Travelling to South East Asia with Girl Guiding Part 1
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
After much thought took a chance to do my first international with Girl Guiding for a leaders trip to Thailand, Laos and Cambodia in November & December 2019. I'm spiting this in four/five parts over the next few of weeks as it was a lot to write
In 2018, I took a chance saying yes to a request on Facebook to go on a leader’s holiday with other leaders in the county I help out in. I had never been on an international before, as due to my role I was not, this was the only way to do it unless I took my leadership qualification, camp licence then my international licence which would take years to complete, also the unit I help out had a leader that had an international licence.
I was nervous thinking what had I done, first I did not have the funds to pay the balance in one go, I was also due to go on holiday to the USA when I had said yes, so it was hard to convince my parents this was a good idea, as I’m not a great flyer – I’m always travel sick on flights.
As time went on, I finally paid my deposit, then the full balance down to the wire as I had to wait for the money from my late great aunts estate to come to me, so her estate when she died paid for the holiday.
The next hurdle for me as meeting new people, I get extremely nervous meeting new people, this trip was not going to be with family or school, but leaders from far away as Lincolnshire. I did not need to worry we meet up in March 2019 to explain everything from what we were doing to, what to pack, to our balance, to short games to introduce ourselves, I was fine by the end of the meeting. I had also time to get to know the trip leader as we were on the same camp site at the big county camp 2 months later. Then the leader of the trip backed out after a fall on another international trip with the Guides.
Trip T-Shirt & Necker, we did not get a badge as it was voted not to have one (which I did not vote for), I'm still hoping that one will be produced.
As the months started to tick down, with getting the vaccinations, insurance and packing I was getting nervous as some of the activities were started to be sorted out including a cycling ride – which I will later explain.
The night before we flew out to Bangkok I did not sleep as I was rarer nervous, that I would be travel sick, that I would not enjoy the trip, as I would not get on with the leader I was sharing or that I would be left on my own.
On the day it was cold day, to go to Heathrow, I was nervous to leave my parents at home as it was my first slow trip since my diabetes diagnosis. Once we had all finally made it to the airport, we were off, a few photographs taken and things to say goodbyes to my parents the trip had started.
Once through security I was nervous of how I was going to cope with being on my own at first I thought I was going to be left to wonder the airport I was wrong, we managed to stick together, going round the shops stopping at the Harry Potter shop, then Giraffe for a light lunch, then Starbucks for coffee, before boarding then that was when the nerves came in.
I was last to board which was never the case, my parents always went to the front of the queue, this made me nervous as I was in the middle seats, bang in the middle of the plane, the worse place to sit, I though. My nerves we more now as we took off, I watched a couple of movies before having the diabetic meal. Then a sleep a big mistake. That was when I was travel sick after waking up from a sleep on the plane, great I though I wanted to go back home now, for a sleep, but I knew that I had to keep going as I paid over £2000 for this trip.
We finally arrived in Bangkok, fresh air some chance to have a shower, sleep to recover, unfortunately in my travel sickness we took the train to the hotel, I faced the wrong way on a packed train, then I was sick again. It was a horrible walk to the hotel.
We had to wait for the room that I was going to be in with my roommate, I was fast tracked to the room, it was comfortable. Finally, I could sleep for a few hours to settle my stomach, then maybe I could try to eat some food later. In my daze of sickness, I forgot to put on the bug repellent and shut the door to the balcony of the room, I fell asleep.
After a while, my room mate
joined me also having a sleep to before I tried to have some water and re-hydration
salts. Feeling a little bit better I
joined the group for a welcome dinner which included getting our internal flight
tickets and tag
Thanks for reading the first part of the trip, it has been a short of introduction to what I did, as well the nerves I had on going on a trip on my own also with the fact that I did not get what I wanted, when I had been solo travelling before I had been travel sick, as well, so I wanted this trip to be different, but in the end like most of my international adventures it ended up with me sick on the flights
Next Part: Laos
Pin For later
No comments
New comments are not allowed.