The surf camp ended and we said our teary goodbyes. I had a few days before my flight home (big sad face) and decided to squeeze in one last stop - Gili Air. Several others from the camp were heading there too so we got a taxi together to the port and caught the public ferry over to the little island. There are three Gili islands off the coast of Lombok and they are characterised as follows: Gili Air is chilled out and with stuff to do; Gili Meno is for couples and there’s nothing to do; Gili T is a party island. Having left both sides of my love triangle behind in Gerupuk and definitely not in a partying mood, I chose Gili Air. It was an absolute paradise. I only had two nights there but I could’ve spent a week.

The island is very small, it only takes around 25 minutes to cycle around it. And you have to cycle because there are no cars or mopeds only bikes and horses. There are very lovely cafes and shops in parts and dense forest and local houses in others. Exploring it by bike was so much fun and reminded me of family trips to centre parcs. I watched sunrise both mornings and sunset both evenings. I did headstands on the beach. I scuba dived and saw lion fish and turtles. I met up with surf camp friends for sunset drinks and dinner, and for smoothie bowls and coffee. I got a traditional bamboo tattoo which was a wonderfully meditative process. I lived my best life and was smiling from ear to ear the entire time.

The last leg

And then it was time to leave. I got a fast boat to Bali where I sat on the sun deck and got absolutely drenched from the spray. From the port it was one last bus over to Sanur where I spent the night. I had one last sunset walk and one final meal. I wrote in my journal and tried to take it in, trying to make myself understand that tomorrow I’d be flying home. I realised that perhaps I hadn’t processed it quite as well as I thought. I had a pit in my stomach and the thought of missing my flight and continuing to travel did cross my mind. I returned to my homestay, showered and packed up my bag one final time. In the morning I got up early to watch the final sunrise. I took my bags down to the beach and watched the sky softly change colour and the sun emerge from the water, huge in its orangeness. I ordered my taxi, of course going for the cheaper option of a scooter, and had an uncomfortable ride with both my backpacks on over to the airport. I flew to Jakarta and spent the day mooching around the airport there before catching my flight home. I’m sure I’ll be happy once I arrive home but in this moment I’m sad to my gut.

Way back at the beginning of my trip I had an idea of maybe ending the trip by flying down to Indonesia and learning to surf there. Many months later, this is exactly what I decided to do. There are three main reasons for this decision: i. I’ve never been in the southern hemisphere and unless I dropped down to Indonesia I still would’t have on this trip which felt wrong, ii. this trip hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park and a few weeks of island life in the sun sounded like the perfect thing before returning home, and iii. I’ve always really wanted to learn how to surf. After a whole lot of research it seemed like the best way to do this was through a surf camp, staying somewhere for 2 weeks and devoting all of your time to surfing. It was also a bit more pricey but with the support of my wonderful parents and the knowledge that I’d likely not have this opportunity again, I went for it. I booked it at the end of May and definitely had some doubts during June if it was the right call. It 100% was. I had the absolute best time at the camp, and it was also the perfect way to end my trip. Staying in one place for 2 weeks with the same people gave me the time and space to begin to process going home. Being able to completely focus on one thing was amazing, it felt so good to devote myself fully to something. Getting to surf twice a day, everyday was just wonderful. The feeling of being out on the water, surrounded by new friends, in the Indonesian sun was pretty unbeatable.

Camp life

Nestled at the end of the village of Gerupuk, the camp was a beautiful space with a big open downstairs area to chill in, with a direct line of sight down to the sea. It had comfy cushions upstairs and our dorm rooms were spacious and without bunks. We had two surf sessions a day, each two hours long. We had theory lessons on everything from how to pop-up and do turns, how to navigate a line-up, and the science behind waves. We had yoga classes and could use the yoga shala whenever we wanted. All of our meals were provided and they were always nourishing and delicious. The other guests were all just great. A big mix of nationalities and ages and backgrounds; some travellers, some on holiday, some digital nomads. It was such a fun gang and we had a lot of laughs together. It was funny to see how quickly I learnt the surf lingo and soon enough I could join in with all of the surf conversations, and there were a lot unsurprisingly!

The surf

I enjoyed every single surf session, even the ones in the unseasonal rain at the beginning of our first week where my eyes became swollen from the salt and wind and spray. Gerupuk bay has several different surf spots and we’d go to different ones depending on the conditions. Our little beginners group of 6 - 8 people would go out on the boat with our coach, Brad from Yorkshire, and the local guys, Swell, O’Cil and Surande. They entertained us hugely, always messing around or shouting something in Sasak (the local language) at each other. All of the surf spots were reef breaks so the boat would take us out to these, much easier than beach breaks as there was no paddling through all of the waves (unless you got caught in the impact zone which I often did…). We’d all sit floating in the calm water besides the break, going out to the coaches one by one. They would position us in the right place for the waves and give us a push if we needed it, to make sure we caught the wave. It was quite a funny process at first, I didn’t imagine I’d be pushed onto the waves, but it worked well and meant I caught basically every wave I went for. I enjoyed every aspect of the surfs. Sitting on my board watching the others go, paddling back with the sun warming me, chatting to the local guys whilst waiting for a wave, and, of course, surfing the wave. The latter is a feeling that’s completely addictive and it meant no matter how tired my arms were, or how beaten up I felt from a wipeout, I would always paddle back out for another wave, another chance of having that feeling. It sounds silly perhaps, but there is something so special about surfing because you are so connected to nature whilst doing it. I’m sure skateboarding is fun, but surfing down a wave is surely infinitely better. In my two weeks I did not become a great surfer. I wouldn’t even say I became an average surfer. I lack any natural ability, but I am now able to catch my own waves (sometimes) and stand up. I often fall off. I almost always get stuck in the whitewash, unable to turn the board back to the top of the wave quick enough. It’s okay to be bad at something. It’s actually quite fun! I will definitely continue to surf, because I enjoy the entire process and I also really enjoy trying to improve.

Whilst I enjoyed every single surf, not every single surf enjoyed me. I had a pretty big crash very early on where a woman’s board somehow went between my legs whilst I was stood up, smashing into my right inner thigh. Below is a beautiful collage of the bruise that caused. I got another bad bruise on my arm from a man’s board running into me. I got a big bruise on my left thigh from falling onto my own fin. I got hit on the head by one guy’s board and the crash looked so bad to people watching that the local guys treated me like a delicate flower for the rest of the session, not letting me go for any big waves and constantly asking if I was okay. There was a big swell at the end of the first week and we battled some big waves even at our beginner spots, where I was washing machined more times than I can count. Bruises formed on both my hips from where they sat on the board, and my ribs became tender from the same. But I survived! I only took one session off, watching from the boat, when my arms had become so tired I couldn’t even pop-up.

A love triangle

Perhaps another reason I loved every surf session was the fact that two of the rather lovely local guys who positioned and pushed us onto the waves had a bit of a thing for me. Luckily they were very close friends so it was all in good spirit rather than anything too serious, although I do think one of them got a bit jealous at one point and punished me by leaving me to be wiped out by a huge wave… He came back around though and I thoroughly enjoyed the attention from both if I’m honest! It also provided fun gossip for our evening run downs in the female dorm. Clearly the strange zinc sunscreen look on my nose and cheeks works for me.

The final experience

The surf camp was the best way to spend my final two weeks travelling. As the friends I voicenoted or called pointed out, I sounded unbelievably happy and that’s because I was. I was the happiest I’ve ever been. Not just because of the surfing and the sun and the wonderful pace of life there, but because I started to process what the past 14 months had been for me. I indulged this reflection by sitting on the beach alone often, with a cup of tea and my headphones, watching the sea and the trees and the boats float past. I cried thinking about going home. I danced thinking about seeing my friends and family. I ran in the wind, hunting for shells and splashing through the shallow waters. And then I would return to the camp and have the luxury of socialising with people I really liked. It was truly wonderful. Thank you to everyone at the camp that made it so bloody special!

Mount Rinjani is the second highest volcano in Indonesia, located on Lombok. The summit is 3,726m and it sits in between two craters. One is filled with dust, one is much larger and has a lake inside, with an active volcano in the middle of the lake. Very cool! I had come to Lombok for a surf camp (more on that later) but decided to squeeze in a trek up the volcano before it started. Indonesia was not on my original plan, and although it would’ve been possible to reach Lombok without flying by boat, I had completely run out of time so I indulged and flew in from Kuala Lumpur. After some research it became clear that you had to do the trek with a guide, mostly because you had to camp up the volcano. There were two main options, a two day trek or a three day trek. The two days saw you go up to the summit and then back down the same way. For the three days you went up to the summit then down to the crater lake, back up to the crater rim and then down a different way. I went for the three day option. The initial tour providers that came up on a google search were very expensive but I persevered and dived into google maps and found whatsapp numbers of local companies. From doing this I found one that was very affordable: £85 for 3 nights including all accommodation and food. The style of trekking was a new experience for me. Porters accompanied us carrying baskets filled with supplies. Despite the 25kg weight and the fact they were wearing flip flips, they still always beat us to each rest spot. They would set up camp for us, cook all of our meals, provide tea and coffee, and carry all of our water for the several days. Whilst it did make me feel uncomfortable at times, feeling like I wasn’t carrying my own weight, it was really lovely to arrive after a long day of walking and be able to just lie down and relax, with the tent already up and dinner being cooked for us. I was also very impressed with the meals provided, always tasty and filling and with lots of components. No boil in a bag rice like on DofE!

The tour guy picked me up from the airport and I stayed in a homestay in a village near the volcano, getting up early the next morning to begin. Sitting in the back of a pick-up truck we collected the other members of our group: a french couple who were only doing two days, a british couple and a british/dutch guy (Tom), both in their early 20s. It seemed like a really nice group. We had to do a quick medical which was just taking blood pressure and then finally we began! The first day saw us hike for around 7 hours, including a long stop for lunch, up a continuous but fairly gradual incline. The path was out in the open so the main issue was the sun and just how hot it was. The british couple quickly fell behind and were struggling. The rest of us went on ahead after lunch and when we stopped and waited at the next rest point our guide caught up with us and informed us that they had turned back! I still don’t really know what happened but it was quite odd. It was at this point that Tom and I realised we were in for a rather intimate hike, with it being just the two of us doing 3 days. Luckily we got on. It rained heavily for the last bit of walking and I realised I forgot to bring my rucksack rain cover, so I sacrificed myself and covered my bag with my raincoat. Luckily it was still hot! At around 5pm we reached our camping spot for the night, on the crater rim at 2650m above sea level and 1500m above our starting point. There were lots of tents along the ridge here. The walk up had been quite busy actually, and there had been a lot of rubbish. The clouds had covered us and we couldn’t really see where we were. It was very cold and I put on all of the layers I had, sadly not many since my wardrobe has fully transitioned to hot climates now. Occasionally the clouds would break in an area and we would catch a glimpse of the summit, or the lake in the crater, or the island down below. Just in time for sunset, the clouds fell down into the valley and we were treated to my bucket list view - being above the clouds. It was breathtaking. I couldn’t stop taking photos and just staring at all of the different angles. We had dinner whilst the last of the sun fell below the horizon. It got even colder and we all said our goodnights before getting into bed. I managed to wash my face a bit by having Tom pour water into my hands. It wasn’t comfy and it wasn’t warm. I didn’t really sleep at all so it wasn’t the worst thing in the world when we had to wake up at 1:30am. Tom said he also didn’t sleep but I quietly disagreed with that as I’d been kept company by his snoring all night.

After a snack of crackers and coffee we started our ascent to the summit ready for sunrise. We set off at 2:15am, armed with headtorches, and it took us 3.5 hours. It was 1100m of elevation gain and it was incredibly steep. I found it harder than I expected! The last 1.5 hours were up a sandy slope and this is what made it so challenging. Each step up saw you slide down a few inches. It was impossible to find a rhythm or get into a groove with it, which made it mentally tough. After just a couple of steps I would stop exhausted, it was hard to force myself onwards again. Luckily it was still dark so I couldn’t see how far there was to go! But suddenly I was at the summit and I was shocked that I had reached it already. After the obligatory summit photo I huddled down to wait for the sunrise. The cold hadn’t been too bad whilst walking but it was freezing just sat waiting. Finally the sun came. It was really beautiful again, but I think more because of the view down to the two craters than the sunrise itself. As described earlier, the larger crater with a lake and active volcano inside was so cool to look into. The best bit was the shadow cast by the summit on the land below. After taking it all in, and taking lots of photos, we got ahead of the crowds and started our descent. While the sand made hiking up literal hell, it made going down and absolute dream. For the first time ever I actually enjoyed the descent, running down and sliding in the sand. The views were also incredible, of the whole island, into the crater, of the ridge we’d walked up blind. Looking back at the last bit before the summit I was doubly glad it was dark whilst walking up, it was so steep and so endless appearing.

Back at camp we had breakfast and then Tom and I set off alone with our guide, down into the crater towards the lake. It took just under 3 hours and we were rewarded with a little gap in the cloud that filled the crater, revealing the volcano in front of us. There was a hot spring nearby so we found this and oh wow, sinking into the incredibly hot water with a view of the waterfall behind, our aching legs crying out in joy and the dust and sweat being washed off our bodies, just glorious. A local guy gave us some soap to use and we went to town. It was the best hot spring I’ve ever been in. Completely natural, just some larger stones placed to create pools in the river. The covering cloud broke and it poured with rain as we ate lunch. We sat in the emergency shelter that was by the lake but the insane number of flies eventually got too much for us to handle and we moved outside. Some local boys who were on a fishing trip invited us into their tent and we sheltered with them. They shared their fish curry with us, we shared our pineapple with them. They rolled us local cigarettes and we smoked together. Still raining, we set off on our ascent back up to the crater rim. This was a bit gruelling. Tired from being up at 1:30am, wet from the rain and the humidity, and legs a bit tired from the morning. But it actually went very quickly and we reached our second camping spot. This one was much quieter and we were treated to another glorious above the clouds sunset. Our neighbours had a campfire and we joined them around this, drinking the local alcohol and chatting. Another very cold and very uncomfortable night’s sleep. This time Tom’s snoring was accompanied by him sleep talking which was quite amusing.

After an early breakfast we sped off downhill. The sun held for the morning but after lunch it absolutely poured again. I fell a few times, probably because I struggled to keep my eyes open from tiredness. Our guide also slipped over and Tom, rushing to help him, slipped in the same spot and crushed him. I failed at trying not to laugh. The guide wasn’t very impressed but actually he seemed very unimpressed the entire time, he was in a big hurry to get back and didn’t seem to enjoy the trek at all. His hurrying worked and we got to the bottom very quickly. Tom sat in the front of the truck and I sat in the back, something I wasn’t super happy about when it started to rain heavily again and I got completely drenched! In the chaos of the rain and trying to shower and get my stuff to the taxi I managed to twist my ankle. I didn’t think much of it until I couldn’t do my usual trick of immediately falling asleep in the car because of the pain. When we had to switch cars I couldn’t put any weight on it and struggled to walk. It had swollen up and I felt sick. Luckily it was just me and Tom in the car so I could elevate my foot on the seat and put the cold banana milk Tom bought for me on it as an ice pack. Through the pain and the concern about it stopping me from surfing, I did find it very funny that I managed to injure myself running to the taxi and not actually on the volcano. By the time we reached Kuta the swelling had stopped getting worse and I could walk on it carefully. It was back to normal by the first surf day and it didn’t stop me at all!

Overall, a surprisingly tough trek with gorgeous sunset and sunrise views above the clouds. The crater with its lake and active volcano was very cool to see. It was busy with people on the first day, but very quiet after that. There was a lot of litter on the first day, plastic and food scraps, but I was almost expecting it to be worse. The porter and guide system was a bit strange and it made me very glad I was able to hike in Nepal without them. Would definitely recommend Rinjani if you’re in Lombok!

Full Moon Check-in

1. Last: In Vang Vieng, Laos.
2. Current: Heading out on the boat at 6am for a sunrise surf, we spotted the huge full moon coming over the hill behind us. The first half an hour of surfing was under the rising sun and the full moon. Magical. In Lombok, Indonesia.
3. Future: Back in England! Pretty insane to think about. Maybe I’ll still be down in Somerset, hopefully camping or doing something fun.

I didn’t plan on going to Malaysia. I thought I’d end my trip in Thailand. But looking at the map it made sense to continue my overland journey to Malaysia, reaching the end of the Eurasian land mass. I had heard little about it from other travellers, but enough to pique my interest. I found the rice farming workaway and was sold - I’d skip the south of Thailand and the crowds that it entailed, trading it in for the less travelled Malaysia. What made Malaysia so interesting to visit was its population; made up of Malays, Indian Malays and Chinese Malays. All Malaysian, all with very different cultures, religions and cuisines. Malay Malaysians are muslim and have their own cuisine, similar to Indonesian I was to find out. Indian Malays are mostly Hindu and most originally come from the south of India, speaking Tamil. Chinese Malays are buddhist or atheist. I really enjoyed seeing how these different ethnicities coexisted, and getting to eat excellent indian, chinese and malay food was also a big bonus.

I’ve spoken about my time on the rice farm in a separate post, but this was my first impression of the country. Wonderful people, wonderful culture, wonderful food. It continued much in this fashion. I travelled by bus and ferry to Penang, staying in the small city of Georgetown (named after King George when Britain took control of it). It’s an arty, foodie hub and it was quite excellent. I’d compare its vibe to that of Bristol, with street art to rival Banksy, but the buildings and culture are superior. Down by the sea there are Chinese jetties, ornate in their curls of clan specific architecture. The Chinese district features British colonial buildings decorated in chinese letterings, advertising the goods sold there. Little India was filled with smells of curry and paan, and shops selling jewellery and saris. Further out the buildings got less beautiful but there were still some cool offerings here. The best thrift shop I’ve ever been into for example. Or a contemporary marketplace filled with cafes and art stalls, or on the Saturday I visited filled with strange pets for sale. I spent my time in Georgetown wandering around the streets, taking way too many photos of building fronts. I stumbled across a free Chinese opera so attended this and found it very strange and of a low quality, maybe why it was free! My main activity was eating. Here’s all I managed to squeeze into my belly whilst I was there:

1. Chinese pork dumplings. Not mindblowing, but good.
2. Chinese pastries, a salted egg bun and an egg tart. Could’ve eaten several more of the salted egg bun. The egg tart was surprisingly cheesy.
3. Bao bun. So much better than the disappointing ones in continental Southeast Asia.
4. Charcoal coffee. They love their weird coffees here. It was fine, not very strong.
5. Char keoy teow (Malaysian). Much like every other noodle dish I’ve tried.
6. Ramly burger (Malaysian). A traditional street Malay burger. Truly insane. The best burger I have ever eaten and will ever eat. It had a distinct taste of chinese 5 spices in the fried chicken batter, super succulent chicken, lots of mayo and a soft chilli sauce, and cheese. It was so good I had to stop walking and eating and sit on the curb to give it my full attention.
7. Soursop. The best new fruit I’ve tried, and maybe my favourite fruit ever. Tastes a bit like yogurt. So good!
8. Chinese herbal soup. Stomach took a turn so this nice broth helped.
9. Dragon fruit and lemon ice cream. Dragon fruit is always disappointingly tasteless, but the lemon was lovely.
10. Pasembar salad (Malaysian). Not a fan at all. Way too sticky and sweet and full of strange things. Wouldn’t class it as a salad either.
11. Mutton keema and capati (Indian). Just delicious. Suitably full I caught the bus to Kuala Lumpur, the capital, for my last stop in Malaysia. Georgetown is in a close race for my favourite city in Southeast Asia, with Luang Prabang. It wasn’t without its flaws though. For the first time in Southeast Asia I experienced catcalling, and to a surprisingly high degree. I had the pleasure of seeing Ethan in KL, a guy I’d met in Armenia months before who is currently studying at Oxford (small world!). He was in KL for a summer internship and offered the sofa bed in his hotel/apartment to me, which I gladly accepted. I took some chill time here, using the gym and the rooftop infinity pool, appreciating the time to catch my breath before a busy few days ahead. I continued my food delights, eating lots of Malaysian food like assam laksa and curry laksa (a really good noodle soup, the assam being acidic and fishy, the curry being creamy and like a Thai Khao Soi); nasi lemak (not as good as the one I made at the farm); Chinese pork and noodle street food dishes; and nasi kandar. A big part of Malaysian cuisine are these nasi dishes. Nasi simply means rice. In restaurants there will be a buffet of different curries, vegetable sides, chicken, eggs and other stuff. You get the rice and choose what you want on top. I found them quite stressful to visit, never really sure of how it worked, but it would always be cheap and fairly delicious, nothing too crazy though. I visited the national museum and rated it highly. I learnt about the history of Malaysia, the Portuguese then Dutch then British rule. The most interesting part for me was understanding how Islam was introduced to the country, through arab traders. These traders were seen as rich and higher class, so the local people associated their religion, Islam, with this. This led to it being adopted. KL was an insane city, very modern but not huge. Unsurprisingly, not my favourite place (still not a fan of big cities). I’m very glad I stopped by Malaysia. Its mix of ethnicities make it the most interesting country I’ve been to in Southeast Asia. The food is incredible. I could happily alternate between Malay, Indian and Chinese cuisine for my whole life. I only scratched the surface of the country and look forward to going back one day to see more of it.

In the final year of my biology degree we had to do 2 projects as well as our dissertations, and I did one of these on sustainable rice paddy farming in Southeast Asia. Because of this I had always planned to try and work on a rice paddy once I got to that part of the world. I wanted to see how paddy farming actually worked, beyond the stuff I’d read about in scientific articles. I wanted to understand the life of a paddy farmer and the reason they farm in a certain way. I wanted the context beyond the narrow and distilled down viewpoint of academia. I found the perfect workaway on a sustainable rice farm in Malaysia and luckily the farm accepted me even though I could only spend one week there. But wow was it an impressionable week. The life and community on the farm was blissful. The rice farming aspect was eye-opening. Let me tell you about both.

Life on the farm

The farm was located deep in the jungle, down a narrow track that crossed over little bridges to reach its destination. There was a big structure near the entrance which was an open sided common room, with a big communal table and a little kitchen attached. There were detached wooden bungalows along a pond, each with its own bathroom (cold showers and toilets to be flushed with a bucket of course). There was a secret path through disused paddy fields down to the river where I would go to sit in the morning and to wash off the mud from the paddy in the afternoon. There was a vegetable garden and opposite this an open sided prayer room turned yoga shala. A little further along the track were the 3 in use paddy fields. The owners of the farm are Captain and Kakak, a truly lovely couple who treat all of the volunteers like family. Kakak would cook most of our meals, conjuring up the most wonderful malay feasts of curries, fried chicken and fish, rice and veggies. For breakfast they would often deliver us goodies from the local stalls, my favourite being roti canai which was thin bread/pancakes served with a delectably sweet tomatoey dahl. I loved the traditional nasi lemak (coconut rice, chilli and garlic sauce with anchovies, fried chicken and peanuts) we had one morning, and Kakak agreed to teach us how to make it the following evening which was great fun. There were several other volunteers who were all wonderful. Together we made jam from roselles found in the garden; Noa and Yannic made a comforting pasta meal one night; and Ali made a banana cake every time someone left. We would all do yoga together each morning, and sometimes again in the afternoon. Each evening would end with several rounds of card games. I could’ve spent months there, it felt like the outside world didn’t exist. There wasn’t much volunteer work at the time, just weeding the paddies on some days and the odd other job, so we had a lot of downtime. I spent this writing, reading and revising my law notes in preparation of my return to the real world. I had a lot of less fun life admin to do too, with all of the pre-job stuff coming through and securing a house in London.

Life was slow and intentional and wonderful. I felt a calm motivation there, fostered by interesting discussions on food security and climate change with Captain and the other volunteers and just the general environment. It was especially interesting to speak to Captain about why he’d chosen to start the farm and use sustainable methods. He told me he had learnt everything from the Quaran, an answer that did cause my eyebrows to raise. His whole outlook on farming was built around his religion it seemed, and it led to a very different approach than I’ve come across in the west. For example, when I asked what he did when there were pests eating the crop he replied “let them eat it, they are as entitled to it as I am, they are part of nature”. As lovely as the sentiment is I’m not sure how helpful it will be in tackling food security. The answers given in these discussions were sometimes strange to me, but always interesting. There would be visitors to the farm which would add to these conversations: a Doctor who had come to look at the stingless bees because he was trialing their honey to help treat neurological disorders, a group from a muslim charity who wanted to start a sustainable rice paddy to help a poor community. Captain gave a talk to this charity group about the farm’s sustainability practices and I even helped out in this, explaining how soil fertility and the cation exchange capacity of the soil interact. Never in a million years did I think I’d be giving a talk on biology during my travels! Thankfully I’d remembered more than I thought from my biology degree…

On our day off a local family invited us all over for tea and to pick fruit in their garden. They took us to the local market where we tried all sorts of delicious food and bought oat milk for our coffees back on the farm. We visited a big reservoir and they took us out on their boats to watch the sunset. It was such a wonderful and unexpected day. The people in Malaysia, and especially around the farm, are some of the most kind and friendly people I’ve ever met.

Rice farming

My work in the paddy: weeding

Before I go into the details of rice farming I’ll tell you about the work I did on the farm, so you can skip the rest if you’re less interested in the science. The farm only has 3 in use rice paddies at the moment, and all 3 had been planted several weeks ago. This means they’re in the weeding phase. Every 5 days we would weed each paddy in one direction, horizontally or vertically. What this entails is us wading barefoot into the flooded paddy with a big wooden brush-like device, with metal nails acting as the brush hairs. The brush is pushed and pulled in between the lines of rice plants (tillers) and it rakes up the weeds that are growing there. As we walk behind the brush we use our toes to pull out any weeds that are too close to the tillers to get with the brush. It’s fairly physical work but quite meditative and I found it very enjoyable.

Captain told us there were 5 reasons for weeding:

1. To remove the weeds which compete against the rice plants.
2. To provide fertiliser, by dropping the weeds back into the water they are broken down and nutrients are returned to the soil.
3. Walking in the paddy loosens the soil which makes it easier for the roots of the rice to grow.
4. Walking mixes up the soil and oxygenates it, reducing anaerobic microbes (microbes that are active when there’s no oxygen). It’s these microbes that are responsible for the high methane emissions from rice, so a reduction in them results in less methane.
5. It’s labour intensive which provides work for local people. The mud is good for the skin and being in the field provides vitamin D from the sun.

The science

The importance of rice
Rice is arguably the most important crop in the world. It provides the majority of calories to over half of the world’s population. Overall, it accounts for over 21% of all human caloric requirements. It is especially important in Asia, making up 75% of the calorific intake in the continent. One fifth of the world’s population rely on its cultivation for income. So yeah, it’s pretty important! It also has a huge impact on the environment. It uses 35% of the world’s irrigated water. It contributes 12% of global methane emissions, and 1.5% of total greenhouse gas emissions which is crazy! The way that rice is farmed is incredibly important in tackling both climate change and food security.

The rice crop cycle
There are two species of rice crop in the world: African rice (Oryza glaberrima) and Asian rice (Oryza sativa). Asian rice is by far the more widely grown and eaten, and the species I’m familiar with. It has four varieties and all the rice you’ve ever eaten is likely one of these. Within the varieties there are lots of different strains and these all take different lengths of time to grow and are suited to different environments.

For any of the varieties the cycle is the same:

1. Rice seeds are planted and allowed to germinate and grow into seedlings. After 5-12 days the seedlings are moved to the flooded paddy.
2. Weeding is done every 10 days until the rice tillers form a canopy. At this point, no sun reaches the soil so no weeds can grow.
3. Once the crop has matured (95 - 250 days depending on the strain) it is harvested.
4. The harvested grain is stored and dried. It’s milled to get just the white kernel which is the part we eat. Further processing may occur, such as polishing or parboiling.

System of Rice Intensification
The type of sustainable farming used on the farm is called System of rice intensification (SRI). It’s a method of rice cultivation that can be used in smallholder farms to improve yields, reduce environmental impact and have a positive effect on the local community. It’s truly a win-win scenario. It has four main aspects:

1. Younger seedlings are planted. The younger seedlings have more potential for growth and resilience than the older ones. This leads to better establishment, higher yields, and reduced pest and disease. It decreases seed requirements by 90%.
2. Single seedlings are planted in wider spaces. This is in contrast to planting a larger number of seedlings covering the whole paddy. It avoids transplant shock and reduces competition between the plants.
3. Organic fertilisers are used rather than chemical ones. Chemical pesticides are also avoided with ecological engineering being a common alternative. This is where you create a paddy environment that naturally keeps pest levels under control. Plants that are the habitat for predators and parasitoids (smaller insects that act as parasites) of the pests are planted around the paddy, these keep the pest levels down.
4. Alternative wet drying is used rather than having the paddies continuously flooded. This reduces water use by up to 50%. It also reduces methane emissions by reducing the activity of the methane producing anaerobic microbes which like the flooded paddy best.

The benefits of SRI:

1. Increased yields. For example, the farm had an average yield of 7.77 tons per hectare and the average in Malaysia is 3.7 tons.
2. Reduced environmental impact in terms of less water use, no chemical fertilisers and no pesticides.
3. Positive impacts in communities with increased labour requirements providing more jobs and better yields providing more income for farmers.

The farm is the first and only SRI farm in Malaysia but Captain has helped set up several other projects in neighbouring countries. It’s undoubtedly the way forward for smallholder rice farming in Southeast Asia.

I valued my time on the farm hugely. It was amazing to see the science I’d researched in practice. It was eye-opening to understand the wider context of rice farming in communities and understand all of the nuances that academia misses. It was also so wonderful to feel like part of a family after being on the road for so long.

After the two day slow boat into Laos, I just couldn’t get enough of multi-day travel so decided to do my trip from Vientiane, Laos to my workaway in Malaysia in one go. I’m joking of course, but having already spent a week in Bangkok and being tight on time it made sense to do it this way. To make sure I capture the full picture of travel up until the last moments of my trip, I’m going to tell you about this mammoth journey.

On the 13th of June I had a slow morning collecting my clean laundry, taking a long shower and packing up my stuff. I wandered into Vientiane centre to spend the last of my Laos kip on snacks, managing to get two bags of homemade banana chips from a lady, a free mango from another, a bag of pork scratchings and two fried bananas all for 70p. At 14:45 I walked over to the bus station, grateful that it was cloudy so I wasn’t completely dripping with sweat. I got a bus to Nong Khai in Thailand, which took 1 hour, but didn’t reboard it after going through the border. Instead I walked to the train station, through a strange market along the tracks, and had one last pad thai sat in a stall across the road. I did some yoga in a quiet corner of the train station, preparing my body for the arduous journey ahead. I was too tight to splash out on the $30 sleeper train to Bangkok (one with beds) and instead had gone for the $5 third class tickets on the standard train. I boarded my train at 18:30 and settled my bum down on the hard bench, my humble abode for the next 12 hours. A large Russian man squeezed down next to me, and a mother and daughter duo squeezed into the bench opposite us, all of our knees rammed together. There was no aircon or working fan on the train, so we had the window down to contend with the heat. Once the sunset the light in the train attracted all sorts of insects to fly in through the window, wacking into me and scuttling on the floor. I used my technique for sleeping in less than optimal conditions with some success, managing to drift in and out of sleep for the duration of the night, albeit very uncomfortably and sweatily. The train arrived into Don Mueang station, Bangkok a bit before 6am. There was some confusion over if this was the correct stop or not and the delay caused by this and by me being half asleep still meant when I tried to get off the train it had already started moving again. The guards prevented me from jumping out anyway, a wise move since once the train had been made to stop and I did jump out, my bag got wedged in the doorway and took some seconds to dislodge. From this station I spent the last of my Thai baht on a ticket to the main station in Bangkok - Bang Sue station. This train only took about 30 minutes and was like the tube in London. After walking the length of Bang Sue I found the ticket counter and bought my ticket for the next train, a 19 hour sleeper train to Padang Besar, Malaysia. I had 8 hours before this train. My walk around the station had made it clear I wouldn’t be staying there for the whole day; it was cavernous and empty, devoid of life and wifi. I went in search of a cafe with some wifi to relax and work in. This ended up being a lot more difficult than anticipated. I was in a weird part of Bangkok and despite there still being quite a few nice looking cafes, none of them had wifi. It was hard work walking around too, as I had all of my stuff with me and it was hot. I found one cafe that had wifi, only to discover you couldn’t pay with card so it was back on the road (I was all out of Thai cash and with a $5 withdrawal fee would not be taking more out). Eventually I found a Cafe Amazon (a chain in Thailand) and settled in there. It was nice to try out the chain I’d seen so often and found the coffee to taste a bit like Costa’s. When I got hungry I returned to the road in search of breakfast, again struggling to find somewhere that accepted card meaning I ended up in a Starbucks. Not my proudest travelling moment, but the truly delicious almond croissant made me forget my pride. For a safe bet for lunch I went to the food court in Lotus (a big supermarket), selecting an interesting looking curry from the buffet. When I went to pay by tapping my card on the scanner I was a bit annoyed to find out you actually had to pay with a special Lotus card. I went to get this only to find it could only be topped up with cash. I returned to the lady to apologise to her for already plating my meal, explaining I couldn’t pay. She gave me the plate anyway with a smile, so kind! I enjoyed this meal and made my way back to the station where I bought a coffee and boarded my train. This one was much nicer than the last. I settled into my comfy seat and did some writing, taking in the beautiful scenery before it got dark. I watched some netflix and ate my snacks (pumpkin topped with peanuts and sesame seeds) before asking the carriage officer to change my seat into a bed whilst I brushed my teeth and washed my face. I settled into bed, aware of how cold the air conditioning had made the carriage. I slept fairly well but was a tad cold. I woke up and pulled back the curtain to reveal a jaw-dropping view. I almost thought I was still asleep. Beautiful sun, banana trees and dramatic karsts. I blinked my eyes open and went to the toilet, then washed my face and got ready. The man put my bed away and I curled up on the seat and ate my banana chips, drank my water and looked out of the window, listening to a murder podcast. The train was delayed and I watched some netflix, thinking, but not worrying, if I’d make my next train. We arrived at last at 10:30am and I crossed into Malaysia, my 30th country of the trip, with no hassle. There’s an hour time difference so it magically became 11:30am. The station was small but confusing, eventually I got my ticket and waited at the platform. Before this a British woman made a big spectacle as she had forgotten her phone on the train and was wailing like a distressed cat. The train arrived at 12:35pm and it was again like the tube in London. On this short journey a Canadian Malaysian lady did not stop chatting to me about all sorts, including what’s wrong with the institution of the church and about spirituality. A British guy started doing acrobatics on the railings. I was tired and all of the bizarreness passed over me. I made it to my destination of Alor Setar at 13:20 and got a taxi to the bus station, asking to stop at an ATM on the way. None of the ATMs worked for me annoyingly, but there was one at the bus station so I wasn’t too worried. Somehow the 5 minute journey took us 40 because of insane traffic so I only had 5 minutes before my bus. And of course, the ATM didn’t work. I was a bit distressed as I couldn’t pay for the taxi and didn’t have time to go to another ATM before the bus left - it was the only one that day so I needed to get it. The taxi driver was so kind, he told me to get my bags and get the bus, not to worry about paying him. I exclaimed my gratefulness as I ran to the bus, then having to beg the bus driver to let me on without cash. The driver eventually gave in and I flopped into the seat, feeling relieved to have made it. We stopped at a gas station with an ATM and I was finally able to withdraw money. I happily paid the driver and was thankful that my no-cash troubles of the last few days were over. The bus took around 2 hours to arrive into Sik, getting there at 16:00. I was mildly concerned I would then be stranded. I was meant to have bought a sim card at the bus station but clearly didn’t have time to do this, meaning I had no way of contacting my workaway host who was picking me up in Sik. There was no need to worry, as soon as I stepped off the bus I heard a shout of “Meg!” and was duly collected by Captain, his wife and another volunteer. The welcome was wonderfully warm. They ushered me into the car and declared we were going for lunch as I needed to eat, which I suppose I did. I immediately felt looked after, and in a way I hadn’t felt for such a long time. We drove 40 minutes to reach the rice farm I’d be volunteering on. And so after over 48 hours of travel I’d finally reached my destination. It had only taken 4 trains and 2 buses!

A unique way to enter a country

As an alternative to a long bus, there’s a slow boat which takes you from the Laos/Thailand border along the Mekong river to Luang Prabang. It take two days. It sounded like the epitome of slow travel and I was of course planning to take it.

I caught the earliest possible bus from Chiang Rai, Thailand to the Laos border. The 2 hour journey took much longer. We arrived and got a tuktuk shuttle to the actual border. We exited Thailand with no issues, having to wait a while before getting another bus to the Laos border. Here I crossed with my e-visa with no problems, a part from the man asking me to pay 50 baht for the stamp in my passport. I refused, saying it didn’t say that anywhere and I’d already paid for the visa. After I stood my ground he just waved me through. Another tuktuk shuttle took me into the town of Huay Xai. I had hoped to catch the slow boat to Luang Prabang that day but it turned out there was only one at 9am and I’d definitely missed that, with it now being 12pm! So instead I found a hostel and spent the afternoon working on blog posts. The following morning I got myself on the slow boat at last, sat in the prime seat at the front of the boat. I’d bought a sandwich in the little town earlier and was armed with Rosaline’s left behind snacks to keep me going (a jar of peanut butter and a lot of raisons).

The boat was long and held around 80 passengers, mostly travellers but a fair number of locals too. The seats were ones clearly taken from cars. It was unbelievably hot, the boat moved just fast enough to create a breeze strong enough to make it bearable. But only just. I was clammy with sweat the entire journey. The 8 hours passed slowly but pleasantly. The boat hummed with conversations amongst the travellers, a few games of cards were played, but mostly people slept or kept to themselves. I personally finished my book, listened to a lot of music and spent a lot of time staring at the scenery slowly passing by. The river was wide and still. The banks were sandy and low. The land was green and alternated between marshy lowlands, jungle, and steeper hillsides. There were stretches of sand bars where there were often fisherman or children to spot and wave to. We made several stops at seemingly desolate areas, to drop off or collect parcels or people. I had a long and surprisingly deep afternoon nap, knelt on the floor with my head on my seat, that I never fully awoke from. We arrived into our resting spot for the night at around 5pm, a town called Pak Beng. A crowd of guesthouse owners waited for us at the top of the bank, offering up their business holding boards with pictures of the rooms on. With a friend I’d made in Chiang Rai, we found a cheap private room with aircon and agreed to take it, loading our bags onto the truck with the other travellers heading to the same place whilst we decided to walk the short distance. The town was more built up than I’d expected with lots of little restaurants and shops, all to service the slow boat. After checking in, having a very needed cold shower and lie down in the aircon, I ate a delicious curry along with three older couples from the boat. We laughed at the conversations we’d overheard from the 18/19 year old travellers and I felt happy that I wasn’t the only one secretly judging them.

Refreshed after a good sleep and a good breakfast we all returned to the boat. This time we had a slightly nicer vessel. The seats were arranged in little booths with tables. We bagged some good ones and I enjoyed being able to write comfortably. The effect of the changed seating was huge. Or perhaps everyone had just had a good night’s sleep too. Either way, the quiet hum of activity on yesterday’s journey became a chorus of life today. Travellers moved up and down the boat mingling, the aisle way was filled with jostling bodies. Rounds of cards were being played at most tables, with people subbing in and out constantly. A speaker appeared from someone’s bag and music blasted out. Conversation flowed throughout the entire 8 hour journey. As we came to our last hour on the boat the atmosphere was almost sad, we wished we had longer! I drank my first Beer Lao, the infamous beer seen absolutely everywhere here and we pulled into the bank shortly afterwards. We were on the outskirts of Luang Prabang and at a sort of tuktuk station. We grouped together by hostel and caught tuktuks the rest of the way. And so the two day slow boat journey was over! It was filled with cards and conversations and books, and also a whole lot of sweat! But the best part of it was still to come. By spending two days stuck on a boat with the same 80 people, all going to the same town, it created a readymade community. As I wandered the streets of Luang Prabang I was constantly stopping to say hello to friends from the boat. And it extended past the town, to any tourist attraction nearby and to subsequent destinations in Laos. It was such a lovely feeling, like you were in a place you had lived for several years, which is one rarely felt whilst travelling. For this reason alone I’d absolutely recommend the slow boat as a way to enter Laos.

Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang is a gorgeous city that stands out in Southeast Asia in its slowness and vibe. It is very small, more of a town, and it’s quiet. The streets are made up of french-style buildings in soft yellows and oranges, made even more beautiful by the vines and banana leaves that fall down their fronts. A reminder that despite the architecture, we’re definitely not in Europe. There’s a big hill that divides the centre, with a temple perched on top. I watched the sunset from here one evening and it was beautiful. There are several lovely cafes and eateries scattered around, alongside lots of local restaurants and handmade souvenir shops. Across a very narrow bridge that I did not enjoy driving over on a moped, there was a jewellery workshop where you could sit with your legs swinging from the balcony over the Mekong river, making a piece of jewellery yourself. I made a bracelet that I’m rather proud of. At 5am the day begins in the city. The monks begin their walk around as the sun rises, their orange robes contrasting with the darkness still clinging to the streets. In an act called ‘Alms’ the monks accept donations of food that they will eat that day. Locals and tourists line the pavements ready to empty handfuls of sticky rice and other treats into their urn-like containers. Around the corner of some busy streets we noticed that the roles were reversed, children sat on the pavement and received donations of the same food from the monks, plopped into plastic bags laid out in front of them. We secretly judged the monks that didn’t share any of theirs with the children. It was a special way to spend a morning, walking around the quiet streets, observing the trails of orange robes snaking around corners. We followed it up by going to the morning market where we saw all sorts of oddities for sale, including rats, frogs and riverweed. I bought some riverweed to try but left the rats and frogs for another time… Evenings in the city were spent at a slightly different pace, at a bowling alley on the outskirts. Yep, it’s as random as it sounds! A bowling alley in Laos. Filled with travellers getting drunk, smoking indoors, and reverting to their competitive youth. I’m sad to say I didn’t fare well at this back to basics alley, with no barriers on the gutters, coming almost last in every game. A lot of fun was had.

The main tourist attraction in Luang Prabang is actually an hour’s moped drive outside of it, the Kuang Si waterfall. Now I’ve seen a lot of waterfalls in my trip by this point, so I didn’t expect too much as a group of us drove over for the day. It was the most beautiful waterfall I’ve ever seen. Along the trail through the jungle there was a moon bear sanctuary and several moon bears to spot. You came to the river and the trail wound up past several waterfalls, some steady, some dramatic, some forming stepped pools of the turquoise water. There were two areas where the water was paused in an area wide enough to form a large pool, perfect for swimming and jumping in. The water was properly cold, well for southeast Asia standard anyway. It was refreshing and clear. At the top was a large, dramatic waterfall, with a bridge that crossed in front to give you a better view. All the way along the river the air was filled with collections of butterflies going about their business. It was stunning.

Vang Vieng

Accessible by bus or a snazzy new train from Luang Prabang. I opted for the train, wanting to try out this new Chinese built piece of transport. I found it to be incredibly strange but very comfortable. You entered one distinctly Chinese modern-style station in Luang Prabang and left via an identical one in Vang Vieng, giving the sensation that you’d actually travelled nowhere at all.

Vang Vieng itself was quite awful. The streets were dirty and unpleasant and there wasn’t a nice cafe insight. But you come here for the surrounding area, and it delivers on that. A group of us explored it by scooter, crossing a very dodgy looking bridge before zooming through open fields of karsts. It was similar to Ninh Binh in Vietnam. We hiked up no less than three viewpoints, getting sweaty to a level I have never experienced before. Rivers were running down my legs. Nathan looked like he’d jumped into a lake his clothes were so saturated. On top of the viewpoints we admired the views and the strange items placed up there: a motorbike, a huge pegasus statue, a plane. Our next stop was one of the many lagoons in the area. It was quite cool, with a little restaurant, a rope swing and zipline into the water and little wooden huts surrounding the water. The water was cold enough to be refreshing. There was also a huge cave here, which we explored at length, working our way down the ladders and through the tight squeezes, into chamber after chamber, until we reached the little lake deep inside. Emerging back into the outside world I felt like we’d been in there for hours when it was in fact only half an hour. We were covered in cave mud and scratches and carried a strange sense of achievement for making it to the underground lake.

The other activity in Vang Vieng is tipsy tubing: floating down a river in a rubber ring, stopping at bars and getting drunk. As a typical gap year activity I felt like I had to try it at least once this year, but I didn’t expect it to be quite as fun as it was! We had a great group of people which of course made it. Armed with bottles of homemade pinacolada we jumped into our rings and began the journey down the slow moving river, chatting and soaking up the sun. Men at the bars (of which there were only 2) would throw out a rope for us to grab onto and pull us into the side. If you missed the rope, a child would rapidly swim out and grab you instead. The 4 hours of floating passed impossibly quickly.

Into, and out of, the countryside

After some panic in Vang Vieng when I’d gotten my days mixed up, thinking it was the 14th when it was in fact the 13th (the hardships of travelling and having no concept of time!), I worked out a plan to get to my workaway. It required me getting a bus at 6am to Vientiane, then a bus from there which would take me 8 hours southeast to a town called Lak Sai. The only problem was that I did tipsy tubing the day before… I managed to get myself up and out by 6am, missing my planned bus but managing to get one at 7 instead. 2.5 hours later and I was on the side of the road, still feeling a bit drunk but beginning to become hungover. I had to wait almost an hour to get a shared tuktuk for 30 minutes across the city to the right bus station. Here I caught my onwards bus. The journey was long, hot and uncomfortable. One to be endured and not enjoyed. I was definitely tiring of these long journeys. I arrived at my workaway, teaching at a school. If you want to hear about that interesting experience, there’s a separate post on it.

My tolerance for long bus journeys was still at zero after the workaway, so I decided to try and hitchhike back to Vientiane instead. I stayed overnight in a little town called Na Hin. I had run out of Laos Kip so in the morning I visited the two ATMs in the town in the pouring rain to get some. Frustratingly, they were both out of action. I remembered I had some leftover Thai Baht in my bag and the guesthouse owner agreed to accept payment for my room in that, giving me change in Kip. I used this to buy some breakfast and then made my way to the main road begin my hitchhiking attempt. It seemed it wasn’t common to hitchhike in Laos so I had little success for the first 45 minutes, eventually giving in a paying a small amount for a lift in the back of a tuktuk/truck hybrid. It still beat the bus, with the fresh air (and dust) streaming in from all sides. It dropped me off in Paksan after 3.5 hours. I had much more luck here, with a car stopping immediately and offering to take me to Vientiane. It was driven by a pleasant young guy, Binly, returning Vientiane for work after a weekend visiting his family. The 3 hours passed quickly, chatting and listening to Ed Sheeran and Maroon 5 (not my music choices!). Binly was extra kind and dropped me right outside my hostel. The following evening he also invited me out for drinks with his friends which I accepted and had a very pleasant evening with them. All in all, much more preferable to another long bus journey!

Vientiane

Vientiane is the capital of Laos but it had nothing else going for it. It’s not pretty or interesting. I spent my time here doing errands like laundry and catching up on life admin and blog writing. When people say there’s nothing there, they’re being truthful for once.

Would we call this an enjoyable workaway experience?

Probably not. But it’s a funny story now.

I wanted to experience life in a village in Southeast Asia and decided Laos was the place to do it. I found a nice looking workaway based in a town called Lak Sao, 7 hours southeast from Vientiane (the capital). It was advertised as teaching english in an english school, something I have mixed opinions on but this one seemed okay as I would be an assistant rather than the main teacher. After an arduous journey which took 13 hours door to door, I arrived in the pissing rain at 8pm. I was shown my room which was basic but a standard I had become comfortable with, and was called for dinner. The school was part of the family’s home, which was a strange lay out of buildings and covered areas. This first dinner was fine, noodle soup, some vegetables with meat, and rice. Peter was the guy in charge and he was fairly chatty, albeit in a strange way where he would ask questions rudely and give slightly obnoxious replies, but I think this was just a cultural and language barrier thing. His dad smiled at me but didn’t speak any english. His mum didn’t even look at me. I tried very hard with this woman and never got anywhere, not a single word or even a head nod from her to acknowledge my presence. I was told not to go out after dinner because it was “dangerous” and to just go to bed. Fun! I got the impression that this family was not interested in socialising with me at all so steeled myself for a lonely week. Luckily, the following day another volunteer appeared - Lucia from Spain. Lucia saved me from any loneliness and provided a teammate in the craziness that ensued. It was lucky that we got on because it quickly became clear that we were expected to share not only a room, but a bed!

On my first day I was ordered to be ready at 8am where I was given a handful of sticky rice for breakfast and taken over to the construction site behind the house. They were building a new school here. I was instructed to mix cement which I made a bit of a mess of at first but eventually got the hang of. When shouted at, I was to fill buckets with cement and carry it to where Peter and his father were working, passing the bucket up to them on the makeshift scaffold. It was slightly unexpected work but I was fine with it, although a thank you would have been nice at some point rather than just being rudely told to bring two buckets at once not one at a time (clearly they hadn’t noticed my noodle arms…). Luckily this was the only construction I had to help with over my stay!

The teaching itself was fun in general but exhausting. The stipulated 4/5 hours of work expected on a workaway was ignored completely, and we taught in classes for 7 hours from 1pm to 8pm. During the classes my role was simply to read text and have the students repeat it back to me, picking them up on any pronunciation errors. We’d spend the full 2 hour lesson basically just doing this exercise. I was bored so the kids must have been bored to death. If there were any actual questions for the students to answer I’d go around and help them with these, or just chat to them. In general, the level of english was very low so conversation wasn’t really possible. There were a few girls who were much better and I loved chatting to them, and not only because they would always bring me snacks from the market to try! During the week I was there the students had exams to sit after class. I was told to invigilate these which I thought, ‘great, I can read my book and relax!’, how wrong I was. These kids really tried to cheat! Like consistently for the 1 hour exam. I’ve never seen anything like it. Every minute there was a student asking another one for the answer, or pushing their paper over to someone else, or turning around to get a glimpse. Keeping them in line required my full attention for the whole hour, how annoying. For the oral exams, Lucia and I were told to interview the students individually and grade them. We weren’t given any criteria so this was a difficult task, made slightly easier by most of the students being unable to understand any english beyond ‘what’s your name’. This was the most exhausting task we had to do and not at all enjoyable!

You’d think that the construction work, the shared bed and the long hours would be the worst of it, but they weren’t! The food and the family situation were worse. Let’s talk about the food first. I’m an adventurous and unfussy eater but even I hesitated when a plate of raw liver, raw meat and raw intestine was brought out for lunch. It actually tasted fine and (thankfully!) fresh but I wasn’t up for eating more than a few mouthfuls of it. I didn’t touch the raw intestine, having plenty of that in my soup already. The strange meat didn’t stop there, with dinner the following day being frogs! Again, these tasted fine but were very fiddly to eat and the skin was slimy. Other than these weird items, meals were usually just rice (steamed or sticky or both) and an omelette split between all of us or some vegetables. The family ate twice a day, an early lunch (11am) and dinner (8pm). Neither meal was very fulfilling unless you’re happy to eat a whole lot of plain rice. Lucia and I were perpetually hungry and felt lethargic because of this. I’ve mentioned that the family were unfriendly and didn’t want anything to do with us really, but this became even more apparent when they all left! I’m being slightly harsh here, Peter informed us that his baby son (who knew he had a child and why wasn’t he living with him?!) was in hospital with a fever and he needed to go and be with him. Peter then informed us that his parents would be going with him, leaving us alone. The next morning they left early without a trace. Peter told us there would be some ‘assistants’ to look after us, or we could cook for ourselves. The latter option wouldn’t have been the worse thing with the current food standard, but the kitchen was an outdoor one with no oven or gas stove, just a tin can fire. Even if I was more capable and able to start a fire, I couldn’t find any food to cook, not even rice! I had no idea where they stored it, unless they just picked the frogs fresh each morning?! So perhaps it was lucky we had our ‘assistants’ to watch over us. Sadly, the ‘assistants’ were three young boys who didn’t provide much help. They spent most of the day singing karaoke at full volume. After a lot of pestering they did help me light the fire and I was able to make some boiled eggs for breakfast, boiling extras to have as a snack later on. Except when I came back from washing up the boys had already eaten the spare eggs I’d put aside… They continued the usual meals by making us rice and a small omelette to share. Another boy came over one evening and cooked larb (a traditional Laos dish of minced meat and herbs) which was tasty, but at this point I was losing the will to live slightly.

On our day off we wanted to visit the Dragon cave and the cool pools that Peter told us about. We asked if we could borrow a scooter to drive to these, we were told no. We expected Peter or the other teachers to offer to take us but no, so we tried our hand at hitchhiking. The three boys, our assistants, watched on and laughed at our attempts. When one car finally stopped for us, I asked if the boys would help explain what we wanted and was told ‘no’. Lucia and I were nearing the end of our tether when at last a car stopped with a Spanish and Polish couple inside. They were also going to visit the dragon cave and cool pool so we all went together and had a really wonderful time. We waved a sad goodbye to them on the main road as we set out to hitchhike back to the school. We were able to flag down a bus and negotiate a reasonable price to get us back.

Thankfully I’d only arranged to stay at the school for 1 week, but I ended up leaving one day early, hitching a lift out of the town in the evening after dinner. I felt slightly guilty for leaving Lucia behind, but I couldn’t face it there anymore. It was a combination of the poor diet, poor sleep in a room that was too hot and in a shared bed, and the unfriendly people making me feel slightly uncomfortable constantly. I had moments of joy; yoga in the mornings, doing some writing after lunch, playing cards in bed with Lucia. But I didn’t feel very happy there. It was only for a short time and it has provided some funny stories so I definitely don’t regret going. But I wouldn’t go back!

Northern Thailand

From Vietnam to northern Thailand, how did you manage that without flying? Sadly I didn’t. I caved on my no flying intention to accompany Rosaline to Northern Thailand before she headed back to London, with her not having enough time to cross through Laos. It took me a bit of back and forth to make the decision but ultimately I wanted to spend as much time with Rosaline as possible since she’d come all this way, and I wanted to experience northern Thailand with her. It also made my onwards route a bit easier! And so we took a quick one hour flight from Hanoi to Chiang Mai. Stepping back into Thailand I had that familiar feeling of returning to a place I really enjoyed, from a place I enjoyed slightly less. I’d had it strongly once before on this trip: returning to Georgia from Armenia. It was clear to me then, I preferred Thailand to Vietnam. Not the way round I’d have predicted!

Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai was an interesting city, fully taken over by expats. The centre was a perfect square, surrounded by a moat and ruins of city walls. Within the moat, and especially along the first road inside, were lovely cafes after lovely cafes. Luckily there were also lots of little Thai restaurants and street food stalls. The perfect mix of Thai culture and western comforts. We appreciated the Thai side by visiting lots of gorgeous temples, chatting about our thoughts on Buddhism and mindfulness and the meaning of life whilst sitting in the calm oases of their gardens. Matching necklaces were bought at the ethnic Mong village which was a strange place, filled with corrugated iron lean-to structures housing souvenirs for tourists and a National Trust-esque flower garden. We ate a lot of excellent street food at the night market. We found our possible favourite dish of the trip: Khao Soi, a coconut milk-based curry with noodles rather than rice. We did another cooking class which ended up being a private lesson for just the two of us! Rosaline went to an elephant sanctuary and I got fined for riding a scooter without an international licence on my way to a free yoga class, which turned out to be a chi quong class which I hate. Swings and roundabouts! The expat community was also enjoyable and we indulged fully in this, by going to a free yoga class in the park (this one was actually yoga), by listening to some excellent jazz at the popular jazz bar and some excellent bands at another live music night we stumbled upon. We took part in the cafe culture with some intense travel planning for me (I changed my plans for my last few weeks and I booked my flight home!) and remote working for Rosaline. We visited an ‘art village’ I’d seen on instagram of all places, which greatly exceeded our expectations, being a few little lanes of beautiful handmade craft stores draped in vines and broken up with artisan cafes. It wasn’t a beautiful city and the roads were a bit stressful to drive on, but the food and activity made it one of the most liveable cities I’ve visited in Asia.

Chiang Rai

A four hour bus journey delivered us further north to Chiang Rai, the last destination for Rosaline and I’s travel together. The bus journey was stunning (or the parts I didn’t sleep through were). More temples and stupas and giant Buddhas than you could count. Our first day was spent visiting the Blue temple, which was very blue, and the Black House, which was very black. The Black House is a contemporary art and sculpture site, comprised of lots of black houses in traditional Thai design filled with strange articles. Chairs made of bones. Animal hides. Penis sculptures. A lot of strange male energy. Our favourite was the white dome with funky acoustics, something that kept us entertained for way too long. In the evening we visited, and completed, the Saturday night market which was no easy feat considering how huge and endless it was. Our last day was spent visiting the White Temple, along with two aussies we’d met at the hostel. I found the White Temple to be really quite rubbish. Out of all the sights I’d heard of and wanted to see, none had been so devastatingly disappointing as this. I’ll concede that it is very stunning and beautiful in isolation, but the reality is that it’s in a sort of car park on a main road. It was only built in 1997 and was clearly done so as a tourist attraction. It was so disengenuine. If you think I’m overreacting let me draw your attention to the hanging superhero heads in the trees that surrounded the temple… Yep that is Pirates of the Caribbean and Captain America. Why? Your guess is as good as mine, there was no explanation. Luckily, the two aussie guys were equally disillusioned by it so we had a fun time being unimpressed together. Thinking the day couldn’t get any more strange we drove out to a park and set out on a walk, unknowingly going in the complete wrong direction. We walked through hedge-lined lanes and past buffalo, coming across three man waist deep chilling in a river. They gave us shots of whiskey from cut off tops of plastic bottles and some jerky of questionable origin (hopefully not dog!). We had to sweet talk a guard to re-enter the park (apparently we were meant to have bought tickets) and got to enjoy a little petting zoo. All in all a strange day! The afternoon was spent chatting over cold beers in a british pub and there’s nothing that can quite beat that. Except for maybe getting dressed up and driving to a fancy restaurant for a delicious meal, which is what Rosaline and I did after! Sadly it was to mark our last meal together, but what a wonderful meal it was set in a conservatory that overlooked the river. Rosaline even indulged my greatest love, the card game ‘couples’, and we played a few rounds whilst our dinner digested. It wouldn’t have been the full travelling with Meg experience without at least one game of couples! I had quite the laugh in Chiang Rai, although some of it was at Chiang Rai’s expense. Overall, would recommend!

On May 29th, with sleep still in my eyes, I waved off Rosaline for a second time on this trip. There was no big transition period to travelling alone again, I slipped right back into it. I had a mission that day, to visit Myanmar, so I immediately got to work on achieving this (read the Myanmar blog post to hear about that!). And so I entered the final chapter of my journey.

Thai food

I thought I knew Thai food fairly well. Pad thai, soy sauce, pork, all of that stuff. I wasn’t wrong. But wow I’d underestimated it. I think the part I love the most about Thai food is the way you eat it. You never have your own dish, it’s always food for the table shared with everyone. I’m a big advocate for sharing food, mostly because I want to try as much as possible, but also because sharing the experience of a dish makes me happy. This way of eating with Thai food is brilliant as it allows you to appreciate the variety and how well different components come together. Here’s a taste of the food (pun intended):

1. Salads. Papaya salad is my favourite. Shredded unripe papaya, tossed with fish sauce and chilli, other veggies added and peanuts heaped on top. It can do no wrong. The other salads are all equally fresh, spicy and tasty.
2. Stir-fried noodle dishes. Whipped up in a flash in giant woks over high flames appearing from street food carts. We’re talking Pad Thai (less peanutty than ones I’ve had in the UK), Pad Ce-aw (soy sauce based), and other variations. Can’t go wrong with one of these.
3. Stir-fried veg dishes. Same as above but the main component is a green like morning glory (interesting name I know) or pak choy. Drenched in a sticky soy sauce. Often with pork thrown through. There are other varieties with fun stuff like mini aubergines and catfish too. Again, can’t go wrong.
4. Minced meat dishes. Holy basil chicken or pork. Larb. A heavily fragranced minced meat mixture, served with rice and a fried egg. Still can’t go wrong.
5. Saucey dishes. Sweet and sour. Cashew chicken. You know the sort. Delicious every time, although I found the sweet and sour to always be a little too sweet for my taste.
6. Curries. Green curry, red curry, yellow curry, panang curry. As a peanut lover, panang was my favourite but I never had a bad curry!
7. Meat and rice. Crispy pork and rice. Duck and rice. Stewed pork and rice. Red pork and rice. A little on the plain side, apart from the stewed pork which was tasty as hell. But still so good and would really hit the spot after a day of sweating out all of the salt from my body. Served with rice, a soft boiled egg, some saucey greens. Yum.
8. Noodle soups. The one I had was boat noodles which just blew all of the phos in Vietnam out of the water. So rich in flavour (that comes from the literal pig’s blood in the broth…) and filled with good chunks of meat.
9. Soups. Tom Yum, one of my favourite dishes of all time before I’d even been to Thailand. It was a whole new flavour explosion for little Meg the first time I tried it, sat in the Brixton food market in London. The one in Thailand lived up to memory. As did the version with coconut milk.
10. Barbecue dishes. When my family member took me out for dinner on my first night in Bangkok the table was filled with barbecued chicken wings, chicken breast, shrimps and skewers. We ate it with sticky rice. I didn’t even know this was a part of Thai food, but it’s a welcomed addition if not particularly unique.
11. Northern specialties: Khao Soi and Guaeng Huang Lay. The Khao Soi was so good I’ve already mentioned it, but to reiterate it’s a coconut milk-based curry with noodles, topped with crispy fried noodles. It’s not mind-blowing in its flavour, being pretty mellow, but god it’s good. The ultimate cozy food. I don’t know why it’s not bigger outside of Thailand. Curry with noodles? New to me but groundbreaking. Guaeng Huang Lay is a thicker curry compared to other Thai curries, influenced by Burmese cuisine and therefore more Indian-like. Good but forgettable.
12. Desserts. I had heard of mango sticky rice and thought it sounded like a pretty weak dessert. How wrong I was. I don’t know why mango sticky rice is as delectable as it is, or who gave it the right to be, but oh lord it’s wonderful. I think it’s the saltiness of the coconut milk that you drip over the perfectly ripe and super tasty mango (so much better than the ones in the UK) and the sticky rice, contrasted with the sweetness of that mango, and the comforting texture of that sticky rice. I don’t know. It’s just brain-alteringly good. I need to nail cooking sticky rice so I can make platefuls of it at home. Also, it feels like it could be an equally good breakfast food??? (Yes I have already eaten it for breakfast several times and this is just me trying to justify that.) In case you needed other dessert options (you don’t) there are also the Thai roti (square, extra crispy pancakes), fried bananas, and a whole selection of coconut based products from fresh ice cream to strange-textured balls.

Some other bits I love about Thai food is that the portions from street venders are on the smaller side, so you can get a few plates between two and enjoy even more dishes! Also the price is so low it’s silly. One dish would set you back between 40 - 60 baht (90p - £1.40), mango sticky rice is 30 - 50 baht (70p - £1.15).

Just in case it’s not completely clear at this point: I really really really enjoyed eating in Thailand. Thai food is so good and so varied. I never once wanted to eat a different cuisine and I think I could live my whole life eating just Thai food and not get bored. And I wouldn’t say that about any other cuisine…