Our new home and Bangkok belly ;-)

For those of you who don't know what Bangkok belly is, your very lucky, as it left me (Stephen) bed ridden and with a permanent tie to the toilet...so that was my first day in Khon Kaen.
However, Kristine got a tour of the University grounds from the daughter of the owner of the apartments Izumi  and came back filled with great stories of our new surroundings, which she explained to me through the bathroom door. "Good to know", I replied: "Now please blare some music, this next part is gonna get ugly." ;-)



She described the area and all the amenities on offer including:

• football field,
• basket ball, 
• gymnasium,
• out door gym equipment and 
• running track around a beautiful lake
• and much more

It also has a lot of shops, markets and student bars mostly with live music.
"We were sold!" and once my ailment had cleared, I too was ready to explore.

The red rocket 2

We met our new neighbor and as it turns out, fellow class mate, a nice guy from Washington DC who gave us the run down and the best places to eat and visit. So after getting our new mode of transport we had our newly formed bike gang and were ready to venture into the city and explore the campus in it's entirety.

So in the first week we have tried to go jogging every night and are hopefully starting Muay Thai soon.
This time next year it will be me and Conor Mcgregor showing the UFC how its done :-)

Next week, after a stressful week of studying, :) we will try and treat ourselves to a trip to the national park and big Buddha on the mountain, so we will keep you posted...

Train journey to Khon Kaen

Thais tend to ask you a million questions.
They vary from where you're going, how long your going for and for what reasons.
But everyone we told that we were heading to Khon Kaen laughed in our faces, which we have to say, made us a bit nervous but we later realized it is just because tourists don't normally go there, as it's quite a bit out of the way and it isn't really a tourist destination but a great way to see the real Thailand.
The questioning isn't spying but curiosity and they seem generally interested in what these "farangs" are up to in their country.

 Train to Khon Kaen, Hua Lamphong

So after much deliberation on our part, we decided on taking the 8.20am train to Khon Kaen from Hua Lamphong Railway Station, which Stephen kept calling "Hua Long Dong" train station, he couldn't remember it after being told 500 times...
The tickets were 399 baht (10 Euro) for a 8 hour, 2nd class with air-con journey. Classic Thai time keeping, it actually took about 10 hours...
One thing we had to learn quick is that Thais don't believe in time keeping and if they are late, then this is the norm and not to be questioned..
It's Thailand - so get use to it.

The journey flew in and at every stop street food vendors came on the train and we were offered food and drinks and we have also seen some amazing surroundings and villages heading into rural Thailand away from the city, you can see a bit in the video but not easy to record while being bounced around in between carriages.

We arrived at 6 pm and walked out of the train station hoping to find a taxi but we were no longer in touristy Bangkok and there was none to be found.
After a 30 min agitated walk through town asking everyone if they recognized the address we were given, only to be met by dumbfounded expressions so we apologized and kept walking.

The hunger took over and I exclaimed I required a toastie from the 7/11, a quick easy cheap snack (24THB), when I came out Kristine was chatting with a Thai man showing him the address using all her arsenal of Thai words we have learned to communicate. He then called over a police officer who tried his best but had to call over a Tuk Tuk driver to join the now comical group standing in the middle of the streets with 60kg in backpacks and suit cases trying to find our new home, using a method of pointing at maps and names we had written down and trying the old "Point and speak Louder" technique to no avail.
After some deliberation and a few phone calls the Tuk Tuk driver decided he knew where we were going (or so he claimed). Even Mr. Pilkington could have called that one! ☺

So what we thought would be a 20 min journey turned out to be an hour of stopping and asking people for directions every 10 mins, we finally arrived at Khon Kaen University and were brought to our new home down an dark alley way past a lot of barking and chasing dogs.

We arrived at the Mijang Mansions and were shown to our new apartment by the daughter of the owner who spoke fluent English after growing up in America, her name is Izumi and she took away a lot of fears by explaining that we are still on campus and everything is only around the corner, but at 9pm at night in the pitch darkness, we just thought we were living in a field in the middle of nowhere.

Welcome to Bangkok

OK, so the first day we got the obligatory Thai Massage (not the happy ending kind) the "crack every bone in your body" kind. 1 hour of pain which translates to floating out of the place on cloud 9. we rested a bit and headed out to the strip for some delicious Thai food and then onto have a few cocktails and Chang beers 1.60 Euro a Pint bottle seemed a good price. The Thai street food is just as amazing as I remember and as you can see from the waterfall running down my face it's still as spicy.

The streets were alive with buskers and performers ranging from girls playing lady gaga on Thai instruments called Khim, to girls dressed as the evil girl from the horror movie "The Ring".



We met a  young couple from Colorado in a bar and had drinks with them while listening to Thai musicians singing classic hits. we got chatting with them as one of them was wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-Shirt the same one I painted a few weeks prior, so I had to show them, turns out they where huge fans.

Quite a few beers in and the music stopped and a Thai beat boxer came on stage, the street opened up for 6 random Thai's break dancing for our entertainment while a young lad went around collecting tips which we where happy to oblige, "Welcome to Bangkok" were any crazy spontaneous things can happen and we love it for that.

Laid back cat

So far we have renewed our love for Thailand and Thai people, the laid back attitude and their  friendly outgoing ways are like no other country I've visited, sure even the cats are laid back.

One Night In Bangkok

 We arrived at the Airport at 7am in the morning and walked around like lost puppies trying to decide how to get to Khao San Rd. (we have to add Stephen and I are not very good in making final decisions, we definitely have to get better at it). We bit the bullet and ended up taking a cab. Note to yourself: try to haggle and don't just pay the 500 THB as requested. If you really want to go cheap you can get the local buses and you probably end up only paying about 50 THB, but you will have to get 3 different buses. On arrival at Khao San Rd. we decided to stay on the less crazy Rambuttri Rd. which is a lot more built up from the last time we were here but none the less a lot less bonkers then Khao San.

I've got to admit you will still get the odd Thai harassing you for a Tuk Tuk or to buy something but nothing like the circus that is Khao San.

We asked in the "New my guest house" for a room but after being shown a room that made me gag from the stink (I'm talking used nappy after Indian food stink) we went next door.

We stayed at a place called the Merry V Guest House, decided to go for a double room with fan which cost us 450 baht. I know we could have gotten a cheaper room somewhere but were too tired by that time.

Here is a 360 degree view of our room. Not much to look at but for 12 Euro a night, you can't go wrong.

Here is a 360 degree view of our room. Not much to look at but for 12 Euro a night, you can't go wrong.

It's time to hit the road again.

Miami - Celebrity House spotting

Hiya this is Stephen and Kristine, we are an Irish-German couple that met travelling Australia over 4 years ago, fell in love with traveling and didn't want to stop. 
After travelling Australia for 2 years, New Zealand for a year, Thailand and Laos for as long as our savings could take us (which was 2 1/2 months), we decided to head "home" for a bit to recharge our Travel budget and rest our feet for a month or two.

We started new jobs, got a little side tracked enjoying the Craic at home and 2 and a half years went by, we blinked and thought it would be time again to go off and enjoy life again and try our hands in TEFL-teaching English...

This time we thought we keep track of what we are doing exactly, document trips and photos to show everyone that would be interested in it. And of course to keep the mammy happy so she doesn't worry and can do some spying on the trip.

So this is for family and friends to keep them updated from the land of smiles, but we will put up information on places visited and room and food prices for any other traveler who may come across this site and find some of the information interesting.

We are doing the TEFL in Khon Kaen and will update on where we will be working and visiting as much as possible.