After neglecting my blog for so long following weeks and weeks of trying to get ideas and stories written for my new big freelance career, by the way that’s my big idea! I have decided to write down my Thailand trip and blog it in a range of stories as so much happened on that trip one giant blog would never do it justice. It was the most amazing time of my life, and I have great memories that I want to share. So firstly a little intro to the people.

Ab Dhab Cold!

The sun was shining down on us as we stepped out of the car, faces lit up, and excitement radiating off our bodies. Giving hugs and kisses, we said goodbye to our parents, thank god they could drop us off because all our money was being spent on this dream trip. Taxi’s were out of the question. A stiff breeze whipped through our farewell duet, and reminded us we were still in the UK. This only added to our excitement. Soon all this would be behind us. We threw our backpacks on, and began walking towards the entrance of Heathrow Airport.

I was a novice at this backpacking game and so walked a few paces behind my sister adjusting straps and clips so it would fit me right, truth be told I never figured it out the whole trip. I totted after her, doing that stupid half jog that people do when your arms can only go side to side because they’re restricted by your backpack. Then the the area erupted with squeals. We’d found our travelling companions. My sister, who by the way I refer to as Laura, went to college many many many years ago with Alysha, who is one of the craziest girls I had ever met in my life. She’s fun, outgoing, and made ...................seem like a nun at Sunday school. Laura’s a lot like that, except I would never give her any kudos on her personality because we’re sisters, I’ve been around her all my life so it’s second nature that she’s the way she is. Then there was Lauren. Now in this risky game of blind date, I was out of the loop, everyone knew everyone, but not everyone knew me. That’s where Lauren comes in. My Blind Date. Now Lauren studied her Teacher’s Training with Alysha, there is link one, and then Lauren and Laura had become friendly through Laura living with Alysha. Therein lays link two. If you got all that we’ll move on. What dawned on me was I wasn’t a friend of anyone’s I was a sister. Who knew if me thrown into the friendship mix would create harmony. Would I revert to my childlike ways because I was in the company of my older sister? Like the way everyone does when they visit parents, you forget you’re your own person and you become someone’s something. Anyway I digress.

After hello’s and how are you’s and nice to meet you’s from me and Lauren to one another we headed inside, and got ready for our trip. We didn’t have long to wait for our plane to board, so we had time for a quick bite, and a chat before getting on the plane. I was still shell shocked. It didn’t seem real. Even as we got on the plane and took off, I watched as the monitor showed us views of the ground below us, I still couldn’t believe it. It had only been 11 weeks since Laura had called me up on my way to work to tell me she’d bought me a ticket to go to Thailand as a graduation present, I know what a sister. Everything was perfect though. The airline was posh, we had individual televisions with choices of games, radio, TV shows, and films, and with 7 hours to kill I was more than grateful for this entertainment. Of course we chatted among ourselves, and the seven hours went by pretty easily. Not to mention I got to watch Zac Effron in “17 Again”, which to be honest was where the holiday started for me! Now what I’m coming to is the little gap in our air travel, an eight hour stopover in Abu Dhabi. And what none of us had thought to prepare for, and will never forget. The awesome power of Airport Air Con!

With such a long trip we all agreed on a nice sleep on arrival to Abu Dhabi. Eight hours was like a full night, and we were pretty tired already. Especially me and Laura who had gotten drunk and stuck in London on my graduation the night before, but that’s another story. We lay down in the waiting area, with pillows and eye masks that the United Emirates Airline had unknowingly provided for us, we settled down for the night. Drifting into a nice dream of what was to come, culture, sand, sea, and sun. Until an hour later!

I woke up shaking violently as the temperature had sunk its way through my clothes, my skin, and was now festering happily in my bones. I shot up, and looked around. How could the girls be sleeping? Couldn’t they feel this too? How could I be the only one? It didn’t make sense; my body mass alone meant I should have been warmer than all of them. They had all been Bikini phase one and were beach ready trim. How were they warm? I went through my bag and put on what I had spare, but I was going to Thailand why would I have packed any warm clothes? Precisely I hadn’t. I took off my flip-flops, put on the flight socks, also a welcome unknown gift from the airline, and tucked leggings into them. Wrapping my legs in a thin scarf I also had. I lay down and hugged by body. I don’t know why but I remembered some great survival tips I’d once heard. It was in Batman Begins when a pre Caped Bruce Wayne is in the mountains with Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson), and he advises Wayne to rub his chest, as his arms will look after themselves. Gripped by the cold I frantically started rubbing, faster, and faster. Minutes, Hours, Days had probably gone by, and I was still cold. Bloody Fiction!!! I settled down again, and attempted to covet some of Alysha’s body heat. I manoeuvred around her in such a way that she was moulded to my front, like a little chair. I could only hope she wouldn’t wake up and think her friend’s little sister was some frantic dry humper. Now what I didn’t know was that I wasn’t seeing that everyone else was attempting the same thing without the others knowing. Don’t forget I’m still blind folded at this point, well we all were. Which makes our little cuddly orgie look all the worse to passers by. It was only later that we all revealed we’d been trying the same body warming technique on each other, simply at different intervals. It was survival of the fittest. Us verses the elements. Or well, Air Con. But when you’re so cold, hours have past and you can’t think of anything else but how cold you are, this is when you finally understand what Leonardo DiCaprio went through and start hating Kate Winslet for not letting him on that bloody door! Unlike Leo though, we conceded defeat and went to the cafe for many hot hot things.

We spent the rest of the stopover between sleep, hot things, including, spicy onion rings from Burger King at 5.30 am, walking around shops and trying on makeup that the ladies knew we’d never buy just to make ourselves look a little bit better than the frozen crap you see on streets in the winter, courtesy of a lazy dog owners.

We remained in our frozen hays all through the second leg of our trip which included another 8 hour flight to Bangcock, and a quick flight to Koh Samui. The rickety plane touched down, and I finally got to feel the warmth that I’d been waiting for. At 9pm local time we had landed in Thailand, and it was beautiful. The heat hit us at a force and wrapped itself around us like a blanket. The little hut airport was adorable, and better than I could have pictured, we walked across sand to go get our bags. What was sand doing in an airport! It was amazing! The cold, the boredom, the 14 hours, teaching Lauren the wonders of Six Degrees of Separation. It had all been worth it. And this was just the beginning.