to do some running again after the marathon back in April (obviously not me lol), so that was super cool. The 5am race start Unfortunately, we weren't off to a great start when we arrived after a bus journey from Ho Chi Minh. Once arriving at the hotel at around 11pm and beginning to unpack and relax, we found bed bugs. It was disgusting. So we had to try get a refund from that hotel and find another place to stay. One that wou