Solo Travel – Nomad Blood

Planning your first trip to SEAsia? Most likely you will start with Thailand and fly into Bangkok. And even if it is not your first trip in the region, a lot of people choose to fly to Bangkok and start their travels from there. But even though it was the second most visited city in the world in 2019, a lot a people consider 2-3 days to be more than enough to get a taste. I read a lot of blogs and watched a ton of youtube videos before my trip to Thailand, and a lot of people where not impressed with Bangkok, but after going there I had no idea why. To this day I can easily say that it is one of the most amazing cities in the world. So as you probably guessed from the title I am going to share with you a 7 days itinerary for Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Yuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit (sorry, this is the full ceremonial name of Bangkok. What a fun fact!)

So let’s start from the beginning: Where will I sleep?

A lot of people don’t realise that Bangkok is HUGE. Also every neighborhood has it’s own vibe, one minute you can be in a slum, and the next minute you can be surrounded by skyscrapers. So you need to know what you are looking for. Wanna have fun? Go to Khao San area! Want something fancy? You can find loads of 5* hotels along Chao Praya river. Looking for a western atmosphere and rooftop bars? Sukhumvit is for you. Anyways, there are a lot more options, but I am cheap and I love having fun and meeting people so I choose the Khao San area. I stayed in hostel I really enjoyed, which I can not find on booking.com any more, but you can still book a bed on agoda.com. It is called Mint Hostel, and it is situated really close to Khao San Road but on a quiet street, so you get the best of both worlds… and I only payed 3€ per night (with breakfast included, haha). If you are not impessed yet, let me tell you that there is a restaurant on the same street that serves local food for only 50 bath ( 1,40€), two 7/11 a few hundred meters away and it has a beautiful hangout area downstairs.

Mint hostel, picture from their Agoda.com page.

Now that you have a place to leave you baggage and to lay your head to rest, it is time to explore! But wait, I forgot something, you most likely are jetlagged or tierd from traveling, after all it is only your first day, you can take it easy. So I can not stress this enough: GO FOR A THAI MASSAGE! There is nothing better after a day of traveling than a relaxing massage, and thai massage is simply the best massage. In the Khao San area you will pay around 150 bath(4,20 euro) for a half an hour massage and 250 bath (7 euro )for an hour. I can not recommend a specific place, but it is full of them and they all are amazing, so just go to the first one you fancy.

Now that you are relaxed and those muscles are no longer stiff it’s time to immerse yourself in the local cuisine, and oh boy you have many options. From the 50 bath Pad Thai and Thai Red Curry on Prachathipatai Rd, to all the BBQ soy and honey chicken, burned scorpions and bugs and the infamous Durian, you can find just about anything by walking around the Khao San area. So pick and choose what you like, because Bangkok is the place to discover that thai flavours.

After that relaxing massage and that great meal it is finally time to explore the area. And Bangkok would not be Bangkok without all the temples. For your first day I would go to the closest one, so I recommend Wat Bowonniwetwiharn Ratchaworawiharn ( of coruse I copy-pasted that name, in case you were wondering). The temple is the resting place of two former kings, Rama IV and Rama IX and it has a golden stupa. It is not the most mindblowing temple you are going o visit, but it is a very good begining.

The beautiful golden *stupa* of Wat Bowonniwetwiharn Ratchaworawiharn

Just outiside the temple you are going to find Banglamphu Market, where if you enjoy shopping and bargaining you can spend a good few hours. But even if you are not a big fan of that you still have to go and check out the atmosphere and get that elephant backpacker pants ( they are a must!!!).

So you had a pretty full day so far, let’s end it right, heading to Khao San road around sunset. First I went there during the day and it looked like any average party street/ tourist trap kinda place. And I am not going to say that it changes a lot during the night, it is still a party street/ tourist trap but IT IS CRAZY. So if you wanna sip a few cocktails at sunset it can be a nice place, but also if you feel like getting wild, you can totally do that after sunset. The most annoying thing about it is the constant influx of people that want to sell you crap you would only buy if you are wasted. ( I am not judging, after all I did buy and eat a scorpion). But yeah, if you still tierd for a night out, just grab a few beers from 7/11, go to the hostel and make some friends to share you adventures with.

Khao San road during the day vs Khao San during the night

To end this kind of post I decided to give the Tips& Tricks of the Day. So each new day we learn something, and after a few days in Bangkok I learned something I wish I knew from day one. Never, and i mean NEVER, trust a Tuk Tuk driver. If you wanna take one, that is completely fine if you get a good price, but if they offer to give you any info or if you wanna ask them how to get somewhere, be sure that they will lie to you to get you in the Tuk Tuk.

I guess it is only appropriate to start this new journey by talking a bit about myself and what I want to achive with this blog. Let’s start in the present and then go back to where it all started. My name is Maria, I am a 24 years old (soon to be) archaeologist, based (for now) in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. But now , because of the Coronavirsu pandemic, like a lot a people around the world I am stuck in my hometown with lots of time to remember the days when „the grass was greener and the light was brighter”.

Because I had so much time to reflect on the past I started wandering where it al started. Why do I love traveling so much? What is it that makes me want to spend my last penny on a trip rather than buying something nice? Why do I have the guts to jump on a plane to the other side of the world all alone? And most of all, why do I find it strange when people seem to think it is an act of courage rather than something completely normal ?

To answer all this questions I guess we have to go backto where it all started, my first trip. Actually, my second trip. My first trip was back in 2005 (so I was 10) in Austria. And of course I loved it! Just think about it, take a child that barely left their hometown and let the roam around Vienna during Chrstimas, I was mesmerized! The lights, the colours, the food, the smells, everything was new and amazing. But I feel like the stepping stone for me was my trip to Crete, Greece. There where a lot of firsts on that trip. First time flying, first time on an island, first time traveling around by car, first time visiting ancient ruins. And looking back on it I feel that those two trips kinda shaped my trivel wishlist till this day!

Me, back in 2006, discovering the ancient city of Knossos and my love for archaeology.

Back in the day as a Romanian we used to get visas when traveling around Europe. Don’t wanna seem ungrafeul for my right of movement, but I would love some kind of memento of when and where I traveled in my passport.

Advancing a little further into my travel timeline, to my first trips outside Europe, and that is Tunisia (2007) and Egypt (2009), I can’t seem to get over the fact that I was so lucky to first discover Northern Africa as a child. Not only because it is so different from what I was used to, whitch I think led me to me a more tolerant and open minded person, but also because it is such a magical place. Traveling on the Nile, seeing the majestic temples still standing, hearing all the stories about pharaonic period, it was like living in a fairytale. I guess that was the point when I realised there is so much more to this world than I thought before.

Mother and I enjoying this amazing view over Cairo.

Now, before everyone gets bored, I feel like I have to talk about one of my favourite coutries in Europe, and the place where I grew as a person and where I learned a lot about traveling and about myself: Czech Republic. I first went to Prague in 2012, and I had the same feeling I had about Budapest, it was so beautiful that it seemed unreal. I mean I saw gothic buildings before, but Prague is something else. Still this si not the trip I want to talk about, but my second time in Czech Republic, back in 2017. So this is after finishing my second year at uni, when I decided to apply for an Erasmus Placement and luckly I got accepted, so I moved to Hradec Králové for the summer. This is the first time I realised I can be independent and do the things I really wanna do. Living in an international environment changed me as a person. Actually staying in the same building with other people form all around the world and working with some of them facilitated communication, and because of that I got to learn a lot about them, and about the places they come from, and also got to visit Poland for the first time, thanks to my polish friends, which were nice enough to host us and show us around. (Lukas and Sylvia, if you read this, I miss you guys, and thank you for the good times we had.). Another important event that summer is my first solo trip! (hurray!). I remember it like it was yesterday. I really wanted to go to Dresden one weekend but all my colleagues had planned a trip to Terezín which was a concentration camp during WWII. For some reason I was really stuck on the idea of going to Germany, but no one wanted to join me, so in the morning we were supposed to go to Terezín, I woke up, booked a hotel in Dresden, took the first train to Prague, then jumped in another one to Dresden and that was it. It was easy, it was fun and I gotta do it my way.

Enjoying a beer in the beautiful city of Wrocław with my fellow archaeologists.

Taking pictures while traveling alone is a hassle, I am still trying to perfect that craft. (Dresden, 2017)

Since my Dresden trip, I traveled solo to 10 more countries, and God knows how many cities, and I fell in love with it! A lot of people wonder why. Some assume I have no friends, or even worst, that I hate being around people, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. I am lucky enough to have friends all over Romania and the world, and every time I travel I get the chance to gather a few more. I love my friends, and I do enjoy traveling with them, but I also love meeting new people, which is way easier when you travel alone.

My lovely friend Sandy and I having a blast in Tel Aviv after meeting on the excavation at Tel Qedesh

My crew from back home on New Year’s Eve in Bansko.

My Erasmus buddies and I in the wrong train station, hoping that we will get home that night.

Bangkok hostel gang, a few minutes before we saw the king of Thailand.

And that time we took the boat in the wrong direction and ended up seeing a good chunk of Bangkok for just 17 bath, with two amazing humans.

My girl Viktoria and I doing our Christmas photoshoot in the craziest most amazing pool ever, with a lovely view over Kuala Lumpur.

But enough about the past, let’s talk about the future. Because I had the chance to see so many beautiful places and meet so many intresting people, I decided I had to try and tell their stories. I want to share my travel itineraries and tell you about the places I love the most. In part because I feel that at this point I have enough experience with traveling and I can give good tips and trick, but also because I don’t want to ever forget it. Also because I miss and admire the people you saw above, and a lot more I did not get to mention now, I want to start a series of interviews so you all get the chance to meet them, learn about their travels and hopefuly like them as much as I do. And last but not least, I wanna talk about food. I don’t know abut you, but whenever I get home from trip, it is not long until I start missing the local food. So I will talk about the best street food places ( sorry, I am not fancy) and how to recreate that food at home.

So guys, if you made it this far, I wanna thank you, and I hope you will enjoy future posts. And to my friends, I miss you all, and after the world gets back to normal, we need to meet again!

Tag: Solo Travel

Bangkok Travel Itinerary: day 1/7.

Hello world, let me introduce myself!