One night in Bangkok

Actually it was two nights in Bangkok, which nearly turned into three when we conveniently missed out flight out to islands after a rather over-enthusiastic start to Rebel's 30th birthday celebrations.

We landed in Bangkok around 8.30am on the Wednesday morning, after leaving Perth the night before, with a short stop over in Singapore for some delicious roasted duck noodles. It was a funny feeling walking through the doors of Perth International Airport again to leave for our holiday. It was a lot less dramatic, to say the least, then when I had arrived a year earlier completely shattered and half in shock that I was actually back in Perth after leaving London. It was also hard to believe that I was going to be in another country for the first time in a year. It had been far too long between travels.

Our priority on arriving in Bangkok was to find accommodation as soon as possible so we could dump our luggage, have a quick look around and catch up on some much needed sleep before really exploring the city. We made our way to backpacker central - Koh Sahn Road, in Banglamphu. It became pretty obvious quite early on that I was probably the only one out of the group that had bothered to do any form of research before arriving in Thailand. Actually, this became obvious at Perth airport and Changi airport as everyone kept asking me where we had to go, when our next flight was and what was happening. So somehow I fell into tour leader role and found us some spare rooms at Rikka Inn for about 800BHT a night, complete with air conditioning, hot showers and a roof top pool. Exactly what we needed.

After a few hours sleep Rebel and I decided to hit Kao Sahn Rd to find some food and see what this city was all about. Kao Sahn Rd as I said before is backpackers central. Hence the street is full of vendors selling cheap clothes, fake sunglasses, cheap beer and food. I loved watching the street transform throughout the day. First thing in the morning it's so quiet, with the vendors starting to assemble their clothing stores, getting ready for another days trade. By lunchtime the hungover backpackers are starting to appear from the myriad of guesthouses lining the street, people are queueing to grab a 30BHT pad Thai from the street food vendors and the bars are slowly filling with those ready for their first Singha beer. As dusk starts to fall on the city the touts start flooding the street trying to sell their wares to every passing foreigner - glow sticks, ribbiting wooden frogs, laser lights. The 7-Elevens transform into street bars selling cheap as chips cocktails and Tiger beers for 50BHT (approximately $2) and loud music thumps out from the bars across the street.

Our little travelling group also decided to absorb some culture and sightseeing. We ventured off to The Grand Palace, sidestepping the dodgy people trying to fool us that the Palace was closed for the day and headed through the impressive main gates only to be hustled into the change room, where we were told to cover up. As we stepped back into the sticky humidity, donning our new outfits, full length sarongs and button up shirts, we wandered into the grounds of the palace admiring the glittering gold statues throughout. We finished the tour of the grounds with a look at the Emerald Buddha in the Royal Monastery at which stage my modest sarong decided to fall off and bare my barely covered backside to the revered Buddha. Oops!

The lure of the Bangkok night life also drew us into it's steamy bosom. On our first night as we dodged a lightning storm we stumbled into a hidden mansion bar down a little side street. This beautiful 2 storey old Thai house was set up as an alternative indi bar, with outdoor furniture settings filling the courtyard lit with fairy lights. We were the only Westerners yet we were greeted with big smiles from the people running the bar, as we found ourselves a place amongst the young Thais sharing bottles of whisky at the tables. We kicked back sharing large bottles of Chang beer and watched the rain pour down outside through the open shutters, loving every moment.

Our last night in Bangkok coincided with the start of Rebel's 30th birthday. Acting on a last minute recommendation from a friend via facebook (what would I do without facebook?!)we headed across Bangkok to Sukhumvit Rd to the Bed Supperclub. Our night was timed with UB Radio's 1st birthday party which saw us paying an exorbitant 700BHT entry fee. However, the bar itself and the music they were playing was pretty damn cool. We kicked on until about 2 or 3am, before managing to find our way home to collapse in bed. We awoke blearily 5 hours later only to start a series of slow moving stuff ups leading us to miss our 11am flight to Koh Samui.

To be continued...

Leaving London

Monday 28th July 2008

I flew out of London and back to Perth on Monday 28th July 2008. The plan was to return for about six months, stay for summer and then apply for the Highly Skilled Visa, or Tier 1 as it is now known, and head right back to London again.

Unfortunately, in the meantime a global economic downturn, recession, credit crisis - whatever you wish to call it - has seen the English economy turn into a pit. One of the responses to this was to start cutting the immigration intake and hence they have now raised the minimum requirements for the Tier 1 visa so that you must have a Masters degree to qualify for it.

So now any plans I may have had to return to London are pretty much squashed.

But I don't think this will be the end of the Red Suitcase Diaries. While I am still currently in Perth, working hard and saving money, I definitely seem to still have itchy feet. There are plenty of other countries in the world to live in.

So stay tuned for round 2 at the end of 2009 or beginning of 2010.

A Belgian City Break

(18 - 20 July 08)

I nearly didn't make it to Belgium for the weekender planned in Brussels with my older brother.

The night before, I went on a Friday night date into Leicester Square with J to see one of the 5 pound comedy nights, sure to give you a few cheap laughs over a few drinks. Well, in our case, a few drinks too many which saw me rather inebbriated at 1am trying to pack my mini suitcase for my early 8.10am departure the next day. I had arranged to meet Rhys at the Eurostar terminal in Kings Cross at 7.15am yet my overzealous efforts the night before meant I was in struggle-town and still trying to make my way out of Brixton at this time after I had already run back home once to grab the passport I had nearly forgotten.

A stressful 45 minutes later I met my rather distressed brother at the Eurostar station and we made a beeline for our platform. We made our way through passport control and dashed to our carriage just as the last boarding call went out over the station.

After finding our seats Rhys looked at me, shook his head and told me I was "selfish and stunk of booze". I was more impressed by the fact that it's possible to get on a Eurostar with 15 minutes to spare. Definitely the best way to travel in Europe!

After nearly a two hour train ride I had managed to rehydrate slightly and then we were in Brussels, trying to find our hostel. We checked in, dumped our bags and began our site seeing excursion of the city. I have to say, I wasn't really in the right state to be sightseeing, but I pushed through and stumbled along after Rhys as he stopped for photos here and there. It was a nice enough city with the usual mix of old historical stuff that's interesting and more modern culture but Brussels can really be done in one day or night. Three days was too much for me for this Belgian city, even with most of Sunday spent sightseeing in the quaint town of Bruges.

If anything, the beer is fantastic in Belgium and it was great to just sit down with some frites covered in mayonnaise and sip on a Hoegarden or Leffe Blonde for a measly 2 euros. The quality of the Belgian beers is just extraordinary and I was even more fascinated by the wide variety of glassware that they were served in.

Maybe if I hadn't just finished a massive two week holiday in Croatia, I might have enjoyed the Belgian weekender more. But it was hard to sum up much excitement when I was still recuperating from too much partying, with a fading golden tan in a quiet, chilly city, with not much to offer apart from good beer and a bit of chocolate.

Was I Dreaming (Part III): Split

On Saturday morning I blearly woke to feel the boat already motoring along the coast towards Split. Just before 9am we pulled into the port at Split, packed our bags, did the best clean up of the boat that we could manage (it still looked like it had been hit by a bomb) and thanked Papa for putting up with us for 3 nights.

With that he looked at us, threw his hands in the air and said,

"Well I don't know how else to say, but it is time to...Get Off!"

So with one last song from Papa we waved goodbye and staggered in the hot sun towards the Old Town with the single mission of finding somewhere to sit and eat breakfast and drink lots and lots of water.

It was in Split that we all finally parted ways. Some had early flights out from Split, while others left that evening, and then another group were catching the ferry to Italy. I was staying put in Split for the weekend and taking the opportunity to see a bit more of the port than I did last time I was there in 2007. Luckily I had prebooked a hostel before leaving London and I found my hostel just outside the walls of the Old Town, near the markets. After what was nearly a solid two weeks of partying with very little sleep, I was in desparate need of somewhere quiet and preferably air conditioned to rest my body. In hindsight, what I really wanted was to be jumping on a plane back to London, to my own comfy bed.

Fortunately I found my hostel, the Silvergate, a quiet and cool escape. Even though I was staying in a 6 bed dorm I had the room to myself until about 10pm that night. Perfect.

After a nanna nap I ventured out into the still hot evening and found a few of the others from the boat a restaurant in the centre of the old town. So we enjoyed another delicious meal and washed this down with a couple of cold beers and then called it a night as the sun went down. Everyone was exhausted.

Sunday morning I woke to join two of the girls, Carly and Lisa for breakfast, back at the same restaurant we had enjoyed dinner at the previous night. The two were heading off to Hvar that day to spend a few days frolicking on the island. Before they left we made the mistake of peeking our heads into one of the jewellery stores in Split and emerged half an hour later with several beautiful pieces of jewellery. I saw the girls off then managed to find a bus that would take me out fo the main port and round the bay to a small swimming area. I spent the day lounging at the waters edge until I finally headed back to the hostel for another sleep.

Back at the hostel I made new friends with an American girl who had just arrived in Split on her own and made loose plans with her to head out to dinner together later after a spot of site seeing. Rather than both trying to find somewhere to eat just by ourselves it was nice to both head out and share a dinner.

And then, it was Sunday night and after one more sleep I was finally on a plane first thing on Monday morning back to London. And let me tell you, I was very much looking forward to getting back home to my own bed finally.

Was I Dreaming? (Part II): All aboard the SS Paradise

The Garden Festival officially drew to a close on Monday 7th July. I awoke sometime late that afternoon and managed to drag my aching head and body down to the massage gazebo on the waterfront for one very much needed full body massage. I quietly thanked my foresight to book myself in for this on the first day of the festival as my friends enviously watched me head off to relaxation heaven. It was so peaceful feeling the cooling breeze waft over me as the waves lapped the shore nearby and the cicadas kept up their constant chirping.

With the festival finished we had two days left in Petrcane which we used to catch up on sleep and discover the delicious menus of the local restaurants. Dinner always proved to be quite a production with at least 20 of us descending upon the small family run restaurants of Petrcane and feasting until our bellies were full.

On Wednesday morning 22 of us packed up and headed to the main jetty to anxiously await the arrival of our privately hired boat, the SS Paradise. Finally she arrived, skippered by Nevin who we decided to affectionately rename "Papa" for the trip, a big bellied Croatian, who spent most of his time wandering around the boat in his sarong and nothing else and occasionally treated us to an opera song after a few wines, and his trusty sidekick Katarina.

After several trips between the boat and the shore to transport our bags, food, booze and finally oursleves all onto the boat we all immediately stripped down to our bathers and with squeals of joy and echoing "Canonnnnnnnbaaaaaaaaalllllll!!!"s we all leapt overboard for a swim before we motored away from Petrcane. The boys got to work figuring out how to play music on the soundsystem (lucky we had a dj onboard) and the next thing we knew, we had our custom made party mix album bursting out of the speakers on deck as we cracked our first beers and vodkas for the day.

And so began our cruise down the coast.

For me, it brought back lots of memories of the previous year's Sail Croatia trip and had much of the same vibe. The days on the boat were spent alternating between sunbaking, reading, sleeping and swimming until we reached our destination for the evening. The first night we landed at Biograd, an island which didn't leave much of an impression on me. It was touristy, overrun with families and cafe bars with bad Eurotrash music. It made me realise what a great little place Petrcane had been and how it maintained so much of its humble Croatian atmosphere.

The next day we set sail again until we moored in the bay of a small island. I have no idea what it was called but the reason we headed there was because the grandfather of one of the boy's on the boat used to live there. So we named it Strika Island. We didn't step foot onto the island until the next day after a long night of partying on the boat. Early in the morning before leaving Biograd, the boys had bought fresh squid, mackarel and sardines from a fishing boat that had pulled in alongside us, and this was then used for a huge feast that we cooked up on the boat that evening.

Our third day aboard the SS Paradise finished as we again dropped anchor in a quiet bay. Well, it was quiet until we arrived. Once again, I've no idea where we were, and once again we renamed the island, to Wasp Island. This was because we seemed to have a phenomenal amount of wasps flying around our drinks the minute we moored. They came out of nowhere! There was nothing in this bay except a smattering of boats and one restuarant on land all by itself. We booked ourselves into the restaurant for dinner and found it to be situated amongst a beautiful garden. It was run by an Italian family and all the food on the menu was either caught by the hostess' husband from the ocean or grown in the garden. Amazing and such unbelievably fresh food. We laughed our way through dinner and through more than several bottles of wine and managed to convince Papa to sing his opera for us one last time.

And, after dinner we made our way back to the boat in very high spirits and continued the party well into the early hours of the morning, making the very most of our very last night of our amazing holiday.

Was I Dreaming? (Part I): The Garden Festival

The start of July signalled the start of summer holidays. On the 2nd July I hoisted my bulging backpack on, caught the 3.08am train from Clapham Junction to Gatwick Airport and joined the throng of travellers in hats and t-shirts all checking in to a summer holiday destination of their choice.

My destination was Split, Croatia.

I met two of my friends at the airport, all of us wearing big grins as we were about to start our group holiday of a lifetime. Once we made it to Split, we had prebooked Garden Festival transfers which was a 2 hour bus ride to the small Croatian village, Petrcane.


We finally stepped off the bus in the main carpark in Petrcane. It was a warm 35C and the heat was instantly a shock after a year being aclimatised to the cool London weather. My initial problem was to now find my accommodation. As there were so many of our friends all coming to this one festival, we had a number of apartments booked throughout Petrcane. The directions I had received to our apartment were rather limited, that is, there pretty much were no directions except for an address. So, after asking a local Croatian person, making a phone call and getting them to ask for directions for me in Croatian, I finally made my sweaty way to Lady Zvisdana's apartment on a street called Put 10, a mere 20 metres from the sparkling blue water. There I was met by Zvisdana, a lovely Croatian woman, and the family dog Roki. After dumping my backpack, my wonderful hostess immediately offered me an icy cold Karlovacko beer and we sat in the cool shade of her garden and made, what I would like to call polite small talk, but as neither of us knew any of the other persons language, we laughed our way through sign language and smiles.

After getting settled, I was in contact with my two other travel buddies, who had found their apartment further around the bay and we wasted no time heading to the main festival site, which was still in the process of being set up. On the pine forested peninsular, surrounded by the glistening Adriatic Sea, we found people sprawled across day beds under the pine trees, sipping on cocktails with chilled beats being played by the dj set up in a gazebo. It was pure bliss and we started to get a feel for what the next week would be like.

We arrived in Croatia on the Wednesday and the festival itself didn't start until the Friday. Over the next two days all of our friends started arriving from their various locations from around the world. For those that had arrived straight from London, we definitely needed those couple of days to unwind from the maniac pace of city life. I started to realise just how magical this festival was going to be when, on the Thursday evening as we were dancing on the waterfront as the sun set slowly over the water, the dj dropped the Bob Marley classic "Could you be loved". It was heaven on earth and the festival still hadn't even officially started yet?

The first day of the festival set the precedent for what our days would entail over the weekend. A mainstage was set up under the pine trees which would see some quality djs and live acts over the next three nights. Highlights included Crazy P, with their high energy lead singer Danielle belting out the tunes and who we later danced side by side with on the dancefloor the following evening and No Faking DJs with a banging set that had everyone dancing. The second stage was the beach bar, where the dj decks were set up under a thatched gazebo and overlooked a wooden dancefloor platform and then the waterfront where people partied half naked in their bathers, splashing in the water or floating past on their lilos with cocktail in hand.

And as if this wasn't good enough, I haven't even mentioned the Argonaughty Boat Parties. Twice a day the massive party boat would set sail, once during the day and once in the evening. Each day you would see the boat cruise past, with its music pumping across the open water as its decks were filled with heaving bodies, grooving to the house tunes.

It was one of the most amazing festivals I've been to. Small, idyllic, fantastic music, cheap and filled with a happy, friendly crowd. It rocked.

Dosser City

Dosser (defn): someone who sleeps in any convenient place

In London the term is used loosely for any friend or friend of friend who needs a place to stay for free or cheap upon arriving in London, or in my case, a place to keep my stuff and stay in between travels before heading back to Perth at the end of July.

On Sunday I packed up my room in Brassey Square where I have had my cosy abode for the past 6 months, boxing up the non essentials to go into storage at my brother's house and then taking the rest with me to my friend Justin's house, where I will be camping out on and off for the next month. As I unpacked my clothes and shoes that started to look like they would envelop J's room, I joked that I gave it till 4pm before one of us ran screaming from the house and down to the pub for a straight vodka.

I had gone from my comfortable, quiet room to sharing with five guys in a big house in Brixton. These guys are the Strick9 boys who I have mentioned in a previous post to my blog. My favourite boys who I met last year in Croatia. Who would think that meeting them in a bar in Dubrovnik would lead to me dossing at their house 9 months later?

I presumed that it would be hard enough getting used to sharing with 5 lads. Just think, toliet seat permanently left up, and not even that but the fact that they all go to the toilet with the door open too. I can definitely see a few awkward moments occuring in the future. I'm also getting my own special ear muffs to be used when the boys get carried away with "boy talk", not fit for ladies ears.

However, yesterday it wasn't just me who turned up on Sunday to "doss" at the boys house. Five new dossers, fresh off the boat from NSW also stumbled through the door, along with one of the boy's Mum and Dad who were on holiday from back home. Suddenly, there is thirteen people all under the one roof. All I can say is thank God the lads live in a massive four storey house and thank God I have a bed!

And then this morning we had to laugh as the whole household was woken up at 6am on a Monday morning to an angry, nearby neighbour ranting and raving about who knows what for the whole street to hear.

Welcome to Brixton ladies and gents!