Hotel heaven

My god. This place is amazing. From the check in experience, to the gorgeous hotel room and the pools by the beach. Three days of deckchair heaven. Everything smells nice, and looks pretty, and is just lovely. All I hear are birds and crickets, and all I see is blue sea, yellow sand, green surroundings and dark brown wooden buildings. I have a few books to get me through the next few days, and that will be all I need. No tours, no sight seeing, just beach, pool, food, cocktails and books. A dog's life.

Sas is digging the sun

Bangkok day 4. This morning I moved from a swanky hotel to one of the very few hostels in town. Nice homey feel, they even do a new years gift swapping thing the 31st. Loads of comfy chairs and stuff and a large room (en suite, by myself, my dorm days are well and truly over). All good. Will miss the pool tho, how nice it is to lay on a 16th floor rooftop sunbed overlooking the city! New place is in a slightly seedy street off Sukhumvit. "We offer confidential and massage" (sic) kinda signs in the shops. The sex tourism is one thing I will never ever get used to, it is so disgusting. And there's a fair bit of it in this part of town. And my god, the men are ugly. If not by nature, than self inflicted. As much as I love tatoos, a tattooed had is just a no. Also like to be able to see some skin on upper body and arms.

Finally decided what to do after coming back from Hong Kong. Decided I do need my beach fix, so booked a flight to Krabi to stay in a simple resort that you can only get to by boat. Not as 'The Beach' as it sounds, pretty touristy, but should be fine for 2.5 days.

Update:
The buggers were fully booked. Half an hour later I still hadn't found anything decent on the net apart from the Sheraton. Fourtyfive minutes later I had booked the Sheraton. Sod it, I'm on holiday. And on the euro rather than the pound (who'd have ever thought that'd be a better option?!). So five star resort....I am ready!

Bangkok

"My name is Saskia and I have an internet addiction." "You're so brave Saskia." (is that what they say at AA meetings?) Ah well. After two 6 hour flights and very (very!) little sleep, this is a good way to stay awake for another hour or two so jet lag won't kick in too badly. Gatwick was deserted yesterday, even most shops were closed (which is probably not a bad thing considering I have a lot of shopping time in Bangkok and Hong Kong). Flights were fine, and I got to watch Mamma Mia (James Bond can't sing to save his life which makes it all the better, what a fab film), listen to Pete Murray's new album and to Estelle's not so new album. Emirates chucked in The Economsit, InStyle and Hello magazine as well. The new Patricia Cornwell was finished in no time too. Dubai airport wasn't as fab as Abu Dinges (as bro calls it), but the sheiks in their headthingies are a pretty awesome sight, I felt like taking part in a Tin Tin cartoon.

Being the keen traveller that I am, I managed to have five currencies on me but the Baht. Which I didn't discover until I handed the cabby 1000 riel for the highway and he asked if I had any Thai money. Aaaargh. Luggage guy at the hotel was so kind to pay my taxi from his own wallet (and I reimbursed him of course). Saved me a 20m walk to an ATM which the cabby and luggage dude decided was no option. Cabby was the sweetiest guy who spoke very little english and seemed utterly unimpressed by my Thai (after six visits I can still only say hello and thank you). Thought it was pretty cute he kept referring to NYE as Happy New Year. Apparently the place goes off on that night. Cannot wait to celebrate with Scott and Anso.

Almost there

Two more sleeps and I'll be on that plane to Bangkok. And man, do I need it. Was I fine with years of not going on hols at uni, since I started working I do struggle to go for a whole year without going on holiday. This year a lot of my time off was used to pack, move and find a new pad. Three days in Italy were lovely, but not enough to recharge. Two more work days and off I am. Can. Not. Wait.

Travel bug

Think I maxed out my credit cards (plural these days, work made me get a stupid amex for the phone contract) in the past week. Two weddings in the Dam in August, weekend in Cinque Terre with the girls in October, and Bangkok/Laos in December and January (flying home on a airbus 380, which I find as exciting as the trip itself). And had my bro not been travelling for six weeks, in Sept/Oct a trip to DC would have been added to that. Luckily some inward air traffic too, Marianna was the first to book a ticket and come over, and I am so dead excited about that!!!

Ah, and my boxes arrived today. And it became clear very quickly I have no storage space to speak of. Clothes are on the floor, booze is sitting on a shelf and the five boxes of books, cd's and other stuff won't get unpacked until Ikea has delivered my Billy's.