Post a pic of where you are now

[Kev B]

We don't have an itinerary for what we're going to do, we're making it up as we go along but I'll tell you a bit about what we've done so far....

🍿🍿🍿

Looking forward tothe rest of your trip.

[Supernova]

As one who doesn't really travel anymore I'm looking forward to it also.

[RED-DOG]

All my life I've been a fearless adventurer and explorer. Dealing with difficult or dangerous situations in thrilling, exotic locations is what I do.... IN MY IMAGINATION.

In reality, I'm a bit of a scaredy-cat who worries about everything. "Have I left the gas on? What if we miss the flight? What if customs find a gun in my luggage? What if the hotel has lost my reservation? What if my pillow is too squishy?

So many possible pitfalls.

There is an upside. Some things that are mundane to normal people seem a bit frightening and dangerous to me, and therefore, more adventurous and exciting.

[RED-DOG]

We first planned this trip in 2019. Well I say planned, it was actually just a bunch of exciting South East Asia words, places and phrases that milled around in my head.

Burma.
Viet Cong.
Tenko.
Sticky rice.
Haggling.
Death railway.
Flea Market.
Cambodia.
Jungle.
Birds.
Xe om.
Cu Chi tunnels.
Mekong Delta.
Street food.
Hellfire Pass...

Obviously a bunch of words don't make a workable itinerary and I just wasn't tech savvy enough to plan a SE Asia trip and even if I could, one missed flight or link in a long chain of booked and time-sensitive events could ruin everything.

So we settled on a two week package, fly to Siem Reap in Cambodia, see the temples at Angkor Wat, sail down the Mekong Delta for a few days to Ho Ch Min city, spend a day, fly to Bangkok, spend a couple more days, fly home.

Sounds great, we booked it for March 2020.

Covid hit.

[Kev B]

Very exciting. If you haven't already I hope you get to see the magnificent Angkor Wat.

[RED-DOG]

Lockdown was announced about a week after we had booked and paid for everything, fortunately we took out good insurance at the same time so we did eventually get our money back, even so it took several months and we had to jump through dozens of hoops to satisfy them.

Around the beginning of 2023 we started thinking about doing the trip again.

Now we have done a couple of 'Biggie' multi-destination holidays before, one in 1997 to Egypt and another in 2013 to India. Both were amazing but it was a bit of a bummer when the tour operator moved us away from the places we liked and made us linger in the places we didn't enjoy so much. Also, all the tours stopped at places where you were invited to buy souvenirs and handicrafts.

Still I was afraid of booking everything myself, arranging my own flights, hotels, transfers etc just seemed like a logistical nightmare.

"If only I could just book as we went along" I thought. "Then we could come and go as we pleased".

It sounds daft to say it now, but of course we could book as we went along. I began experimenting, first with the flight finding websites, then hotels then transport.

I know (Now) that some apps do it all but I found Skyscanner best for flights, Booking.com for hotels and Grab, the Asian version of Uber, and public transport guided by Google navigation for getting around.

I will never be able to take for granted the versatility, capability and convenience of a mobile phone.

You can sit in your hotel room and book your next flight and hotel, and receive your confirmation, ticket and boarding pass. You can research what you want to see and do next, you can translate conversation in real time, and you can send photos and video home within seconds of taking them.

[RED-DOG]

I booked out flight Birmingham to Bangkok on the 18th of September, about 13 hours total with a brief stop in Munich.

Our hotel requirements were a private room with one double bed and en suite bathroom. Not more than 1km from the city center. This narrowed our options down to about a million with prices ranging from £12 to £200 so I added a couple of extra filters. Breakfast included, a window and max £40 per night. Still faced with a lot of choice I turned to the reviews and chose one with good marks for location, cleanliness, breakfast quality and friendly staff at £25 per night.

I only booked the one night in case it was a dive but it turned out to be excellent, especially the breakfast.

I had bacon, sausage, eggs, toast and tea, Mrs Red, a more adventurous eater than me, went for pork skewers with sticky rice.

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

I immediately booked 2 more nights.

[I KNOW IT]

Hi Tom
If you are still in Thailand , download the App Bolt.   It’s same as Grab but a fair bit cheaper

[RED-DOG]

Thanks Craig.

[RED-DOG]

I haven't updated because I can't seen to keep things short and simple.
I try to just say somthing about what we're doing or where we've been but when I look back on what I've written it's just a load of unnecessary whittering. Even I'm bored.

I remind myself of Mrs Red.
I'll ask, "Did you post that letter?"

"Yes, I saw that Mrs Wilson. She had a long cardigan on, orange it was, well perhaps not true orange, more of a terracotta. Hand knitted it was, either that or crochet.
She had her son with her, not the big one, the little one who hurt his knee in the allotment. What's his name again? It's gone completely out of my head, is it Trevor or Terence... something beginning with T.
HARVEY! that's it. I'm sure he has impetigo. I had impetigo when I was about 13, had a big scab on my lip I did, then I went to the swimming baths and it disappeared..."

God love her, I wouldn't change her for the world.


If I update again I'll try to waffle less.

[tikay]

I haven't updated because I can't seen to keep things short and simple.
I try to just say somthing about what we're doing or where we've been but when I look back on what I've written it's just a load of unnecessary whittering. Even I'm bored.

I remind myself of Mrs Red.
I'll ask, "Did you post that letter?"

"Yes, I saw that Mrs Wilson. She had a long cardigan on, orange it was, well perhaps not true orange, more of a terracotta. Hand knitted it was, either that or crochet.
She had her son with her, not the big one, the little one who hurt his knee in the allotment. What's his name again? It's gone completely out of my head, is it Trevor or Terence... something beginning with T.
HARVEY! that's it. I'm sure he has impetigo. I had impetigo when I was about 13, had a big scab on my lip I did, then I went to the swimming baths and it disappeared..."

God love her, I wouldn't change her for the world.


If I update again I'll try to waffle less.

Morning Tom.


"I haven't updated because I can't seen to keep things short and simple.
I try to just say somthing about what we're doing or where we've been but when I look back on what I've written it's just a load of unnecessary whittering. Even I'm bored".


SNAP!

I have exactly the same problem. I currently have typed up drafts from the last 2 months of what I wanted to put in my Diary, pages & pages of them, typed up as I went along. And now, when I read the drafts back to myself, it just seems so much waffle. Waffle that is interesting & matters to ME, but unlikely to interest anyone else. And I want what I write to be "just so", which is silly really. Diaries should not need to be literary masterpieces.

[tikay]

PS - At least your waffle is interesting. Well, mildly so.

[tikay]

It's weird that you mention impetigo. When I was a child, impetigo was very common, almost rampant, but I don't think I've heard or read a single mention of it for over half a century.

[typhoon13]

I haven't updated because I can't seen to keep things short and simple.
I try to just say somthing about what we're doing or where we've been but when I look back on what I've written it's just a load of unnecessary whittering. Even I'm bored.

I remind myself of Mrs Red.
I'll ask, "Did you post that letter?"

"Yes, I saw that Mrs Wilson. She had a long cardigan on, orange it was, well perhaps not true orange, more of a terracotta. Hand knitted it was, either that or crochet.
She had her son with her, not the big one, the little one who hurt his knee in the allotment. What's his name again? It's gone completely out of my head, is it Trevor or Terence... something beginning with T.
HARVEY! that's it. I'm sure he has impetigo. I had impetigo when I was about 13, had a big scab on my lip I did, then I went to the swimming baths and it disappeared..."

God love her, I wouldn't change her for the world.


If I update again I'll try to waffle less.

Morning Tom.


"I haven't updated because I can't seen to keep things short and simple.
I try to just say somthing about what we're doing or where we've been but when I look back on what I've written it's just a load of unnecessary whittering. Even I'm bored".


SNAP!

I have exactly the same problem. I currently have typed up drafts from the last 2 months of what I wanted to put in my Diary, pages & pages of them, typed up as I went along. And now, when I read the drafts back to myself, it just seems so much waffle. Waffle that is interesting & matters to ME, but unlikely to interest anyone else. And I want what I write to be "just so", which is silly really. Diaries should not need to be literary masterpieces.

Ay up me ducks

Will you two stop waffling about waffling please

Get posting we all enjoy reading your waffle

Lets avit

[RED-DOG]

I know I said no waffling but I just want to tell you this bit, I'll keep it short.


The flight to Bangkok was a nightmare for me, sat as I was in the cheap seats.

"I just can't sit still for 10 hours plus" I wailed.

"You seem to manage alright at the poker"  Mrs Red observed pointedly.

Anyone who has seen me playing poker knows that what I do in my chair can't be called sitting.
Lounging, kneeling, straddling, standing behind it, standing in front of it, and mostly, long before 10 hours have passed, vacating it.

To make matters worse loads of people were reclining their seats but I couldn't find a way to recline mine.

"Ask the stewardess" Mrs Red advised.

As if I would. Here's me, practically an aeronautical engineer, unable to recline my seat and there were all the other  plebs with probability no qualifications at all reclining all over the place.

Staring straight forward so as not to give the game away I nonchalantly felt every part of the arm rests. Nothing.

All the rest of the seat. Nothing.

I leaned forward and felt under the front edge of the seat.

It's surprising how easy those life-vests are to pull out and how difficult they are to put back, especially when Mrs Red is hissing at you and digging her finger nails into the back of your ear.

She flagged down a passing stewardess. "Excuse me, could you show my husband how to recline his seat please?"

"Oh this row of seats back on to the emergency exit, they don't recline".

The bloke in the seat in front of me sniggered and reclined his seat until it was about 4 inches from my face, meanwhile I was forced to sit bolt upright amongst all the loungers. I felt like a bloody meerkat.

4 or 5 hours later I noticed something on my fingernail. It may have been a bogey, who can say?

The bloke in the seat in front of me had fallen asleep and the back of his head was lolling in to view between the seats every  now and then.

To my absolute shame I flicked the unidentified substance at the head as it came into view. Unfortunately I misjudged it's adhesive qualities and it clung to my nail for a fraction of second too long and left on an unintended trajectory, missing it's intended target and sticking to the wrist of a dapper chap in the seat directly opposite.

I held my breath but he obviously didn't feel a thing. Eventually though, he did notice it and assuming it was his, proceeded to roll it between his thumb and forefinger for the next half an hour until it became too dry to stick and fell to the floor.

Sorry. Proper update next time I promise.