Travelling Trappies

Welcome to the temple capital of Thailand. Chiang Mai has over 300 temples, with the oldest dating back to the 13 th century. It has the highest concentration of wats in any province in Thailand. And everywhere you look there’s a temple, some in better states than others, but very cool. Once again, we stayed in an apartment – giving us more room to move and flexibility around meals. However, it’s a bit weird – when you get to these apartments (It was the same in Jomtien), there are big signs saying “Tourists/travellers this is not a hotel, it is illegal for daily or weekly rental”. Which is odd considering they’re listed on accommodation booking apps!! It turns out that air bnb type arrangements are illegal in Thailand. If you are doing short term rental (less than a month), you have to have a hotel license. So, the apartment complexes put up these signs to cover their asses and technically, it turns out that you could turn up and not be allowed to stay at the apartment. It doesn’t me...

Sawasdee from Thailand. Well we’re having a pretty relaxing time here in Thailand – lounging around and drinking cocktails 🏖️ 🍹. After landing in Bangkok after our very long trip, we were pleased we’d paid a little bit more for a very comfortable apartment with a kitchen, plenty of room, a nice pool and close to bars and restaurants. I picked an area that said it was lively but was not a backpacker area - Sukhumvit. What it was, in fact, was a not quite red light district but definitely a bit seedy, popular with middle-aged and older European men.  In fact, I was one of the few non-Thai females we saw at all during the 7 days. Male tourists made up about 95% of the tourists! The bars all have lots of young Thai women outside encouraging you in. They then chat with the men, play pool/cards/connect four with them (they love their games in bars & restaurants over here), and encourage them to buy them a drink (which was the most expensive on the menu). The premise being you’...

Ahlan (أهلاً) from Egypt. Apologies, this is a bit of an epic blog as 2 weeks in Egypt feels like about a month as there is soooooooooo much to see.  Leaving Alexandria we headed to Giza – a fairly grotty town but with the Great Pyramids of Egypt and the Sphinx on its doorstep, it’s a must for any visitor to Egypt. If you can, stay in Giza itself in a hotel with a view of the pyramids - there are quite a few of them. We had a view from both our bedroom window and from the rooftop terrace where we had breakfast, so we could see dawn, sunset and the light show from the comfort of our bed 😊. Pick a hotel with a restaurant as where we were there were no restaurants within comfortable walking distance and there weren’t really any footpaths, the roads were covered with garbage and it all felt a bit dodge. You can use uber to call taxi’s to take you anywhere you want to go.  We just stayed two nights, so we had a packed day heading first to the Egyptian Museum and then the Pyramids....