Back in Bangkok

We dug under a plastic roofing that hangs down towards the street. A smell of fish and meat attacks my nose and the heavy air makes my head feel heavy. There are little stalls everywhere selling things from fruits and rice to living eels and frogs. A cat runs through the wet ground as we walk. Old ladies behind the desks smile. I almost step on a big catfish that has jumped down from a table and is trying to make an escape. Arno tries to tell one of the ladies that her fish is running away but she just smiles, didn't probably understand. Someone starts a scooter loaded with hundreds of eggs. I try to not get my flips flops wet while stumbling through the big fish buckets in the huge market.

Waddap! It's Linnea. We are currently still in Bangkok for the last night for now before heading to Myanmar (old Burma) tomorrow morning and sitting in the lobby of our hostel. Came yesterday morning pretty tired after a long flight through Kiev, Ukraine. I spent the 10 hour flight blogging, reading and playing Frozen freefall - which is pretty much like Candy Crush. I didn't get a lot of sleep, maybe like 2 hours while Arno was napping for 5 hours straight. But we still felt pretty okay when the plane landed in the morning.

After arriving at the airport and getting through immigration (witch happened surprisingly fast) we went to change into a little lighter clothing and headed to the train. Sitting next to locals we made it as close to downtown Bangkok as possible and then had to treck 4 km further. And oh the backpacks felt so much heavier than they had back home. Especially with the heat and dehydration. But as we kept walking we got more use to it. And I took a nice bubble tea to keep me focused on something else. And I think our lack of sleep started to turn into the level of hyper where you don't concentrate on things that much.

So we have both been in Thailand before and as we had left the stuff in our hostel we didn't feel the need to go sightseeing right away to Big Budha or Standing Budha or Happy Budha. Or the numerous beautiful tempels. We decided to just head down from the corner of our street and look for food. Sat down for some pad thai (costed us a little over a euro per portion) and kept walking. We found some nice local markets and just wandered around looking around. 

Soon enough we found ourselves standing in front of a thai massage spa. One of the local ladies gave my shoulders a little taste of their thai massage and I basically ran inside for more. We got ourselves 30 minute massages for our backpack shoulders and backs. And oh did that feel nice. I have never heard my back cracking so many times and didn't know that I have that plenty vertebras until I heard the lady did some popping to each of 'em.

In the evening we took a ferry to Chinatown. They have an incredible selection of street food there. The locals make everything on a pan in front of you. And streetfood isn't as bad, dirty and unhealthy as usually thought. Now that you think of it, you can see how they prepare it in front of your eyes. You know how they cook, what they put in it and where they keep the ingridients. Plus hey, if you are traveling in a place like Bangkok, if the stomach bug wants to find you, it will. And usually on a trip like this you will enjoy a stomach ache in some point anyway. Little amount of bacteria is actually better than swimming in hand sanitizer. 

In that point of the evening we were really waiting for the dim sums and buns that we'd been dreaming of already back home. So we went and ordered them + drinks for 8 euros. And that was some fancy eating! Then wanted to head back with the ferry, but they didn't run anymore. So we had to walk the 5 km. In total we had walked 23 kilometers that day so it was a good time to stop for drinks when we got to the hotel. 

The next morning I woke up around 9:40 and sneaked down for a shower, letting Arno sleep. When I finally dared to wake him up we headed down the street for breakfast. Had no plan for the day, so as we ate our chocolate and mango pancakes we decided to look for sisha in the Arabic part of the city. To save money we took a bus. The walk to the bus stop took us 1 and half hours since we decided to walk throgh every possible local market. Didn't see a single tourist or white man anywhere. So authetic!

We had found our bus stop and sat in the bus for several stops until the codriver told us to jump out. We weren't anywhere near but decided to walk the last 2 kilometers. And that seemed like a good choice. We stumbled into a local shopping mall and had our lunch there for under 3 euros for the both of us! And got a hat for me and a tie for Arno.

In the Arabic part of the city we finally found our hookah place. Hookah has been banned in Bangkok since the teens have been smoking drugs mixed in it. So it was super undergorund with sheets pulled over the cafeteria windows. There we sat and tried to deal with some things like calling to realtors for a new apartment and stuff. Then we headed back with a boat. The water transit is the best way to get around in the city. You have a nice breeze going on there, it's easy, you can't miss a stop really and definitely don't get stuck in traffic jams. Plus it cost like 12-14 bath witch is approx 30 cents. 

In the evening we just wanted to take it easy before Arno's suit fitting (yeees we ended up ordering a tailor made suite and shirt for him for his cousin's wedding with 120 euros). And as we were sitting there I kind of found a niiiice dress for myself and after thinking it through with our tailor and looking for the right material we decided to go for it for approx 89 euros. I needed one long one for all the upcoming weddings too. I hope it will be pretty. Will pick them up when we return to Bangkok on our way home.

So yeah! Tomorrow will be an early morning since we are flying to Myanmar! A new country to our list!

'til then,

Linnea

What about the struggle?

It's Linnea again (not to confuse you). Long time no hear here. We haven't really been posting lately (you can read the latest post about our anniversary trip to Rome by Arno here) due everything that's been happening around us lately. And I feel like we haven't really kept up with our busy lives here on the blog for like half a year, so I will jump back to January...

Remember how we got stuck in Jakarta, Indonesia and then Tel Aviv, Israel on our way back home from our Christmas trip in Bali? (Here is the whole story) So after missing a few days of work I came back to finish my projects in Yleisradio (the Finnish broadcasting company). We had a nice goodbye party and then I was left wondering what's next. By this time Arno had found himself a nice job in a tennis hall and told me to figure out what I want to do instead of rushing into a job I would hate.

On top of the scars and problems that the scooter accident in Bali had cost me, my wisdom teeth were acting up and had to be pulled off – or more like beaten to a billion pieces and removed by an operation in my case. And this being (expensive ofc,) very painful and swelling my face up I was also put on a sick leave so that the stitches wouldn't break or get infected. So basically I was just sitting inside, eating ice cream and banging my head against the wall trying to figure out what to do with my life next. Trying to earn some money by gigs and part time jobs.

There were also some other factors to be considered as the fact that we were living in Arno's dad's friend's apartment and he was supposed to come back from Indonesia and we move away to somewhere. Arno was also applying to the pilot school at the moment, my application process to universities was about to start and I hadn't finished my studies in Helsinki Design school so we weren't able to just move to Lapland or fly to Australia. We had to stay in the area and find an affordable place to stay – and with a flexible contract since we had no clue if the pilot school would just suddenly pull us to another city and give us a week of time for moving. And of course we weren't exactly rich either since Arno had been in the army for half a year and they pay you almost nothing (like 5 euros/day).

So once again we were feeling pretty lost with no plans whatsoever. One day we just went through some options and Arno put out there an idea of us moving to his grandpa's ex house at the country side, next to his mom's house and buying a car. It felt like a joke to the both of us. Like the last option on the table. But as we were considering all the factors of the moment it started to sound like a plan that didn't include paying rent or leasing an apartment for a year and then not getting rid of it by the time our schools would require us to move. Plus hey, all of our stuff we didn't take to our part time apartment had been moved to Arno's mom's house. So we ended up buying a car and preparing for our move to the country side.

I luckily got a job at this one stable not far from our new country side apartment so everything seemed to work out. At least pretty much until the point when we opened the door to Arno's grandpa's cottage.

The house was built by Arno's grandpa in the 60's and had served as his mom's and ant's childhood home. Now it had been pretty much standing empty since his grandpa passed about five years ago. Arno's grandma had been using it as a summer cabin every now and then, but most of the time it had been standing empty and cold.

The first morning I burst into tears as we woke up from our too small bed located in the living room so that it blocked the toilet. The mice had been having a riot in the night, it was cold and messy with brown water coming out of taps, boxes everywhere and I couldn't even find room to make myself some oatmeal. Arno hugged me and told everything will be alright. But all I could think of was how come our bright future looked like a smelly, little cabin full of spider webs and mice?

I was about to back out from this plan until I sat down and thought it through by myself. I have been living in Dziwaresekwa, in a poor suburb outside Harare, Zimbabwe. Where there is not always electricity nor water. I have to find my Africa mindset again. So that evening as I returned from work I put some good music on and started to tear down stuff. I took off the old curtains, cleaned the spider webs, dead bugs and mice poop. Together we moved some old furniture out of the way, burned scented candles and kept the door open as long as possible. We painted and renovated the bedroom, put our new bed in and carried a big TV over. Then we mice proofed the house and got the cat to take care of the rest. Slowly but surely it was starting to look decent and we began to adjust.

Of course the spring did not go without any set backs. I had my entrance exams for university and paramedic school (couldn't decide). I studied around the clock for months and did my very best. And then came an email saying there had been technical problems in one of the paramedic school tests and that was for sure going to affect on my points. Like getting into a school with dyslexia wasn't hard enough...

Living in the country side has its' cons for sure and one of them is that there are basically no public transport so we had to bond with our little 500 euro car (named it Shemale). The car being our only transit we depended on it to work so we would get to work to earn money and to the super market to spend it (the trip to the closest shop was 7 km). And then when one morning it broke in the city we had no other option than to tow it 30 km to home and try to fix it ourselves rather than take it to the fixer and pay 5 times what the wagon was really worth. So for 4 days Arno took off from work and just fixed the car around the clock in the neighbour's garage. I served him some soda and food and helped as much as possible but he really did the hard work. It ended up costing us way less than a mechanic or apartment rent but wasn't cheap still.

As I am a little accident prone, I also fell off a horse and had to spent one Sunday night in a hospital taking CT scans of my neck that hurt like crazy. Then one day at work I hurt my finger (when an empty plastic bag attacked me) and a week later the doctor called me in saying that it was broken after all ( = sick leave again). Only my problems were costing us a lot of time and money spent for doctors' appointments.

And then – this is something we have kind of kept quiet about - during the pilot school medical tests they found something that could in the worst case scenario ruin Arno's pilot career for good. It felt like the carpet had been pulled from under our feet again. Everything he had been working for and dreaming about his whole life was so unsure again. As we sat in the car just staring to the emptiness I told my sweetheart that everything will be alright, even though I had no idea weather it really would.

That night when we came home and Arno was napping I sneaked to make some coffee and open up my computer to find out as much as possible about this thing. After a lot of research I communicated with my and Arno's parents and decided that we are going to do everything in our power to fix this (and I could have never done all of this without the help from them!). The first step was to find a good doctor to deal with it. And we sure did. The best specialist in the whole country who took our matter in his hands and made all the possible tests for us. Then started the long wait, several phone calls, scans and doctors' appointments (all costing money of course).

A month later we were sitting in the final destination – in the pilot school doctors' office where he would get either a no or a yes answer depending on the tests. And after several hours of waiting and few more test the doctor stamped him a medical certificate saying he would be qualified to become a pilot (all fit and ready) and would start the school in 5 months! It felt like our luck had turned finally! We were so happy!

A few days before that I had graduated from Design school and finished my freelance gigs for Yle so what was holding us anymore?

You see, we had become to love our life at the country side and the cabin felt like home with the deer and moose running on the back yard and such fresh air during the starry nights. This cosy little house was a place we never expected to like that much but life can surprise you. After all we are both from the country side and loved BBQ and hammocks. And living there had saved us a lot of money. So Arno accidentally found cheap tickets to Bangkok and we decided to take off for six weeks!

And as I am typing this text for you, we are sitting in an airplane on our way to Thailand. It's dark and Arno is sleeping against the window as most of the passengers. I have enjoyed some nice wine and cheese and am about to cuddle next to him. When you read this, we have already made it there and are probably searching some street food for breakfast or dim sums from night markets. And enjoying the sunny 34 degrees.

For this trip we have no scheds nor plans. Just two backpacks packed for our adventures, each other and the open road ahead of us. Let's see what the life will bring on our way. But I have some confidence that everything will be alright. Because just yesterday I got to know that I got a confirmed school place too and will start studying this fall.

Hugs,

Linnea

When in Rome (The 1st year Anniversary trip)

Sorry for the long radio silence. It has been so busy in our house the whole spring that our anniversary trip to Rome that occoured in February is just this much late from the blog. More about everything that has been going on coming up later...

Keep this picture of this mandarin in your mind. There's a real story behind this picture and you will hear that later.

We never really planned on doing this trip but as in our usual manner it just happened. Our anniversary was coming up and we wanted to do something really nice because of it - like a ski trip, nice dinner or a cruise. Nothing just seemed right. Even though we didn't really have any money we just went to browse some cheap flights in the hope of finding a good deal. We found two destinations with relatively cheap tickets and started to count our pennies if we could actually afford to take a little trip abroad. Eventually the pennies added up and we decided to go for it. A choice between either going to Rome or to Istanbul. It took us many days of thinking and comparing but we still couldn't come up with a resolution - I mean both of them are good choices. The weather and the recent terrorist attacks in Istanbul made us go with Rome. It was still winter in Istanbul and we wanted to get some sun since it was so cold back home. Linnea had been there as a child around that time of the year and I had been only at the railway station with my friends on our interrail so not really too seen city for neither of us. We bought the flights, booked a cheap hotel and started the countdown to our little trip. Only ten days to go.

The day of departure finally came; I still had to work in the morning so we met up at the railway station and took a train to the airport. We first flew to Kiev, Ukraine and from there to Rome. It was getting pretty late on arrival so we headed straight out to find the train. When we got to the train I had a minute of time to buy the ticket before the train would have departed, the machine didn't want to sell me tickets so we just ran for the train. Barely made it. The conductor was nice enough to sell us tickets for the "normal" price, since apparently in Italy if you don't have a ticket already you need to pay 50 euros extra on the train?! That would have killed our budget already on the first night. So remember to buy ahead. After arriving to the railway station we took a little walk towards our hotel and checked-in to our room. The place looked decent for the price so we were satisfied. Time for a well earned sleep.

In the morning we got quite a surprise while eating our breakfast in bed: They had apparently put us in the wrong room and we were told to move to a dorm room that I don't remember booking. I got a bit upset at the lady about it but she stayed very rude towards me. We got online and found another hotel for about the same price and decided to go there. After multiple phone calls I got a refund from the online booking site for the whole thing and even got the lady at the reception to refund me my city tax I paid after arguing with her about it. Thank you and goodbye (I wish but we had to return the next day cause I forgot my phone charger there, an awkward reunion).

Our next hotel was way nicer, what a pleasant surprise. We got a huge room and bathroom, a nice view to the streets and we were right next to the Vatican. Hence being close to the Vatican we decided to take a trip out there. It's a very absurd place, our hotel was located so that we had to walk alongside of the border wall to get to St. Peter's Basilica. A huge wall of which behind high buildings built on a small piece of tax paradise, hiding billions of dollars from the world. We passed by the Basilica, not going inside cause we weren't really too interested about that and the line was accross the whole country (yes, funny, the Vatican is a country).

We started to wander around the city, just admiring it's beauty and hours just passed by without us even noticing it. Accidentally we arrived at Trevi, the famous fountain seen in every picture about Rome. After escaping the mass tourism at the fountain we bumped into this nice homeless guy with a sweet dog. He barely spoke any English but we still managed to talk with him a bit. He made Linnea a beautiful bouquet of flowers from balloons - street art, you gotta love it. 

It started to get late so it was time to swing by the hotel and find a good place to eat. Our hotel manager (the nicest guy in Rome!) recommended us a local place which served nice cheap food. I had some lamb and Linnea a seafood pasta. Delicious honest food (and some good white wine), what more do you need?

The next day was kind of a special day, our first anniversary day. This was the day Linnea came to see me in Albania exactly one year earlier. More about that later too. 

So, you can't go to Rome without visiting the Colosseum so off we went. Our legs still being a bit soar from yesterdays walking we decided to take the metro. The Colosseum is a very impressive building, being built such a long time ago with manual labour. There was just one thing really bothering me, the quality of the reconstruction. Horrible! You can see where it's been rebuilt and what is actually old from a million miles away. The tiles are different colour and style which makes it look very fake. A real shame for a monument with such historical value.

Yet again we found ourselves wandering around the little streets of Rome having absolutely no clue which direction we were going. This is typical in the city since all the little streets get you lost very quickly (so Italian). Luckily while being lost we found a little pizzeria and we gave it a shot (the good thing about Italy is that you are always allowed to eat pizza and not even feel shame for missing the traditional kitchen like you would somewhere in Asia). Good pizza for a good price! Worth it. 

And after lunch comes desert so it was time to hunt for some. I googled the best gelateria (ice cream) in Rome and we started walking. We arrived there only to find out it was closed! What a bummer. I googled again and we headed out to the second best gelateria in town. Amazing! The gelato was so perfect there are no words for it. This left me wondering though how good the best one would have been... Right in the neighbourhood we found a lot of small and very cheap restaurants so we started looking for a nice one to have dinner at. We got it narrowed down to a few candidates and decided to make a choice when the hunger would hit us.

Time to eat! We picked a nice reataurant with a beautiful terrace. We only paid like 12 euros for three courses and a wine. Not bad! And the food was very good. It was late but we still wanted to walk back to the hotel. Rome is a safe city to walk at night and you can really feel it. Many other big cities at night feel a bit unsafe but Rome makes a perfect exception. 

On our way back we passed the Vatican and I was pretty shocked and upset. Dozens and dozens of homeless people sleeping around the pilars of the Vatican since they shut down the city at night. It's a bit upsetting since the church always talks about helping eachother and providing for the poor. But here these people are sleeping, on the cold ground, covered literally in carbage bags and cardboard boxes, locked out from the riches within the church while cardinals and the Pope are having a luxury meal and a comfy sleep. 

On our last full day we decided to ease it up a bit. We already walked around the city for two days so time to chill a bit. We wanted to go somewhere where we could enjoy views over the city. After googling around a bit I found this fancy hotel with a roof terrace and views over the city, a little further from the Spanish steps. We went to check it out (I don't think the doorman in the lobby took us too seriously since we looked nothing like the regular customers) and the view was just incredible! The hotel wasn't that high but it was located on top of a hill which made it look taller. The prices were pretty incredible too. Neither of us have ever paid so much for a coffee and a coke. But we thought about it like we are paying for the views and not the drinks. 

Our lazy day wasn't quite this lazy.

Somehow we found ourselves being at the Colosseum - again - but this time with some jummy pizza. Along the way we stopped in this one little pizzeria which make local Roma pizza. It's pizza but with a lot thicker crust than a normal pizza and it tastes heavenly (well, hey, pizza). So there we were, just sitting by the colosseum and enjoyin our time and the heat of the sun before having to leave back to wintery cold Finland.



I don't know how many hours passed but we woke up to reality that evening was starting to fall and it was time to say goodbye to our little winter getaway. We headed back and prepared ourselves for an early morning wake up to head back home.

TTYS,

Arno