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Having gone straight to University and not done a gap year, Thailand has always been the one place at the top of my list I have wanted to visit. The sound of the long white beaches and all night parties under moonlight, to me is my idea of heaven. I decided it was probably a good idea to get the trip out of my system before I graduate in the summer of 2014. When speaking to a number of different people from a variety of ages who had visited the country, they always said how amazing it was, the beaches, the bars etc but they all seemed to then go on to tell some sort of anecdote they had heard from someone else, who had heard from someone else and normally ended the conversation by saying something along the lines of 'be very careful'. After a few years of hearing different outrageous stories, I think the fear of the unknown contributed to my willingness of wanting to experience it for myself. So off my best friend Evie and I went on the 10th of June with nothing but our Lonely Planet guide book, and our very well prepared rucksacks.
We wanted to do it properly, so spent a week in Bangkok exploring the temples and all the glories the city has to offer. As well as being roped into visiting one of the famous ping-pong shows which was truly disturbing! We then headed south by train to spend some time on the islands. Koh Tao was undoubtedly our favourite. Three weeks went by and we had no intention of leaving. Our bungalow beach hut for £3 a night was to good to be true, as well as the opportunity to snorkel and dive in one of the worlds top reef locations. We did both half-moon and full-moon parties which were really how everyone had ever described them to be. The sad thing about Kophangan (full-moon island) is that when you see past the location of the beach and buckets of booze, the ominous amounts of drunken tourists sadly meant that you really could have been anywhere. Luckily, we did see the nicer side of the island in the North and stayed on Bottle-beach a remote cove you can only get to by long-tail boat when the seas not too rough. With a total of thirty people staying there, it was bizarre to find out on the first night that four of them happened to be from North London, and actually were from the same town that I was. Then there's the added craziness when you get chatting to people and find out that you have mutual friends, and you're in the middle of absolutely nowhere. I think meeting new people from different walks of life was definitely one of my favourite things about the time I spent in this particular remote location.
The only bad experience we had was having to visit a hospital in Bangkok when we had been given a tablet to help with indigestion that had a bad effect on us. I can't even really say it was that much of a terrifying experience as we initially thought it may have been. We were seen to straight away, and looked after well. One thing I do regret bout the trip was not spending enough time in the North of the Country around the Chang Mai area. We found that as a city, Chang Mai was a bit too touristy for us, so we made a trip further north to Pai. A couple of friends of mine from home had been there and told me how great it was but my experiences in Pai were really too amazing to ever try and put into words and I have promised myself I will return there one day. We rode elephants bare back in the jungle and did another of other things that when I think about it now sounds absolutely ridiculous.
I would positively encourage anyone thinking about travelling to Thailand to go ahead with it, but probably would also end the conversation myself by saying something along the lines of - be careful, but that's what you'll have to explore and find out for yourself.
By Julia Alderman
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