It hasn't been that long, but still, a while. I write this sitting in Krabi airport, Thailand, waiting to catch a flight back to Bangkok and from there, home.
It's been two weeks since I went outside without suncream on. I am the poster child for paranoid factor 50 application. It's bizarre because most Thai women I meet will comment immediately on my "lovely pale skin" but every other English girl wants a deep dark tan.
Waiting to take off. Bangkok airways keeps feeding us on this local flight. There's a lounge in the airport with food and drink, and they're just about to bring us another meal when we're in the air.
We came to Thailand because it's my uncle's 50th and his wife is Thai. It was a bit of island hopping, from Bangkok to Pattaya to Phuket to Phi Phi to Krabi to Bangkok again. I was expecting the whole family but it was just some of his middle aged friends and my cousin who I've never really talked to before. They organised it all quite badly and we were a bit of an afterthought because we weren't staying in the same hotels as them. On Phi Phi island we had a bad experience. Check out was at 11am, and the ferry wasn't leaving until 4pm. We planned to drink cocktails by the pier until then. However, the power to the whole island was out, and everywhere was shutting because of it. 30 degree humid heat without even a fan, dragging 20kg of luggage in a suitcase with missing wheels. I was starting to feel faint just sitting around so we dragged the suitcases to the other side of the island where my uncle and co were staying. They were just in their air conditioned pool, and it turns out they weren't even going to walk to the pier, they had a small boat booked. That coupled with having to get coaches from their hotel meant a lot of walking around for us, and a lot of waiting around. Anyway the point I'm trying to make is it would have been much better if we'd done our own thing and organised it ourselves.
Please excuse the rant, I wasn't intending it to be one.
Give me a few days to collate my photos and thoughts, and I will write a nice picture laden post all about my trip.
Khop kûn ka!
Limpet x