So we’ve been by the sea for nearly a week, and I have to say I love it. Absolutely love it! Forget cities, forget towns, I love love love being by the sea. I always knew this, of course, but now I’m 100% sure.
We arrived in the sleepy seaside town of Ban Krut last week – exhausted, sweaty, a little strung out. Sick of being on the move. 5 nights later we emerged (like butterflies out of a cocoon!) rested, relaxed, happy and calm. We’ve spent the last six days getting enough sleep, swimming in the sea, waking up early to watch the sunrise, eating delicious food, reading a lot and spending real quality time with each other. Most days we had a vague itinerary when we woke up (rent a motorbike and explore the surrounds, walk the length of the beach, do some photographic or writing work), but nothing too strenuous. We left plenty of time for afternoon naps and long picnic lunches and spontaneous swims…
It was a delight! Which was why I was so surprised to wake up on Monday feeling down. Nothing specific, nothing related to traveling or being away from home (I went through the checklist and none of the possible problems rang true). Just a bit… off. Now, my initial impulse was to say, “How could you possibly be feeling down? Look around you! You’re in a beach paradise!” but I decided not to fight against it (what’s the point when you’re already not feeling great?) and spend the morning lying in our little air-conditioned bungalow, watching movies on TV. I gave in to feeling down.
And wouldn’t you know it, a couple of hours later I got up for lunch and felt much better. I think maybe I just needed some nothing-time. Weirdly enough, I remember having a conversation about this exact thing with a friend who asked how we’d avoid burn-out. I said, “If we need to take a day out watching TV we will – no problem!” When it came down to it, though, I actually felt a little guilty… Isn’t that silly?
Of course, not having to move around so much has also made it a lot easier to keep an eye on my diabetes, and get back into tighter control. When you’re hopping between trains and buses and walking unknown distances it’s not a good idea to be too tightly in control, but when you’re in one place it’s easier to make sure my blood glucose readings are closer to what they should be. This also means, though, that I’ve had more lows this week than at any other time during the trip. I hate lows! I’m sure all diabetics do…
So we had a blissful (for the most part) six days in Ban Krut, and then got an opportunity at the last minute to spend a night on Koh Talu Island, less than an hour away – a private island with a low-key resort and a truly inspiring coral regeneration project. I’ll be writing about it soon, I’ll keep you posted. We had such a wonderful time there – snorkeling, swimming, and finding out all about the project (see Mark in snorkeling mode here!)
And now we’re about to catch our train back to Bangkok (no running to catch it this time, thank you very much – we’re going to be very early!) Tomorrow night I head off to Vienna for the Novo Nordisk International Diabetes Media Prize Conference (keep your fingers crossed for me!) and on Friday morning Mark will fulfil a long-held dream and go to Singapore to watch the F1 Grand Prix live (the ticket is a little early-birthday-gift from me).
So it’s an exciting couple of days ahead! I’ll keep you updated when I can…
Our Week Two Video Diary, with snippets of all we’ve seen and done, and an honest account of what it’s actually been like (from Mark and my perspective).
Give it a watch when you have a moment, and let us know what you think…
The torrential downpours in Sukhothai continued… late into the night. I know because we caught a bus out of the (open-sided) bus station at 10pm, and we were there from 8pm, so we witnessed the truly ferocious rain. It’s no wonder all the ruins in the old city had pockmarks – that rain would pockmark your skin!
After an extremely comfortable overnight bus ride, we arrived in Bangkok at the ungodly hour of 3.56am. We caught a taxi to the train station, and then sat down to wait till 8am, when our train was set to leave and carry us down the coast to Ban Krut, our tropical paradise. Only, the train was fully booked.
Imagine, if you will, what it felt like to be told at 4.30am that you were too late (too late!) and that the train you were going to wait 3 and a half hours for was full, and not only did the next one not leave for another 5 hours, but it was a slow train so it would take an extra 2 hours to get there! All of a sudden our easy 1pm arrival was pushed to 7pm, and we were faced with an 8 hour wait in a grimy, crowded and airless train station.
I was not pleased.
But neither was I freaking out – which would definitely have been my default reaction before this trip. Mark helped a lot, he was totally calm and relaxed, and resigned to the fact that we would just have to sit tight till the next train arrived. “It’s like a lay-over,” he said, but I couldn’t help thinking of all the things airports had that this station didn’t – aircon, padded seats, internet, shops, etc etc etc
I started getting severely antsy around 7.45am, and on a whim I said to Mark, “I wonder if there are any cancellations, do you think we should check?” He ambled off to the ticket counter without much hope, but by 7.52am he was transferred to another ticket counter, and the clerk there didn’t shake his head immediately… In fact, he looked quite hopeful. 7.57am, and as the 3-minute call sounded we got our tickets – somehow they had found two spare tickets! I nearly cried I was so happy. Of course we then had to buy water for the 5 hour journey, and that cost us a precious minute and a half, so that as we ran to the platform the train started pulling away. Dragging our bags behind us, tripping over untied laces, racing to reach the platform, we called out to the conductor, and thank God in Heaven he slowed down for us and let us on the train.
Phew.
You can see why we haven’t blogged since – we needed to catch our breath!
We’ve spent the last five days in beautiful Ban Krut Beach. It’s a long stretch of white sand with a blissfully warm sea, loads of palm trees, and hardly any people around. We’ve been spending our days taking long walks on the beach, reading voraciously (we’ve both finished a book this week), eating a lot, relaxing, taking afternoon naps and getting painfully sunburnt (this sun is HOT). It’s been such a balm for the soul, and I’ll write more about what’s been going on in my head tomorrow…
For now, we have all these delicious Best Moments of the Day for you – http://bit.ly/1amRtW
Check them out, and let me know what you think!
The last few days have been so. freaking. hot. Boiling, sweating, too-hot-to-breathe hot… Not really the kind of weather you want to be cycling around ancient ruins in, although it does provide a great excuse to lie down in the middle of the day!
We arrived in Sukhothai, a city filled with ancient ruins, two days ago, and promptly hired bicycles to cycle around the town and the historical park (where all the most impressive ruins are). There’s an Old City and a New City to Sukhothai, but Old City is definitely the way to go – it’s right next to the ruins, so you can catch them early in the morning or late in the afternoon, when all the tour buses have left… Excellent!
Cycling around ancient ruins is a pretty wonderful way to spend a morning or an afternoon, let me tell you… We decided to picnic in the park for dinner last night, and it was such a surreal feeling, sitting next to these crumbling stone structures, thousands of years old, and eating chicken. An afternoon to remember…
Today we’re packing up and getting our things in order for the next haul – Sukhothai to Bangkok by bus tonight (7 hours, 10.30pm to 5.30am eep!) and then Bangkok to Ban Krut, a supposedly beautiful and unspoilt beach in the South, by train at 8am tomorrow morning. As if the heavens pitied us for the amount of traveling we’re about to do, the clouds opened about an hour ago, pouring torrential rain over the city and allowing us to cool down for the first time in days… Simply heavenly to feel a cool breeze!
The heat isn’t only a bother because it makes us hot, of course. It also makes carrying insulin around really tricky – especially when you’re riding a bicycle in the open sun! I had some crazy high readings yesterday and the night before, that didn’t make sense given the amount of exercise we were doing and the amount of carbs I was eating, and I realised it was because my insulin must have reached temperatures of over 35 degrees Celsius, and deactivated. It’s happened to me once or twice before, and I find it so frustrating. Especially when I’m being good and eating the right kind of food, and it’s not even my fault that my blood sugar goes high!
It’s all sorted out now, though, thank goodness – that’s the advantage of bringing far too much insulin on a trip like this, I can easily throw away a bad one and get a fresh pen from my cooler bag.
So now! Adventures await. First on the list is lunch, there’s a yummy fried rice and vegetables lady down the road who’s been calling my name for the last half an hour… (Figuratively, of course!)
See you soon!
Our first week (in Thailand)! See snippets of all we’ve seen and listen to our personal video diaries of what it’s actually like to travel around the world with diabetes …
I think the trick, while traveling around the world for the next nine months, is going to be creating temporary homes wherever we go.
For the first couple of days we were constantly on the move – two nights here, two nights there – and it was exhausting. We didn’t feel like we could find our place anywhere.
This week, though, we’ve been in one place – beautiful Chiang Dao, for five nights and six days, and really made a little home of it. It’s been so wonderful to get to know the area, and the people, and to have a sense of familiarity about our surroundings.
I’m really quite sad to leave.
Even more than the familiarity, though, this week has been full to bursting with incredible experiences. We’ve explored the monastery down the road (it was amazing), hiked through the forest (it was very muddy and steep!), discovered the inner workings of the Chiang Dao caves, cooked our own Thai red coconut curries and, this morning, rode an elephant through the Thai forest, followed by a bamboo ride down the river.
WOW.
I feel, especially today, but all week, really, like the luckiest girl in the world. The sun has been shining every day (despite it being the rainy season), we’ve eaten such good food, met some lovely people, and really got a sense of what Thailand is really like. Chiang Dao is such a special part of the country, it’s away from the hustle and bustle, and away from people trying to sell you things and crowds of tourists everywhere you look. When we’ve walked through the forest, we’ve been the only ones there. Riding the elephant this morning, we didn’t see a foreigner for hours. It’s been simply wonderful.
Being in one place has also made it easier for me to assess my blood sugar control, and I’m pleased to say it’s doing well. Slightly high when I over-compensate for the amount of exercise I’m doing, but I’d rather it was slightly high than risk going low when I’m out in the wilderness, or experiencing something amazing and then have to feel that horrible disorientated feeling. The one thing I’ve really noticed that’s different about how we’re travelling now and how we’d be travelling if I weren’t diabetic, is that we have to plan meals ahead a lot of the time. Before I would have been quite happy to set out for the day not knowing where we’ll be at mealtimes, but now I have to be quite specific about when I’ll be able to get food, and if it’s the right kind of food.
Still, if that’s the worst of my worries, I’m not complaining at all!!
(If you’d like to see what I mean when I say we’ve been having some incredible experiences, please check out our 30 to 40 second videos of The Best Moment of the Day, here: http://bit.ly/FIlv9 )
So it’s taken us some time to figure out this whole YouTube thing… Somehow being techno-savvy while travelling is a little harder than I thought!
Still, I think we’ve got it now.
We’ve been recording all these great videos, you see – short 20 to 30 second cell phone videos of the Best Moment of the Day that give you a taste of what we’re seeing as we travel around the world. And we want to share them with you in an easy-to-get-to way. Which we’ve now found!
Koi Pond at entrance leading up to Chang Dao caves
Hua Lamphong Railway station
Absolutely in heaven!
We left the craziness of Bangkok behind, and took the overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, which was totally fun. We were in a second-class sleeper, which meant that after an hour or two on the train, an attendant came around and turned our chairs into beds (bunk beds – Mark was on top because I was afraid I’d fall out!) complete with fresh sheets, blankets and pillows. And curtains that you could pull across the front of your bed so that you had your own private compartment. So cool! We woke to the most incredible views of forest and fields of rice with small villages along the way, and we knew… We’d hit the North.
Row of convenient Tuk Tuk taxis
The North of Thailand, it must be said, is incredibly beautiful. Only, most tourists get off the train in Chiang Mai and miss out on the real wilderness. Not us! We’d been told a secret (by the wonderful Vanoodle – check out her blog here) about a little place called Chiang Dao Nest, a short taxi ride and an hour and a half bus ride from Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second city.
What an amazing place! The bus ride hinted that it was going to be beautiful, with sweeping views out over the mountains and forests, but when we actually arrived here at Chiang Dao Nest (our home for the next 5 nights) we were blown away. The bungalows are set in the midst of a lush tropical garden, and they’re made entirely from bamboo (with wooden floors) and home to an enormous bed. Stunning. There’s a great pool with views of the mountain all around, and a gourmet restaurant on the premises (ooh la la!)
Buddha sculptures inside Chang Dao Caves
This morning we walked about 15 minutes down the road to the famous Chiang Dao Caves, which totally blew us away. We had no idea what to expect… We had just heard that the caves were pretty cool. They were incredible! A series of interlinked caves high off the ground, in the middle of the mountain I suppose, with amazing stalactites and stalagmites, and a walking path lit up to a reclining Buddha statue. For a small fee we could hire a guide who took us through the back route, with some hair-raising climbing through small tunnels and even smaller holes, to these enormous caverns… Mind-blowing, I’m telling you! There were loads of rocks that looked like other things, too – an elephant, a papaya, a lion, and it was so dark (the guide’s oil lamp was the only light) that it felt as if we were virgin explorers seeing the caves for the first time. Wow.
Tomorrow we’re going to the temple 10 minutes down the road (the other way), which sounds pretty amazing too.
So all in all, we’re feeling a lot more settled and more traveler-savvy. We even have the rest of our time in Thailand sorted out, which is rather exciting!
That said, food has been a bit tricky, I must say. We don’t quite have the budget to eat at the gourmet restaurant three times a day, so we’ve been stocking up on food to eat for breakfast and lunch. Only, most of the supermarkets (obviously) only sell Thai food, and they’re not much for snacking-without-cooking. So most of the portable snacks we could find (for the train and for lunches these days) are either highly processed white breadstuffs, or biscuits. Not ideal!
Still, there is loads of fruit for sale (I bought a kilogram of Thai lychees for about R2.50 today!) and for our one cooked meal a day we’re eating lots of veggies. I seem to be striking it lucky with the insulin to exercise ratio – we’re still walking around a lot but I think I’ve figured out how much less insulin to take to balance out the exercise.
And so far – one week in – I haven’t had a bad health day, or a bad diabetes day! Hooray!
Real Bangkok is exhausting, let me tell you! Mark and I made the mistake of being tourists today, and ended up hot, exhausted and with raging headaches… No fun! We realised a few things today – that it’s way too hot to be out and about during the hottest time of the day, that traveling between places often takes longer than the actual activity you’re traveling towards and, most importantly, that there is a vast difference between tourists and travelers, and that we can’t be tourists or we’ll wear ourselves out…
I was sitting, this evening, on the verandah of the place we’re staying at, which is right in the heart of traveler city – the Khao San district in Bangkok. I must have sat there for over an hour, closer to two, while Mark was working on the computer, and as I sat I watched all the hundreds of different types of people walking past. There were locals selling things, locals buying things, locals driving tuk tuks and scooters and taxis, foreigners from every country you could imagine, hippies, hobos, smartly dressed Westerners and everything in between. I also saw a couple of dogs and a few kids playing… It was fascinating. Because as I sat there I could differentiate immediately between those who were tourists and those who were travelers. The tourists walked really quickly, looking around in a dazed kind of way, and were usually dressed in the clothing and jewellery for sale on the side of the road. They have a frenzied air about them, as if there’s not enough time to fit in everything (usually, I suppose, because there isn’t enough time to take everything in!)
The travelers, on the other hand, walked slowly and seemed to absorb what was happening around them. They were a lot more chilled and seemed centered in their own space, and were mostly wearing old, comfortable clothes. Mark and I aren’t quite there yet (well, apart from the old clothes!) but we’re getting there…
So much of this first stage of the journey is about learning how to travel. It feels like we’re still traveler rookies (because we are!) and we’re definitely being charged higher prices for taxis and food than we should be, but I can sense that we’ll get it. We’ll learn the language. We have to – we’re on the road for such a long time… And if we try to be tourists the whole time, we’ll end up exhausted and frazzled, which is no fun.
So today we realised that we have to take it easy and absorb as much as we can, rather than rush to try and fit everything in. A valuable lesson, I think!
We also realised that although this is technically autumn (and the rainy season) it is HOT here in Bangkok. Crazy hot. And there isn’t a freezer in the hotel we’re staying, so I’ve entrusted my cooler bag and insulin to a fridge (I hope it’s cold enough). I tried using ice and it melted in a few hours. Did I mention that it was rather hot??
That said, Bangkok is a crazy cool place to visit. Highlights so far include:
Taking the water taxi on the river, which is ridiculously cheap and ferries you between major spots while letting you soak up some of the riverside sights
Eating delicious freshly-cooked Thai food from the street, especially the pad thai (fried noodles and egg) and fried rice with vegetables.
Getting lost in the streets and reveling in the non-stop energy that surrounds the city, no matter what time of day…
In fact, it was really rather fun. We left Cape Town on Tuesday evening, heading for Doha in Qatar, and from there to Bangkok. I wasn’t so sure about Qatar Airways, I didn’t really have any references for what they’d be like, and I actually had no idea where Doha was a few days ago! Now I can say I’ve been there, if only for a few minutes…
Our Cape Town flight left a little late, but Mark and I were so excited to be on our way (at last!) that it didn’t really matter… In fact, I was so excited that I started dancing around the airport to music on my iPod! You must understand, we’ve been planning and planning and planning for months on end, so to finally be in motion is a pretty spectacular thing!
The flight to Doha was pleasant and uneventful. It was almost full, so there wasn’t any space to stretch out (alas), but there were loads of movies to choose from, and they fed us well and often. We landed in Doha with something crazy like ten minutes to get to our next flight, and would you believe we made it? With only the slightest of rushing. Doha looked really cool, and kind of insane. A vast yellow desert stretching right from the sea, with tall buildings popping up out of the sand. I would have liked to explore it more, actually…
Then on to Bangkok! On a flight that was deliciously empty so we could stretch out over many seats and sleep. Ah, bliss! The food got better and better as the flight continued, till we were actually saying things like, “Ooh, this is yummy!” (an aeroplane first!) I must admit, I was very impressed with Qatar Airways overall. We arrived on time, disembarked with the greatest of ease, and as soon as we got through Thai Passport Control (which was super easy), our bags were waiting! All in all, a very pleasant experience. I’d definitely fly them again.
Then to navigate Bangkok, with its notorious traffic jams and numerous forms of unusual transport (including tuc tucs, songtheuws, buses, taxis and scooters!) We went for the simple choice – an airport express bus, which for the measly sum of 150 baht (about R40) took us a few blocks from our hotel. The smells and sounds that assault you while walking on Bangkok streets are an experience in themselves – pungent aromas from street stalls selling food, exhaust fumes, garbage, fresh mango, other people… It’s an attack on the senses!
But a much-appreciated one.
We’ve been in the beautiful Metropolitan Hotel since last night, so we haven’t done too much exploring (except for lunch, which was quite an adventure – more on food in later posts, I promise), we’ve just been soaking up the comfort and beauty… And recovering from jetlag. We’ll be posting a review of the Metropolitan, along with any other hotels we review for Just the Planet, under their Hidden Gems section – check it out for reviews of the South African gems we stayed at before we left.
Tomorrow we head off into the wild unknown, I’ll let you know alll about it! Also watch out for our Best Moments of the Day, we’ve started posting them and they’re really rather fun (even if I do say so myself!)
PS – Diabetically: so far, so good. My blood sugar has been behaving itself wonderfully, and the food hasn’t been too strange (yet!)
