ournal
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Howdy howdy, well this looks fancy!
I’ve tried using a new software to format the emails because gmail was starting to really mess up with all of the images and got angry I was sending the newsletter to so many people. Wanted to get this one out quickly after the previous one so I don’t fall too far behind, it’s pretty much a double issue of JOAJ, crazy!!
JOAJ is now at an incredible 15 subscribers, thank you to each and every one of you! If you know anyone who knows me or even just wants to know more about travelling in the region feel free to forward them this email and they can sign up themselves if they actually want to…
(note - you can actually unsubscribe now if you want as well, I wouldn’t blame you)
Enough waffling let’s get into it.
The hangover↗
Soooo I left you boarding the plane on my way to Bangkok! It was a brilliant flight, got some movies in, smashed some food and did a monstrous shite in the toilet.
Upon landing (and waiting forever at Thai immigration) I got through, boarded a shuttle into the centre and then fell asleep and nearly missed my stop (the only stop btw).
Unfortunately I couldn’t check into my Airbnb until the afternoon so went straight to the closest place with AC (a mall) and camped out there until I could get in.
It was here I used my first ever ‘Grab’, a truly legendary company that I would come to love.
I spoke absolute gibberish to the driver as I tried to remember how to pronounce hello so he just turned up the radio lol
I met my Airbnb guy in the lobby of my place and he took me aside straight away and basically told me what he was doing was borderline illegal (as Airbnb is technically banned in Thailand) so I had to be relatively secretive when getting my keycard.
After that he took me up to the 52nd floor!! Where I would be staying for the next month. I would say I am an ex-fear of heights person. Before, even mentioning 52 levels in a building would freak me out, let alone staying in an apartment that high up for a month.
It was actually a bit of a turning point. The first time in my life I could look out of the balcony and actually just enjoy the view instead of freaking the fuk out.
Anywho after checking in, whacking on the laundry and checking out the gym it was pretty much time for some much needed kip.
The next day I awoke and jetted down to the bottom floor to take my second ever grab to a prime cafe spot to try and work on, funnily enough, a newsletter entry!
I spent the rest of that day just sorting out life admin and cycling through laundry, it was going to be a busy day the next day…
Remember in the previous entry I mentioned that there were three special guests joining me for a bit?
Guest no. 1 - Petrus!↗
The main man came back for round 2, he called me up literally a couple of days previously and suggested he might try to come down to Bangkok to surprise the two mystery guests.
I met him by the airport rail link and we hatched a plan to surprise the other two.
I left Petrus in a nearby cafe while I went to get the other two from the airport link. We figured that they would be needing a coffee after their red-eye so I assumed leaving Petrus there would be a perfect surprise.
Turns out they just wanted to get to my apartment (which is super fair I would have done the same), so I brought them to the cafe anyway.
Top ten surprises!
I should prolly introduce them:
Guests no. 2 & 3 - Cam & Ryan!↗
This trip had been in the books for a while and it was a very surreal moment to see them on the other side of the world away from our usual habitat of spoons.
We popped back (kind of a long walk actually) to my apartment to dump stuff and then headed out to knock off some sightseeing.
I am actually not sure which temple we went to but it was pretty close to the river and had a massage place inside which we all got 30 mins of pain from.
We then sampled some suuuuper refreshing mango sticky rice and hopped on a tuk-tuk back to the apartment for a lil reload before one hell of a night.
We got a bit of preeing in and then got a Grab to the infamous Khao San road. It’s crazy, no other words.
We sampled some local beers and veggies, hopping from bar to bar. I can remember everything but I can’t fully remember what happened when…
There was a lot of dancing and stoof, the usual night out but honestly it was so good to be with the bois on the other side of the world.
We had some rice/meat dish afterwards that some local people invited us to try, it was a very welcome meal.
On awaking the next day, a little hungover, we headed to a mall for lunch and a chill afternoon. We had booked into a nice place to eat for the night but something I had eaten the night before clearly disagreed with me and I could literally only stomach one bite of the food which was a shame because it looked so good.
Later that evening there was some footy on and so we set up a makeshift tv (my laptop) on top of the fridge and let it run.
Petrus was basically walking around the whole night trying to scare us and in fairness got me once but only because he’d spent about 30 mins building up to get right next to the bed.
The sleeping situation wasn’t ideal for 4 people and so (I think) Petrus went down to the pool area and just slept outside for a bit before coming back.
We awoke bright and early to catch our flight down to the south of Thailand, the islands. We said goodbye to Petrus and left him at the pool area where he probably tried scaring random people the rest of the day.
Upon landing in Phuket we Grabbed over to the ferry area, had a little wait and then jetted over to Koh Phi Phi where we would be spending the next few nights.
Our boat driver managed to drive straight into a rock just as we were coming into Phi Phi which was a little oofy but it could have been far worse.
Phi Phi has no cars. The island is small enough you can pretty much walk everywhere and our hotel was only a little bit down the street.
A quick nap and reload were much needed before some dins. We took it nice and chill that night, having a few beers and soaking in the island mosquitos.
The next morning we had a killer brunch at a place that served literally every dish on earth and then went for a little kayak sesh. Playing some Trav and getting a little sunburnt.
As the sun went down, the vibes went up. A quick little pre in the hotel and then it was off to the infamous Reggae Bar.
This bar is sick. Drunk people fighting each other in the ring, signing up with literally no experience and then getting knocked out within the first few swings. Occasionally you would get two decent fighters (or just sober people) and it would make for quite a thrilling watch. Highly, highly recommend if you are ever in Koh Phi Phi.
After resisting the temptation to get knocked out we went for some karaoke at a nearby bar and then onto the beach for a club/bar/random music place which was pretty cool.
After a bit of dancing on the beach we called it a night and headed back to the crib via Burger King (yes there is a Burger King on Phi Phi) as we needed to be up kinda early for a boat trip the next day.
Another quick brunch at the place that cooked everything and it was time to hop onto our boat for the day.
First stop was monkey beach. It was a beach with monkeys. It was very cool.
We did lots of little stops around Phi Phi that day, dodging any sort of packed lunch green chicken food that was offered to us and settling on some crisps and fries.
Our last spot involved snorkelling with some bioluminescent plankton which were suuuuuuuuper cool but unfortunately as we could only see them when the sun went down, it meant that the mosquitos had come out and were going hammm. I think the majority of people (including us) stayed on the boat because even a second outside and Ryan’s back was plastered in bites.
It was at dinner later that night that things started to go downhill. We had chosen this (pretty mid in all honesty) steak place which was highly recommended and a little into dinner Ryan mentioned his stomach hurt a lot and he couldn’t eat. He headed back to the hotel and Cam and I cleaned up our plates along with some swell wine.
England were due to play later that night (at like 3am) so we were planning on staying up, initially to go out and watch it but then decided we may as well just stay in. At this point Ryan had taken a turn for the worse and started shivering even though our room was boiling, we decided that we may as well try and get some advice from the nearby pharmacy; which was, of course, shut. On our way to the steak restaurant earlier we had seen a pretty decent looking international hospital and figured they would have something that could patch him up.
It turns out he had caught a gnarly stomach infection and so what we thought was an overly-cautious call to go to the hospital, was exactly what he needed.
He was whisked away to the ward where he spent the night on an IV drip, ooooooof.
Cam and I returned to the hotel and tried to watch England play but honestly they were so boring we both fell asleep.
The next day we got a text from Ryan who said he was being held in the hospital until 6pm and so we decided we may as well just have a chill day.
Cam explored the markets and I just stayed by the pool, it was swell.
Ryan was discharged later that day and so we did what everyone would do in that situation and got an intense massage.
It was actually so relaxing but slowly became pretty uncomfortable because I needed to piss the whole way through and eventually had to tell the masseuse to stop so I could go to the toilet as I swear she started pressing on my bladder on purpose.
Bladders empty, stomachs somewhat fixed and bodies bruised, we proceeded to the next event of the night: a fire show.
This shite was crazy, the performers were dropping fire sticks left right and centre, chucking them in random directions. Occasionally they would get something right tho and it looked very cool.
You would have to be stupid to volunteer to go up there.
Ryan and I went up along with some other guy and sat on a chair in front of the performers.
They put cigarettes in each of our mouths and, I don’t even know how to describe this bit, but basically spun the flaming sticks as close as possible to us while trying to light the cigarettes. Genuinely hands down the scariest moment of my life, the stick hit my nose multiple times and I just kept thinking of all the times they had dropped the stuff earlier. I closed my eyes and eventually it was over but holy cow that is something I will never do again.
We finished up with a bit more karaoke and then hopped on the pool table for a couple of games.
Our penultimate day in Phi Phi was also full of surprises. We had a pretty chill morning and then decided to head up to this view point where you could see the majority of the island.
Upon heading up to the viewpoint the mozzies started their offensive waves. We literally showered in the mozzie spray and it didn’t really seem to help :/
I feel like after a while when you get so many you just have a general baseline level of pain which doesn’t really change with marginal bites.
At the top the view was genuinely stunning and well worth the bites. We had a photoshoot session and then grabbed a beer at a nearby cafe to dodge the incoming rain storm.
Over my travels I’ve made it a mission to try and pet pretty much every animal I have seen. From wild goats in China to horses, dogs, and even a Turkmen beetle.
I thought I had conquered my fear of animals but two incoming incidents were to change that.
Firstly on the way down I saw a little frog that I thought looked quite friendly so I went to try and touch it. It didn’t move at first so I assumed we were chilling.
It then did the craziest leap ever and aimed straight for my nose. I pulled out some Matrix-like dodge but then it landed on my foot (I was wearing flip-flops). It was so slimy and eww. I basically fell over trying to run away.
Anyways, somewhat unfazed I continued down the hill. Challenger no. 2 was in my sights.
A little kitten type thing was just chilling on the steps, it was basically asking to be stroked. For a full disclaimer which most of you probably know, I have never had a cat in my life and used to be terrified of both them and dogs so am an absolute noob in knowing what to do with them.
I tried to like sort of give it a head massage but I think my pinky finger might have gone into its ear canal lol.
That was the end of the massage, it let out a ferocious (for a kitten) roar and then both scratched and nibbled me at the same time.
It did actually kinda hurt. Both my finger and my identity as an animal whisperer.
I didn’t really think much of it but then during our dinner at an amazing sushi place (soooo good), I sort of thought to check about rabies just in case.
It turns out, Thailand (and the south in particular) is a rabies hotspot. I hadn’t had the jab and losing my life to a kitten would be a pretty gnarly way to go so we went to our favourite place on Phi Phi.
The hospital!
Again, they said it was a good idea we came. I started to think they said that to everyone tho because money.
They did seem kinda concerned to be fair and properly doused my finger in all sorts of chemicals and then gave me both a rabies jab and a tetanus one.
I remember when I had the tetanus one previously my whole arm went numb for like a week and it was no different this time. As soon as I was injected my arm just felt painful and heavy. Still, probably better than getting infected.
The thing about rabies post-exposure jabs is you need a lot of them. At the time of writing this, I have currently had 3/5 of the jabs. They are staged at increasing intervals to basically flood your body with support so it means I have gotten to know the hospital in Bangkok quite well also.
To be fair though, on heading back to the Reggae bar after the jabs I sort of forgot about the pain because we were watching people getting obliterated. Maybe hospitals should stream UFC stuff 24/7.
We didn’t stay too long at the Reggae bar this time and had a somewhat early night (I think).
Ooooooone more brunch at our local spot and it was time to catch the ferry back to the mainland.
As we had some time before our flight, we Grabbed to what we thought was the centre of Krabi town. It was kinda just a random street so Ryan and I stayed in the cafe and had some coffee while Cam went to find some souvenirs.
We hopped aboard the Thai Vietjet (which sounded like a collab airline) and landed in Bangkok a little while later.
On the return to Bangkok we booked up a nice dinner place (which was pretty much the same place as the previous one). Ryan was still not able to test his stomach too much so Cam and I munched through some Thai grub.
The only booking I could get was on the rooftop, which would have been sick if we weren’t in the rainy season. For some reason they hadn’t installed actual umbrellas/covers so we were given normal umbrellas and had to sort of hold them while we ate.
Fortunately because it was rainy season, the rain passed pretty quickly and we were left with a nice terrace for the rest of the evening.
Bangkok is known for its rooftop bars and so we had to end it on a bang. We definitely chose the right place. If you are ever in BKK go to Tichuca bar. Until about 11pm the music was pretty quiet and we were debating leaving but then the bass kicked in and the DJ went crazy on the decks. Super cool music, atmosphere and energy there, really recommend it.
They also have a coworking space called Paper Planes on the floor below it (which I am yet to try out) so the whole place is geared up for young pros.
We ended up leaving in the early hours and got back to the apartment, put on some music and talked for the rest of the night.
Just like that it was morning and time for Cam and Ryan to catch their flight back. While the trip most certainly had downs (hospitals) it also had more than enough ups and I know I had a really great time. Thank you so much to Petrus, Cam and Ryan for coming out, meant so much to have all of you there :D
Welllllll that’s it! Let me know what you think of this new format! Next update is all about Bangkok and what I do as an unemployed person.
As always thank you so much for reading and if you want to keep up in the meantime, between updates here, check out: @paromapparel and @nutbrowngram on Instagram.
Also going to be posting much more on Linkedin as well, if it gets repetitive just block me lol
buh bye
Thought↗
I’m losing hours each day and days each week to mindless scrolling. I don’t even wanna know the amount of time I’ve wasted over my life scrolling. There is more awareness of it now but genuinely I feel like it could come out in a few years as being as damaging; if not more, than cigarettes. Especially with the rise of AI content and stuff now, what can you trust? I think in-person things are going to go way up. When you can’t trust the internet, what is the purpose of it?
Album of the week↗
Mahal - Glass Beams - 2024↗
While not technically an album (an EP), this little collection of tracks packs a punch. From a really cool group, the Mahal EP delves deep into the mixture between electronica, traditional and psychedelia. Delivering a truly awesome sound as the combination of that trifecta. My favourite track is probably the final track - Black Sand.
If you enjoyed this EP I recommend listening to their shorter Mirage EP and also checking out another group - Allah-Las and their 2019 LAHS album.