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AWOL.COM/Alice Edwards’ Travel Blog: Living My Dream and Feeling Very #Blessed
21 May – 8.53 a.m.
Good evening, dream chasers,
I have landed in the wonderfully atmospheric Bangkok. I can feel the culture seeping into my pores, like some kind of Asian facial but all over. I will admit I am a little bit tired after my long flight, but this thrilling new place is alreadyinvigorating me. I must experience everything this world has to offer, there is no time for lying around! Luckily I am excellent at shaking off jet lag, so watch me go. I do not have long in this fair city so I must get straight out there and make the most of every second.
Until next time, my friends,
Alice xx
#JetLagSurvivor #NewPlace #Thailand #TravelBlogger #GoneAWOL#AliceEdwardsBlog#BloggerLife #Blessed #Brave #DreamChaser
3 Comments · 1AWOLs · 25 Super Likes
COMMENTS:
Karen Gill
|There is no way you are notjet-lagged to buggery. You can be honest on here you know!
Hollie Baker
|Wow!!11 Your life just sounds soooooo wonderful.
Isabelle Moore
|Miss you already! Hope you enjoy Bangkok. Come back soon.
My mouth tastes like glue and my brain is also glue and the air is extra glue. I am deep into a jet lag state of mind. It’s a bit like an Empire State of Mind, but with less Jay Z. Staring at the ceiling of my Bangkok hotel room, from under thedark-blue sheets, I am obsessively contemplating time. More specifically, the fact that I have caught up withUKtime, and overtaken it. During theflight fromLA, I have gone from being younger than people, to older than them. It is time travel. And time travel is not sitting well with me. My head is mush.
I’m spending my first few days here in a fairly spenny hotel – in Thai terms, at least. After the sleekness ofLA, I thought it would be better to ease myself into hostel living with a bit of niceness. Plus, I’m a spoilt brat who someidiot gave credit cards to. I am considering making this whole thing a flashpacking experience, and then spending the next forty years paying it off. That doesn’t sound so bad, does it?
Either way, I’m going to spend this week wandering around the capital city and immersing myself in this brand new culture. Which, if the airport was any indication, will be mostly people with neon signs shoutingat me aboutWi-Fi and international sim cards.
After Bangkok, I’m going to be travelling about a bit more. It’s a fairly stupid time to be in Thailand – just at the start of rainy season – but there it is. If only my life crisis could’ve come along around New Year. That would’ve been so much more convenient.
Either way, a beach is still a beach, even if I’m getting intermittently rainedon. I picture myself standing in a bikini, back rolls bronzed and gleaming, the sand between my perfectly manicured toes, as the warm rain lightly grazes me. I am whoever played Leo’s love interest inThe Beach. I’ve never seen that film, but obviously I’m going to check out Maya beach on the island of Ko Phi Phi Leh where it was filmed. That’s if it’s open. Authorities keep closing it down becausetourists insist on ruining it. Which is so out of order! It’s not fair that I should be the only tourist not allowed to go along and ruin things.
That’s just one of many things on my list to do over here. After Bangkok, I’m going to head down to the lower Gulf islands of Ko Samui, KoPha-Ngan and Ko Tao. And even though there are warnings about storms around Phuket, I wouldn’t be a properWesterner if I didn’t go there, right? Then I’m going to fly up to northern Thailand for my last week. I want to take a boat along the Mekong river to explore the Golden Triangle, where Thailand meets Laos and Myanmar. My Googling informed me it’s ‘one of the biggest tourist traps in the country, and is best known as the world’s most prolific opium producers back in the 1920s, until it was eclipsedby Afghanistan’. And honestly, they had me attourist trap. Plus, theCIAcame up with the name ‘Golden Triangle’, which is so totally badass, right? There’s also a restaurant up there called ‘Cabbages and Condoms’. So that whole thing is an Absolute Must in thissoul-searching quest.
I really shouldn’t be in bed right now. It’s a terrible idea. I need to get up and survive the day.I have to try andright-way-up my head. But I’m so tired. But I also can’t sleep. But I have to.
There is a knock on the door and in a daze, I wonder if I have ordered room service. Or did I dream it? I definitely considered ordering food, so maybe I did? Before I can work it out, I am opening the door and, when I see who it is, I know for sure I am dreaming.
‘MARK?!’ I scream, my voicesounding raspy but real. He is laughing as he sweeps me up and we spin round in circles. I cannot stop shrieking, and someone yells, ‘Shut the hell up’ behind a door across the hall. I guess this hotel is not at the fancy levels I hoped.
‘Is it really you?’ I say pulling him in and shutting the door behind us. ‘Am I definitely awake? Is this happening?’
I cannot believe it. This is thestrangest feeling. Someone you know so well, completely out of context. It’s like seeing a teacher down the pub. He laughs and hugs me close again.
‘It is me, Al, I’m really here. We got here yesterday, I wanted to surprise you.’
‘WELL IT FUCKING WELL WORKED, MARK,’ I scream again, so happy. ‘I can’t believe you’re really here. How long do I have you?’
He shrugs, grinning. ‘As longas you want me. I can stay here the whole four weeks if you like, or I can bugger off with Joe if you get sick of me.’
