The attack of the monkeys

After Bangkok we headed to Ayutthaya for a couple of days to see the ancient city! Ayutthaya is the ancient capital of Thailand being at its prime back in the 1300's. Its amazing that some of the same stone still remains standing! Ayutthaya is so much more peaceful than Bangkok with very few tourists! We're glad we stopped here because it was beautiful.    

    

Lopburi is another ancient city we visited and was the second largest to ayutthaya. The most famous temple here is Monkey temple which gained its name from the hundreds of monkeys that roam the grounds! This started off a very fun visit, walking the grounds watching baby monkeys play and older monkeys chill in the sun. However after we'd been there for about half an hour the monkeys got used to us and decided to be a little cheecky! It started with them pulling on a stick, then the trousers and then they decided to climb up to my head which was fine when there was one or two... not 8 hahaha! The woman had to come over and rescue me because gareth was no help due to his laughing fit!! We reckon they could smell my fear because they never bothered Gareth or anyone else for that matter! Once getting over the shock, we both thought it was brilliant and thankfully they were just wanting to play. It was definitely monkey madness!

Final days of Bangkok!

Well after our day of illness in Bankok things got much better, well a bit, everyone wanted to scam us but it is the capital! We started our day with an amazing banana and coconut sticky rice which gave us loads of energy so we decided to go and see the sites. We ate our breakfast with a lovely view of the a beautiful temple so we thought that area was a good place to start. Turns out we didnt like it that much because it took us 10-20 mins to get through the first gate then tried to charge us £10 each to get in which would of been ok had there not been masses of people everywhere and queues as far as we could see! We decided that enough was enough and off to the next place we went! We went to a few more places all still busy but all nice and buzzy! One of which was a smaller temple which had beautiful gems all around the exterior. We spent our afternoon in the MBK shopping centre which was huge! Unfortunately we forgot to take pictures but to give you an idea, there were 4 floors dedicated to the cinema and the shops covered about 6!

                          

 Our final day in Bangkok was exciting because we decided to go to a floating market. We were going to to go to Damneon Saduak floating market which is the biggest in Bangkok but heard it was quite touristy so we decided to go visit the local Thai floating market called Khlong Lat Maion. This was amazing because we were the only two westerners there which we couldn't believe! We had some amazing food which consisted of octopus balls, spicy grilled chicken and sticky rice. We paid way to much for it (we paid 90, another person paid 40) but we will get the hang of haggling sooner or later, having said that it still only came to a couple of British pounds!!

                        

                        

                        

The market also had walk through shops aswell as shops on the river, but as you waled along, you could see hundreds of fish in the water, they looked really cool but much more tasty over a charcoal roast spitter!

Overall Bangkok is a crazy, busy city with something happening on every corner, once you find the hidden gems its a really nice place!

Next move off to Ayutthaya and Lopburi... by train!!!

First day in Bangkok

So we made it to Bangkok without any problems! Its feels surreal that we are actually here baring in mind we have been talking about it for about a year! When we arrived in the airport we had no clue where to go or what to do, but we braved it and got the train and a bus to the hostel and the best thing is we didn't even get lost! After settling in we had a quick snooze and decided to explore bangkok and within 5 minutes it poured with rain which was incredible! In the words of Forest Gump "its the type of rain that shoots out the ground". Because of the down pour we were forced to chose a random restaurant for shelter which ended up being delicious and came to the grand cost of £4!

When the rain stopped we headed to Khao San road and ended up meeting a nice couple because of the fact Gareth had ate a scorpion (which ended up being vile) and I ate a grasshopper which was crunchy and chewy! After that the night was history and we ended up getting quite drunk off what felt like a couple of beers but ended up being alot! Needless to say that the next day we didn't get out of bed properly until 5pm! All in all it ended up being a very fun night and now we know Thai beer goes straight to your head!

The Journey Begins

We are now on our way! Had a lovely send off from our family and really enjoyed our past couple of weeks spending time with everyone!  Think I have eaten enough to fill a whole city in the past few weeks!!

The train journey went off without any hitches and because we were delayed for all of 3 minutes  we got free wifi for the whole journey! After an evening of travels we're gonna chill before we have to do it all again tomorrow.

The plane journey starts nice and early tomorow we leave heathrow at 9:30am so to Sarah's disappointment we have to be at the airport for 6:30! !!! The next time we blog we will be in Thailand!!!! But until then goodbye UK hello adventure!!!

(Tried to upload an image but wifi is too slow x)

Our Big Adventure!

Happy Booze Faces!

Well this is the first post about our big trip! We started this blog for the main purpose of keeping our friends and family up to date with our adventure when we go travelling. There is only two of us going me (Gareth) and my lovely girlfriend Sarah.

Our trip is going to start in Thailand where we plan to stay for 4 weeks before moving onto other parts of South East Asia! We have been planning this trip for about a year and it is finally here! Now we are just onto the final bits and pieces, packing being the biggest part!

We are both leaving our jobs and making a dearing leap. I will be leaving my little super market job at Sainsbury's and leaving all my Sainsbury's friends, whilst Sarah will be leaving her job at Kids Kabin which is a small youth club. She attended Kids Kabin as a child and now works there as an adult. She loves it there so the idea of leaving it behind is quite difficult.

We have 2 more weeks left and then we fly! We will start our journey with a train down to London and an overnight stay in a hotel which was paid for courtesy of Sarah's parents which was very nice of them (They didn't like our plan of slumming it on Heathrow airport's floor).

Both of our parents are both trying to do loads and loads for us and we love them all so much. Leaving our families and friends will be our biggest hurdle but they are all excited for us. We are as nervous as some of them but we cannot WAIT!... 

...but don't be sad here is a picture of my aunties cat to cheer you up!

Milly the cat enjoying a bag!

Enjoy the ramblings

Gareth :-D

Mela Festival Newcastle Upon Tyne 2015

Hi everyone, over the bank holiday weekend myself, Gareth and my parents decided to visit the Mela Festival which is a South Asia market full of aromatic food smells and brightly coloured sari dresses. 

This Festival takes place every year in Exhibition Park but this was our first visit! Although it poured down with rain, it was still a good decision to go because it meant we got to see a completely different culture without leaving our home city! 

I absolutely love the colourful saris which are worn beautifully by South Asian woman, then there is the gorgeous jewellery that brings the whole outfit together creating a really elegant look. I also love henna tattoos which I first came familiar with when I was a child watching Bend It Like Beckham! I was very envious of all the beautiful designs that decorated the skin for special occasions. 

Colourful sari dresses 

A girl getting a henna tattoo 

Now to talk about my favourite part... the food!!! This has always been a topic close to my heart. Growing up with a dad who was a chef meant I was raised to love food! That's why when I go to places with good food I am instantly hooked! With this event, I was amazed by how they managed to cook fabulous food in a tent, outdoors, whilst it was raining! 

We decided to try out a food stall where a guy was freshly making naan breads which were then cooked in a traditional tandoor oven. We ordered a mix of chana chaat, lamb curry, chicken tikka, pakoras and samosas to share so that we could get a taste of everything. I am pleased to say that every bite was delicious, however, the likelihood of having it again is rare because we have no idea what it was called! (We will have to write it down next time). 

Look at all the foood!!!

Casually making naan breads...

If you happen to recognise this food stall just from looking at these two photographs (wishful thinking), please let us know haha!

Ramblings over, Sarah x