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The Difference A Year Makes
It’s not always easy to stay positive and optimistic during this COVID lockdown, a mood not helped by an extremely dreary English winter as our weather does its absolute best to justify its bad reputation. Whilst some parts of the UK have witnessed significant snowfall, our South East corner has been deluged with what seems like incessant rain, borne out by this detail: January brought 151mm of rainfall when the historical average for that month is 50mm. Three times normal, and it feels like it, too. Many days have been simply too wet to take a walk, and the countryside is now so saturated that the fields and footpaths are…
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Time In Bangkok: Our Review
And so after three full days and four evenings in Bangkok, we are moving on to our next destination. It’s been something of a whirlwind start to our Asian adventure but a more chilled spell is on the near horizon. So here’s a resume of our time in the capital and our recommendations for coping with Bangkok… Bangkok is….. Vibrant, lively, energetic, peaceful, devout. Shiny new, immensely ancient. Respectful and religious; iniquitous, rebellious and debauched. If those words sound contradictory, then they are meant to, because this place has just about everything. Whilst it is a bustling city full of life and full of contradictions, we wouldn’t really describe Bangkok…
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Bangkok: The Adventure Begins
It was the novelist Alex Garland who christened Bangkok “the centre of the backpacking universe”, and, by reputation, several other universes ranging from sex tourism to lady boys to diverse cuisine, are centred here. However, on the City Line train and MRT from the airport to the centre, it seems to us that Bangkok has become the centre of the face mask universe. Most likely the propensity of Asians for wearing protective masks in city atmospheres has been intensified by the Coronavirus scare, but whatever, most of the passengers are sporting one. An overnight flight from the UK means that it is late afternoon as we check in the hotel,…
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Here we go…
Today’s the day. After years of dreaming and months of planning, it’s finally the day when it all becomes reality. Later today we head to Heathrow and for the next 105 days we will be exploring South East Asia through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and finally Singapore. It almost feels unreal. Next stop Bangkok….
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It’s 2020: Our Year Of Destiny Dawns
So we are now, officially, a retired couple, our working lives done and dusted and behind us. And with the New Year dawning today, it’s precisely four weeks until our dream comes true and we start our long term travels around the world. January 29th is the date on which the first leg of our travels begin, when we are due to arrive in Bangkok and set foot in Thailand for the first time in our lives. The last few weeks have been – well – different. With Michaela on midweek tours of the UK visiting family in Lowestoft, Birmingham and Gosport, my final spell of work was punctuated regularly…
