When our cheeky application for an extended winter holiday was approved by Ocean University, I began to think about what I wanted to do with this ridiculously long holiday (Dec 13th - March 1st!). I knew I'd want to escape Qingdao's bitterly cold winter and get some sun, so I used emotional blackmail ("I can't possibly be without family at Christmas!" *whimpers*) to persuade my parents to send Cora over to travel with me in Thailand. So that's just what we did. On Sunday 15th December, Cora set off from London, and the next day I set off from a chilly Qingdao. Obviously a lot happened during our month of travelling, but I'll try and summarise what we got up to quickly!

After almost not being able to find each other in Bangkok airport (funny story now - not so funny at the time haha) we arrived at our hostel safe, sound and very happy to be reunited. We only stayed in Bangkok for two nights to begin with, but it was fun. We met a nice German guy in our hostel called Seb and hung out with him most of the time. We got traditional Thai massages (ouch!), amazing Thai streetfood, drank beers by the river and in Khao San Road, saw a ping pong show (most horrendous, scarring experience of my LIFE), visited crazy China town and the beautiful, secluded Jim Thompson house and in between, got stuck in Bangkok's heavy traffic.

Next stop: Pai. This involved a 10-hour overnight coach, which was surprisingly comfortable; the only fallback was the terrible Thai pop music they chose to blast out at random intervals. Once we arrived at Chiang Mai, it was another 3-hour coach to Pai, up and down winding mountain roads - the scenery was stunning. Pai is a small mountain village in Northern Thailand - absolutely beautiful, and full of hippies! One day we hired a moped (I drove, generally very well if you don't count the first 30 seconds, during which I almost ran over a man and his suitcase, whoops) and visited some waterfalls, a canyon, an awesome café with egg chairs on the roof where you could admire the stunning view, and hot springs. It was hot during the day but chilly at night, especially as our 'dorm' was basically a traditional Thai thatched hut with holes in the walls and no doors! After warming ourselves by the bonfire, I'd put on all my clothes and snuggle into Cora's bed. Often we were joined by the hostel's cat too!

After a lovely few days chilling in Pai, we headed to Chiang Mai. We stayed in a hostel ran by an eccentric, cross-dressing Thai called Vee and his very cool friend Alex. The hostel itself was a bit odd, but we met some really fun people there, including this absolutely crazy Suede who made the few evenings we spent with him thoroughly entertaining. We did a lot in Chiang Mai: we hired a moped again (might have been fined by the police for not having a licence, whoops) and drove up a mountain, visiting waterfalls and temples on the way. We did a fantastic cooking class, went to the zoo, tonnes of night markets, several temples, reggae bars and an absolutely fantastic ladyboy show with a group from the hostel. One day we did a trek outside of Chaing Mai, which involved elephant riding, bamboo rafting, white water rafting and trekking in the jungle - such an awesome day! We also spent Christmas Day there - first we attended the expat Church, which was quite fun even though they did sing loads of crappy American carols instead of all the classics haha. Then Christmas lunch at a restaurant in town, which wasn't bad although of course didn't compare to a home-cooked Christmas dinner. The evening was rounded off in Thai-style; about 10 of us from the hostel went and had Pad Thai in the street and it was delishhhh.

Chiang Mai was great fun, but on Boxing Day it was time to move on. We got our first sleeper train of the trip back down south, which was great fun. One of the train staff took a liking to Cora and I and kept on saying we should come to the restaurant carriage at 7pm for 'party'. We weren't quite sure what he meant, but soon found out… in order to celebrate the festive season, they'd turned the restaurant carriage into a disco! Thais do love to party. We had a hilarious hour there eating our dinner and dancing along to the latest Flo Rida tunes with drunk middle-aged Thai ladies, before heading back to our carriage to bed.

We got off the train at our stop just in time, arriving at Ayutthaya at some god-awful hour in the morning. After freshening up a bit we headed out to wander around the ancient capital's stunning temple ruins. They were incredible! We ended the day with a trip to a nearby floating market. But when we arrived back at the hostel, things got messy. Literally. I started to feel queasy, so accompanied Cora to eat some street food just outside the hostel, but didn't fancy eating anything myself. Instead, I brought along a plastic bag, which I subsequently threw up in, much to the disgust of passers by! Cora came down with it too about an hour later, and we both spend the next 12 hours running to and from the bathroom every 20 mins or so. GRIM. The next day we had the mother of all coach journeys down south to the islands, around 20 hours of travel in total, including 3 coach journeys and a ferry. Thankfully we stuffed ourselves with medicine and managed to avoid any incidents on the journey. In fact, as we were so exhausted from being ill, we slept most of the way!

That drama over, it was time to enjoy the lazy part of the holiday. We started off on the island of Ko Samui, staying in a cute little hostel just 3 minutes from the white sandy beach. Had a great few days reading, swimming, sunbathing and gradually weaning ourselves back on to food. After a 3-course meal and a cocktail, we spent NYE at a beach party, which was fun. Watching the fireworks go off all around the curved coastline and the sky lanterns float up into the sky was really beautiful.

On January 2nd we hopped on another ferry and headed to the island of Ko Tao, which turned out to be even more stunning than Ko Samui. We stayed in a simple bungalow with a porch and a hammock, in a resort that had its own beautiful private beach. I think this was my favourite part of the trip. The weather was perfect, the scenery absolutely gorgeous and the resort was a lovely place to chill out, eat good food and drink endless smoothies. We spent one day on a snorkelling trip around Ko Tao and Ko Nangyuan (often labelled 'the most beautiful island in the world'!), but then it was back to reading and getting suitably sunburnt the next day. One of my favourite moments was having a go on the swing on the beach with Cora, while gazing up at the stunning night sky.

We were both pretty sad to leave Ko Tao, plus a horrendously long journey back up north to Bangkok didn't do much for our mood. Thankfully we were cheered up when we got settled into our hostel in Bangkok (different to the one we stayed in before) and it was lovely; clean, friendly and conveniently located. Too exhausted to do any hardcore sight-seeing, we spent the last few days of our trip pottering around at a slow pace; we visited a few temples, went to a cool market, got the ferry boat up and down the vast river, and went to a Jazz Bar one evening with our friend Grace who we'd met in Chiang Mai and happened to bump into in Bangkok. Finally, on Thursday 9th Jan, I got up at the crack of dawn to take Cora to the airport. After saying a teary farewell, I headed back to Bangkok to chill for the day until my flight home in the evening.

All in all, an awesome trip. Can't help but feel a bit down that it's all over, especially since I've come down with a rotten cold since being back. But it's not all doom and gloom - Mum's coming to visit next weekend and I can't wait to see her! xxxxxx