Some may think of the full moon party is just another party, but they are mistaken. It is a party full of surprises, twist, turns and stressful hangover for days. You could just wound up hung over in the morning or you could be looking for your lost friend the whole next day. It's not uncommon to have a friend go missing for a few days, get roofied, slipped a bit of E in your drink, or end up with war scars from flaming skipping ropes and limbo poles.
We were thankful that our hop-on hop-off bus pass arranged by Bamba Experience included the island of Koh Phangan. Not only because did we have an awesome time at Wipeout, and a great time renting a scooter and driving around for the day, but we were also able to experience the Full Moon Party. Some may think of the full moon party is just another party, but they are mistaken. It is a party full of surprises, twist, turns and stressful hangover for days. You could just wound up hung over in the morning or you could be looking for your lost friend the whole next day. It's not uncommon to have a friend go missing for a few days, get roofied, slipped a bit of E in your drink, or end up with war scars from flaming skipping ropes and limbo poles.
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Koh Tao was one of our favourite Thailand Island so far. Although a little bit too tourist-based, it was still beautiful. The bus ride from Bangkok to the pier was a long one (about 6-7 hours) and the boat ride from there was quite choppy and sickening. Upon arrival we were swarmed with taxi drivers charging rediculous amounts - it was unbelievable. We made it to our hostel, Spicytao, for 150Baht for the two of us and got settled in. We couldn't believe how expensive this island was, but yet it was a cool place to spend a couple of days. Most of us have heard of the popular television program 'Wipeout' - where you get to watch people getting the shit kicked out of them while they try to complete the almost impossible obstacle course. We've always joked about how 'fun' it would be to take part, obviously thinking that we could do better. Well guess what, there just happened to be a Wipeout course in Koh Phangan, time to put our money where our mouth is eh?
In an ideal world, articles like this wouldn’t even be a necessity – but just to be on the safe side, there are a few precautions you can take as a woman travelling alone to give yourself, and the people who are worrying about you, peace of mind.
Just take a giant step into the water while holding your mask, regulator and weight belt, inflate your BEC while trying not to trip on your fins on your way off the boat. That's what we were told to do and that's exactly what we did and look we are still alive to tell the story. Let us back up a bit. I had never been scuba diving before, and Chris had only tried it once in Mexico (where they didn't even teach him about the equipment), so it was expected that we were a bit nervous; but still really excited to see close-up the depths of the water in Koh Tao, Thailand. Bangkok is quite simple. Either you love it or you don't. Unless you have a lot of money, Bangkok is not one of those cities that open up to you right away. It will take time for you to appreciate the city. We are learning that more time we spend there. At first we didn't like it. Bangkok is a crowded, chaotic city with cheap food, wild nightlife and way too much traffiic. It took us 35 minutes to cross a less than 1km bridge.
If you want to see what Bangkok really has to offer, you need to spend some time there. You need to take it at a relaxed pace because if you don't, Bangkok traffic will take over your mind. A while back AFB booked a tour called the Ro Ruea Ways Tour through Bamba Experience . This tour entitled us to a hop-on-hop-off transportation pass for Thailand (8 cities/villages) and Laos (3 cities) as well as a four included tours along the way. It gives us the flexibility of completing the tour anywhere from 30 days to one year, with unlimited schedule changes. We are eager to get started with our adventure with Bamba Experience!
What a way to start our 3rd day in Bangkok. Thai cooking was the mission for the day, and a mission it was. We woke up early, once again, to make it on time for our scheduled tour - a market tour before a cooking class at Blue Elephant Cooking School and Restaurant. But that was not how it worked out. We got the bus to figure out that we had gone to the wrong address. It was 10 minutes before the group was heading to the market, so it was too late to take another bus. We unfortunately didn't know the correct address, so we got on the phone with Blue Elephant Cooking School, where one woman helped us in telling each taxi and tuk tuk driver where we needed to go. Problem is that at this point, neither a taxi nor a tuk tuk wants to take us that direction because there is too much traffic. After about 20 minutes, we finally convinced a tuk tuk for a ridiculous fare of 60 baht for him to drop us off, in what we thought was the middle of nowhere across a bridge about 10 minutes away. He didn't explain where the cooking school was or how to get there, or anything; he just told us to get out. By that time, we are now an hour late (no thanks to Bangkok traffic) and we had given up - today just wasn't our day. Called the cooking school, told them we would try for another day and started walking around exploring the area. Ten minutes into walking around, we stumbled upon Blue Elephant Cooking School & Restaurant. Right where we need to be the whole time.
Successive colonial influences and intermarriages have led Kuala Lumpur to become a hub for food and it's endless tastes and flavours - most of which comes from the street food. Kuala Lumpur has a array of some of the finest cuisines to choose from, such as Malay, Chinese, Indian and more. Here are some photo's we took along the way of our gastronomical journey in Kuala Lumpur.
If there's one thing you should know about Almost Fearless Backpackers it's that we both have an over-obsession with eating, especially when it comes to desserts. It's really tough to stay on budget while travelling abroad when all we want to do is try everything. Typically, desserts are more expensive to buy than main meals, so we were happy to hear that we would be baking during our cooking class at T-Garden Cooking School. It took us a bit to find T-Garden Cooking School as our taxi didn't know the side streets of the Taman Midah region, so he dropped us off on the main street 15 minutes before our class was supposed to start. We thought we had started walking in the right direction (following a simple map we found on T-Garden's website), however after 10 minutes of walking we were lost, and it didn't help that all the street names were almost all the same. We stopped to ask a few locals where to go, they knew exactly where to go and so they offered to drive us as we only had 5 minutes to get there and it was quite the distance. |
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