Thailand – 再见护照，再见钱包，再见手机

Thailand may have been beautiful but by the end I was glad to be finally returning to Tianjin. Our journey began by discovering we hadn’t booked ourselves somewhere to sleep for the first night so the only places available were quite expensive. We treated ourselves to a night of luxury then the next day moved into our hostel.

Our first place in Thailand was Phuket Island which has a very beautiful beach! So the second night we decided to go for a swim, because it was dark we left our bag under a deck chair and went in the sea. Only to return from our swim to discover the bag was gone and with it my iphone, Robins iphone, Brodie’s iphone, Brodie’s Oppo, Owens wallet, Robin’s wallet, Brodie’s wallet and of course Brodie’s passport.

I actually got out of the situation pretty lucky, I was planning on selling that phone after the scholarship anyway so the only issue I had was missing pictures. We now had four of us relying on my money only and all of us were in a panic. We returned to the hostel and used the remaining phones to log out of all social media and accounts, called the other scholars who were arriving later that night and began our pilgrimage to the police station.

The next day Sam, Claire and Sam’s friend Bruce arrived and were able to help lend money. The day after more scholars arrived and so we spent the next few days going to the beach and going out. We were convinced there was jellyfish in the sea because we kept getting stung but we still had loads of fun swimming out to the ropes. To my delight there was lots of kebab stalls in Patong as well as an Indian restaurant where I had curry for the first time in ages!

Some other scholars where on Phi Phi Island which wasn’t too far from Phuket so we decided to take a boat journey there and spend the day. Phi Phi is absolutely stunning! A massive recommend! The water is so beautiful and clear, it looks like all the pictures you see on fancy travel blogs but in real life.

Whilst we were on Phi Phi we went kayaking to monkey beach were the monkeys were less than friendly and then ate 50baht pizza and relaxed in the water catching up with everyone. The only issue is the coral in the water was really painful if you stood on it and the water was covered in it! It’s such a shame the island is so beautiful but I would take the stingy seas of Phuket over the stabby sea’s of Phi Phi.

On our return that night I discovered I was covered head to toe in sunburn, plus my feet were actually ruined from stepping on coral. We had a flight the next day and my feet were burnt, blistered and bruised. I could barley walk! Pretty much all of us that night were constantly applying aloe vera oil in hope to stop the burn. I was very impressed that I managed to burn despite reapplying factor 50 three times that day! Still, we never let that get us down. Brodie had a police statement and passport copy to get into Bangkok and we were ready for our last destination.

Bangkok was short lived but still fun, we spent a day travelling temple to temple and other exploring an airport themed shopping centre where each floor was themed like a different country. Our hostel was Game of Thrones themed which was also pretty cool!

Finally we put an end to travels and headed back to Tianjin.