Me, Myself and Thailand: Day 1

Saturday 10th November, 2018

I had my alarm set for a depressing 5.50am and made sure I got little sleep that night in hoping I’d be KO on the plane. I had packed the night before, so I just needed to shove my hair up and put some comfy clothes on. I never bother to do my makeup for a flight (especially one that long) as:

1.It’ll only come off anyway

2.It’s a plane... why are you caked in makeup anyway?

3.The recycled air and air-con in planes is so bad for your skin. You’re basically putting your skin through torture by shoving layers of foundation on your skin and if rather not come off the plane with 3 volcanoes ready to erupt.

Unfortunately that means a lot of the time I look awful on planes whilst everyone looks like they’re ready for an A-list party. But it’s ok, because in 2 days their skin will go to shit (or so I try to tell myself)

I got the train to Gatwick and had booked a clublounge (nowhere near as good as it had been when I previously visited). The time I had visited previously I was in the South terminal and this time I was in the North, so I’ll be sure to remember that. the variety of morning food wasn’t all that great; portions were also really small. 

I was pretty relaxed considering I don’t particularly like flying. My attention was so distracted that I didn’t even realise we were on the runway ready to take off until my head shot backwards from the force of the plane pulling off. It was probably the most smoothest of take off’s I’ve ever been on, there was not one shake. Before I knew it the seatbelt lights had come off!

The plane itself was a little grubby and dated - the people sitting next to me didn’t like it one bit; I even heard the sentence ‘I’ll never pick a TUI plane again’. In all fairness, I didn’t think the plane was all that bad; however, I have definitely been on a lot better. The whole journey was very smooth. I had taken some sleeping or ‘relaxing’ tablets around 4-5 hours into the flight after I had had lunch. In the meantime I had watched a couple films and some David Attenborough I had downloaded on my Netflix (always).

Toward the end of the flight the pilot put on the seatbelt sign as we were hitting a lot of turbulence, but at this point my sleeping tablets had really kicked in. Although I didn’t sleep long on the flight (maybe 3 hours? I really struggle to get comfy on flights) I was VERY RELAXED and even the turbulence didn’t bother me - it was like I was high or something.

Throwing back a couple days to before my flight, I spoke to Steph about my nerves and how it was a long flight (now skip back to present flight time) an air hostess - Sue - came up to me to ask if I was Nikita and that there was a letter left for me from Steph. She also mentioned Steph said to make sure I’m well looked after (or along those lines) STEPH - you’re such a cutie. I unfortunately didn’t see Sue for much of my flight as she was on the other side of the plane, BUT she made sure I got my note from Steph and even got me into the cockpit HOW COOL IS THAT?! I’ve never seen that part of a plane before and I must say... it looks hella confusing.

It wasn’t too hard to find where I needed to go once I landed. I headed for gate 2 once I had collected my things and was met by a man holding my name, a man who is actually my guide for the first three days of the trip. It was around 6-7am when I landed and the temperature had already hit an impressive 28 degrees and the heat was/is a sticky one. On the way to my first hotel stay we briefly visited a couple of stops with amazing views and had a little look at a memorial for the Tsunami that hit on Boxing Day over 10+ years ago. I was a little underwhelmed by the memorial, it was hard to see that is was actually for the tsunami and there wasn’t too much to see except for a giant Police boat. Nevertheless, it was still interesting to take a moment and think ‘shit, this is where a deadly tsunami hit and took thousands of lives’. Considering how far into land we were too, it was nuts to see how far the water came inwards.

I had done a little search before I left to remind myself of the hotel I was staying in and online it really didn’t look like much. It had great reviews and I wondered how, because the pictures were THAT unimpressive; HOWEVER! Having seen the place, I can see why it’s got such great reviews. Smiles from every single member of staff, a welcome drink   jand the hotel itself isn’t like your typical hotel. You walk across bridges to get to each (almost shack?) and it’s all open, like you’d imagine a jungle bar to be. There’s cheeky monkeys jumping from roof to roof and luckily there’s no sign of spiders.

Not long after arrival I had some lunch, which was absolutely amazing. There was so much of it too. I thought it was for me and my guide, there was that much! Turns out it was just all for me. There was a big variety and it was all amazing. Luckily after lunch I had a little time to have a nap and was up 2 hours later to have a canoe ride. 

Unfortunately once I woke up, it was raining on and off outside but thank god that didn’t stop the canoe ride.

The canoe ride was so unbelievably relaxing. There were points where my back or bum was hurting, but overall it was nice. The views of the cliffs were impressive and there were often black and yellow snakes just jamming in the trees; it was pretty cool! Although I did canoe past a child crying with a bleeding finger with his mum saying, “I think he was bitten by a fish”... hmm, interesting.

There’s not much planned for the rest of the day, just more of a relaxation thing. I’ve planned dinner for 7pm and it’s currently 16.45pm as I’m typing this, so I still have some time to spare. I have bought gym gear with me (crazy, I know) but I haven’t ran for two weeks due to being in Turkey and ill, so I’m desperate to have a little run around Thailand - I think it’ll be pretty cool personally. So I might go for a run? Or I might save that until tomorrow because I’m pretty tired. My plan is to make sure I don’t fall asleep until 10pm, that way I should be a-ok for tomorrow... wish me luck.