Finally off!

I have now actually been in the Philippines for a day and a half now, and I am awake at 4am… 😕 damn jet lag! So I am using this time to try and post the blog that I didn’t manage to post before I left due to technical difficulties, I had it all written out and pictures added, but it didn’t upload. So let’s try it again (although it might be slightly out of date now).

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I have now been back in the South West of England for slightly over a month and have FINALLY had my corrections accepted for my PhD thesis after a few back and forths regarding formatting errors. Word is a pain with formatting when it comes to long documents, if you change just one tiny thing, everything else goes out of place! It was extremely frustrating at times and took way longer than it should have, but that’s just been how the whole PhD has gone. One of my friends has really helped me out by printing, binding, and submitting the thess for me – many thanks Orla, this has been such a great help to me! You are lovely! 🙂 also thanks to the other friends who offered to help when I was back in Belfast. I am delighted to say that I have finally finished, at last!

I did somewhat put off writing this until the PhD was finalised as I was getting quite stressed out with it and if it was not finished first then it probably would have changed the tone of the post a lot. I have to admit I was feeling quite down at some points, which I have heard is quite normal after a PhD from all of my friends and family that have done them. I did some yoga to help with this stress but perhaps not as much as i would have liked. Although I hope I have passed this period now and I seem to be in excited mode for travelling now. However, this only came when the little bits and pieces that needed doing were ticked off the to do list. I was feeling slightly overwhelmed with it all initially but spent a few days at my parents getting stuff sorted, playing with the fluffy animals and getting some TLC like an amazing home cooked roast dinner.

Since being back I have spent a lot of time by the River Tone and River Culm in various spots. I have been walking quite a bit, from very short meanders near Wellington monument, to mid length walks either with my friend and her dog with some elements of bird spotting, or around the village in the Quantock Hills with Alex’s mum, and then slightly longer walks in the Blackdown Hills or around Clatworthy Reservoir.

We also spent a bit of time in the Mendip Hills near Cheddar Gorge which is an area that I love because of the steep cliff edges with mountain goats, and cute little buildings. We spent one day at our friends new house, and another we wild camped with another close friend of ours. The night we wild camped, bèfore our friend arrived we heard bikes racing all over the hills, and random gun shots late into the evening. We walked up to the local pub and didn’t realise it was a cash only pub. We only had card and had not thought we would need cash. One of the guys in the bar took pity on us only ordering water so bought us both a pint, which was incredibly nice of him.

On one of these walks in the Blackdown Hills we picked blackberries, we got a big harvest – enough for 2 delicious crumbles! 🙂 On another walk we picked up some eggs and plums from the honesty boxes at the side of the tiny country roads which I love – it is so cool to pick up local produce like this :-). We also tucked into some nice local take out with the “Soul Food” truck that is in Hemyock on Tuesday evenings.

On some of these walks we’ve come across lots of cows, they are so fantastically inquisitive. They see you from across the field and push each other out the way to get a better look at what is going on. On the first day that we were playing dungeons and dragons (D&D) by the River Culm, initially the cows were on the other side of the river but after some time they completely surrounded us and we’re very curious about us – I have to admit I was a little intimidated and so we moved further down the field and away from them.

For those of you that are not familiar with D&D, it is an imagination based game where you choose a character. Each character has certain abilities and strengths and weaknesses and generally you play with a small group of friends. One of those is the dungeon master and tells the setting and any advances in the story line but does not generally have a character. Other players say what they want their character to do in relation to the settings, then they have to roll several die and get a high enough score for that to be able to happen. If the die roll is not high enough then the dungeon master decides how your attempt actually looks. It is a lot of fun, and technology means we can now play this anywhere with little hassle – so we spent the bank holiday weekend in August playing D&D at a lovely spot by the river in Cullompton. It got very silly very quickly.

There have been a few great venues for partying during the time I’ve been back; including the Brecon Jazz festival in the Brecon Beacons where there were some really cool bands playing in the best beer garden I have seen – it had a great panoramic view across Pen y Fan; a party on the farm in the Blackdown Hills where Alex’s brother is currently living in order to raise money for refugees where they served some great curries with locally sourced ingredients; and a party at Lilstock beach to celebrate several friends birthdays as well as my finishing my PhD and a final send off before we head off on our travels. Lilstock was right next to the Hinckley Point project, despite this is was a beautiful area. We found a section in the woods which had an area to set up speakers and makeshift steps and hand rail up to it as it was quite a steep climb up. I was impressed by the number of people who came to it and thanks to everyone who did, it was great to see you. Also happy birthday to Sam and Robbie. It was a great overall celebration.

While I’ve been back I have managed to see most of our family. I visited my sister and got to see her new place in the Cotswolds which was lovely, such a cute little village with several beautiful lakes. I didn’t get to spend too long there but it was really nice to catch up with her before I left.

I did also get to see her for a few hours at Clevedon pier which I had never been to before but then went to twice in about a week to meet a friend and then Becky at it just so happened to be about half way between both sets of meet ups. It was quite a nice area with a large outside seasalt swimming pool overlooking the sea which I would have liked to swim in but didn’t get around to this time. There were some people stand up paddle boarding and kayaking there which looked fun.

I have spoken to my brother and sister in law and seen their 1 year old running around via Facebook calls, although not seen them in person since June when they came to Northern Ireland, as they live in Portugal now. I have missed a few of these family calls but hoping to attend a few more while I am away. I have brought myself a tablet which should aid this as my phone has been dying now for a long time so is basically not worth trying to use for this purpose. I have spent a bit of time with my parents over the time I have been back which has been nice. I had lunch with them last monday which will be the last time I see them until I get back, so that was a bit strange. Especially after saying goodbyes to lots of friends at the party at the weekend. We had dinner with Alex’s brothers the other night too, although I didn’t get to see his dad unfortunately as timing didn’t quite work but Alex managed to see him while I went to see my sister.

Despite being busy seeing friends and family, we did manage to slip in a date night at Wellington cinema to see the new Tarintino film – “Once upon a time in Hollywood” which was very entertaining, despite not having a hugely detailed storyline. Wellington cinema is a nice old-school, theatre-style cinema and is one of two cinemas I have been to where you can have a pint while you watch the film. The other was Portrush film club held at Kiwi bar, which is a great venue and would recommend. It is very strange that I will not see many loved ones for a long time now, we are both a little emotional about it to be sure, but the Internet makes it easier to stay in contact, so hopefully we won’t feel too homesick while we are away.

So, I haven’t posted much about the actual travel plans yet, again I was kind of waiting for this post to tell you all but it’s coming up fast. We went to London on Tuesday 17th September via Berry’s coaches and stayed with Alex’s friends Dion and Lotte – thanks so much for letting us stay and transporting us to the airport. It was incredibly helpful for us. It was great to finally meet both of you.

We went to the Vietnamese embassy on Wednesday 18th to pick up our visa’s as we had left it a little late to get them sent through. There was a slight panic as they didnt seem to have our details when we arrived, but it got sorted pretty quickly which was good. Then we set off on Thursday 19th September from Heathrow to Manila in the Philippines with Saudi Arabia airlines with a quick 4 hour layover in Saudi Arabia. The first flight was 6 hours and the second was 10 hours. The airline was great, the food was actually good, there was plenty of leg room, even for us giants, and the choice of entertainment was vast and good. We arrived in Manila mid afternoon local time on the 20th September. We booked a hotel there for 3 nights, which is good as we have been very tired and have barely left the room. We ventured out last night for some eat food at Ying Ying Tea Rooms, we ordered way too much, but it was all delicious. We saw the Chinese – Philippino friendship bridge ad found a cool bar. We saw a lot of sd stray dogs and cats as well as a chicken tethered to the gate.

We have booked onward flights on Monday to Cebu, and return flight before we head on to Vietnam on the 19th October. We get 30 days visa free in the Philippines being British nationals. Our flight lands in Ho Chi Minh on the 20th October just after midnight. We have 1 nights accommodation sorted immediately outside the airport. Our Vietnamese visa is for 3 months but after that we are not quite sure what our route will be. We have several friends in Vietnam that we are hoping to see while we are there. I expect that our route will be from there to Laos.

We managed to get 1 years backpackers insurance for us as a couple. The cheapest deal that we could find was with Explorer insurance. I compared the pay out values with those recommended by Which? Best insurance policies although these were not quite ideal as they didnt offer backpackers insurance, but the policy seemed to cover the monetary values that were recommend for the other types of insurance so we think it was a good deal, but hopefully we will not need it.

We also got ourselves a Revolut card each which should enable us to withdraw cash up to £200 each month and spend at interbank exchange rates (except a slight mark up at weekends when the bank exchange is shut). It is a pre-paid card and is really easy to top up from your regular bank account. They use your other bank and photos of yourself and your ID to verify it is you. You can get a virtual card for online payments which can be changed regularly to help fraud prevention or a physical card, which is more useful for ourselves. We paid nearly £12 for delivery of the card as we needed it quickly, although if you have less time restraints then the fee is only about £5 for delivery for the free basic account. Monthly fees apply of you want a premium version which has a few extra benefits but we felt the free account was suitable for our needs. If you think this might be useful for you too and would also like one, please feel free to get click the link and I may receive some benefits from referring you, although not entirely sure what benefits that would be yet – https://revolut.com/referral/lydialu4s

We have adapted slightly to rucksack lifestyle by the month or two that we have been based in the van – although it will be a bit different as we can’t just pop home if we want something else and we will have to carry the bags where we need them to go rather then have them tucked under the bed in the van.

We managed to leave the van at a friends garage, it was a tight squeeze but with some team work and rearranging of stuff it was a success. Thanks to Tim for letting us store it there, it is incredibly helpful for us!

Well that’s all I have to say right now. I will try to post again in about a month which will be at the end of our time in the Philippines so the next post will include our adventures there and potentially some of the wacky and wonderful things we have eaten while we are there.

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