Big bags and small bladders

Well, my big adventure has finally kicked off. Obviously after six years as a trolley dolly, I’m well accustomed to international travel. That is, international travel with all the perks like crew lines to cut the queues, airport passes and travelling in groups. International travel without the perks…. Not so easy, especially when travelling alone.

I’m no stranger to solo adventures. I’ve done Spain by my lonesome and at the beginning of this year I was exactly where I am right now, sitting in Bangkok airport, alone, after my one serious break up, determined to take on the world with my new found independence. (Cue beginning of diving love story!)

Let me tell you something: never take your travelling buddy for granted. With a five hour layover in Bangkok airport and with no one to mind your luggage while you pee, because you’re a responsible traveller and always stay hydrated… things can get very complicated. I also had to master the art of sleeping half on a row of seats, half draped over my luggage trolley, god forbid anyone nicks my wetsuit while I nap.

I don’t know why, but I always manage to attract loud/weird people to me. You can guarantee if I’m standing at a train station with a hundred other people and there’s that one crazy guy that wants to tell someone about his stuffed dead pet collection… He’ll pick me. Needless to say my five hour nap was punctuated with howls of laughter from what I am assuming was a group of pre-op Thai ladyboys wearing matching lilac shirts. And damn it if those ladies didn’t have better figures than me!

I also had this weird moment when a young Chinese lady, wearing the most adorned pair of Crocs you’ve ever seen, came up and slept with her head on the chair adjacent to my head. I’m not complaining or anything, although I do have this strange issue with people I don’t knows hair touching me, but the weird part was, there was about eight other entirely vacant rows of chairs. There was even several vacant seats at her feet in our row which I would have felt a little more comfortable had they been between us. But what can I say. Maybe she liked my hair, who wouldn’t!!

Another perk of travelling with a buddy is having someone to double check things like what time does your flight open, where you are meant to go and which boarding gate your flight leaves from. I have the attention span of a gnat and mild dyslexia, so I find myself checking and rechecking things a lot. Which is good seeing as I have just typed half this post sitting at the wrong boarding gate and my flight departs in ten minutes. Attention I must pay.

My five hour transit has given me sufficient time for the gravity of what I’m about to do to sink in. As someone who is very familiar with making last minute travel arrangements and terrible at making plans, I often find myself on a plane somewhere before I even realise where I’m going or what I’m doing. Thankfully I’ve always been a lucky/blessed person and things always seem to go my way. Although I have been “planning” this trip for months, everything happened so fast in the last two weeks that I don’t think I really had a chance to acknowledge what I’d gotten myself in for. Now I have. My stomach is attempting to recreate Circ Du Soleil in my belly and I can’t seem to take a proper lungful of air. Thankfully I will be spending tonight with two of my favourite crazy babes from Dubai, so they can deal with my mental breakdown instead of me for a change. Ahhhh brain holiday.

Stay tuned for an update from the island!

(Here’s one I prepared earlier! Due to the shocking internet connection on this rock I haven’t been able to post it for a few days so expect the follow up fairly soon!)