Saturday 01.10.16

Today I slept until 11 am, but it didn't feel like it was enough at all.. Tried to refresh myself with a shower, but I was not feeling so good. Together with Leo and Griffin I went to get some breakfast, but my body couldn't handle food at this point. All the delicious padthai went to waste..  

We decided to take a taxi to a place called Chatuchak Weekend Market. It was some distance from the hostel, but thankfully taxis here are very cheap here, around 100 bath/23 kroner for 30-40 minutes.

I didn't buy anything except from some fresh orange juice and a piece of bread with sauce on. The market is HUGE with more than 8,000 market stalls. I got told that on a typical weekend, more than 200,000 visitors come here. 

You could buy almost anything here, but the part where they sold animals were the most exciting and special place I think. They had snakes in different sizes, birds, thousands of fishes, hedgehogs and tiny monkeys (?) and so on. It was very sad to see that most of the animals were kept in small cages with almost no space to move and play. 

At 6 pm the market was closing and we took a taxi back to the hostel. I finally felt like I could eat something, so we went for dinner together with Danielle from Holland. I had my favorite thaisoup: Tom kha gai and there was live music. The others were drinking beer of course, but I couldn't even think about alcohol without feeling sick.

After having a shower and laying down in bed I didn't want to get up again. I felt like I could sleep forever.. At 10 pm I put on my sleepingmask and earplugs and called it a day!

Friday 30.09.16

Let me tell you one thing: 22 (party)people in ONE room is too many! Lesson learned I guess..

From 8 am it was getting hard to sleep because of all the noise, the smells and the heat (the aircon was actually on this time). I had a shower and went downstairs to get some food - fried rice with vegetables. Then I backed up all my pictures and wrote the first blogpost of this trip.

Started talking to an American guy sitting next to me named Griffin. He invited me to come to a park called Lumphini park with him and a German guy named Leo. We ended up taking the local bus as it was pretty far from the hostel. It was nice to get away from the busy streets of Bangkok and into a green oasis with big trees and an artifical lake. There were a group of Thais doing aerobics in an open space, and I saw the opportunity to do some exercise myself!  

The guys refused to go home before we had seen lizards, that are supposed to be living in the park. We were about to give up when we saw it: a big monitor lizard on his way into the lake.

We took a taxi back to Khaosan road and grabbed some streetfood and a beer. Back at the hostel it was time for a nice cold shower! The temperature and the humidity here is a lot to handle for a Norwegian used to fresh, cold air. 

Many people from the hostel were drinking in the common-area. and there were no reasons not to join them! We played a fun drinking game and everyone was extremely friendly and outgoing.

Around midnight 15 of us went to the partystreet and danced the night away! I had so much fun! The common thing here is to buy a bucket-drink that cost around 4 euros/35 kroner. Someone also forced me to try laughing gas, which I never tried before. Judging some the picture below it looks like it worked! Suddenly it was 5 am, and about time to go home and try to sleep.

Thursday 29.09.16

I landed at Bangkok airport in Thailand at 7 am after a long journey. Yesterday I finished my last nighshift at work at 8.30 am and drank lots of redbull so I would't fall asleep and miss my flight. My first flight was at 12 from Trondheim to Oslo. After waiting for 1.5 hours my flight to Bangkok was in the air and I could finally get some sleep. After landing I took me about 1 hour getting through immigration. I was happy then let me in even if I didn't have a return ticket.

From the airport I took a minivan to my hostel NapPark, close to the partystreet Khaosan road. On the bus I met 4 guys from Germany that was going to the same hostel. We found the hostel pretty quickly, but we weren't allowed to check in until 2 pm.. 4,5 hours to kill..
After leaving my bag the Germans and I went to withdraw money, buy local simcards and eat.
They started ordering beers, and my 1 pm we were already tipsy.

At 2 pm we finally checked in and I could have a shower and a couple of hours of sleep. In my room there is 22 beds.. Haha! The aircon in the room is apparently switched off between 12 and 6 pm, so the heat made it difficult to sleep..

Another shower and some makeup, and I was ready to go for dinner with the guys + two other German girls. I ordered a yellow curry and told the waiter to make it NOT spicy! When my food arrived it was so spicy that I had to struggle to get it down.. Not even suprised!

After dinner we went to a rooftop bar for some drinks.
We had been joking all day about going to a PingPongShow, and suddenly we were in a taxi on our way to an unknown location. The show was inn a neutral building in a dark backstreet. We paid 400 bath each for the taxi, the show and a free drink. It's not allowed to take pictures inside, so you have to go and see for yourself if you want to know how it is.. I must say it was a wierd experience seeing grown women blowing out candles with their pussy..

After the show we went to Burger King to get some junkfood before partying in the famous Khaosan road. We bough buckets with drinks and danced in the street. At 3.15 I had enough and went to the hostel to get some sleep.

SAN JUAN DEL SUR

I arrived in San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua around 2 pm after leaving my hostel in La Fortuna, Costa Rica, at 6 am. The taxi took me out of town where I catched a local bus to the boarder. The boardercrossing was very strange and confusing. You had to pay taxes in Costa Rica first, then queue up for passport-control, then pay $1, then $12 after standing in another queue. You must fill out two forms that you hand in AND write down your destination in another place where they also scan your bodytemperature. There are no signs in English, and it's far to walk in total. Don´t know if I would have made it without this local guy from the bus who helped me the whole way. I met John from Québec on the boarder and we took a chicken-bus together into the town of San Juan del Sur. We got a big room at Rosita´s Hotel close to the beach. We had some beers, amazing food and watched the sunset before going to a BAR.

 There was a circus in town, so John and I went there one night. It was actually a good show, and our hands were hurting after clapping so much. I must say it was a bit weird and unexpected to go to the circus in Nicaragua. 

At the hostel I met a couple named Dean and Molly. They were the sweetest people ever, and we had a lot of fun together. Dean tried to teach me the ukulele: FAIL!

Mark was an amazing Irish guy that also stayed at the same hotel as me. We got to know each other over a bottle of local rum (Flor de Caña = yummy). He introduced me to a Norwegian girl named Victoria who's renting a house outside of town where she is pretending to study philosophy online. She invited us over one night to hang out. After an expensive and bumpy taxi-ride I arrived at her house together with my Israeli friends Noa and Jael. We saw a beautiful sunset and had dinner together. 

Happiness-overload when Victoria suddenly takes out MELKESJOKOLADE. That is my favorite chocolate, that happens to be Norwegian. Didn´t think I would taste that in Central America!

San Juan del Sur is a great place for partying, and I had a lot of fun there. The highlight was Sunday Funday, a pool-crawl that happens every Sunday. After 4 nights I decided to make my way to Isla de Ometepe together with Noa and Jeal.

LA FORTUNA

After a couple of hours in a minibus we arrived at Lake Arenal. While waiting for the boat to take me to La Fortuna I met two nice guys from France. We ended up having a big photoshoot on the lake with the beautiful view of the Arenal volcano in the background.

 I had booked a private room (with a shared bathroom) at Arenal Backpackers Resort for 2 nights online. When I arrived they upgraded me to a room with 2 beds and a private bathroom for the same price. Haha. I wasn't even suprised this time - I'm a lucky person that's for sure. It was also a very happy moment when I saw the big pool in the garden and hot water in the shower. I went to bed early the first night and woke up the next day with lots of energy. I met up with the two French boys and we went to see a waterfall. To save 10 dollars I walked the whole way home in the heat. I almost got a tan and everything!

 The next day I booked a organized trip to go hiking for two hours at the volcano + see the Baldi hotsprings. The "hike" was a lot easier than I expected, and we were pretty far from the volcano. But I got to see a beautiful sunset over Lake Arenal and a good view of the volcano after all. 

 The Baldi Hotsprings are so fancy I didn't know what to do with myself. Insane FLASH-packing moment I tell you. There is 25 different thermo mineral hot water pools there that flows naturally from the base of the Arenal volcano. From the hike only a Spanish-speaking couple came to the springs, and there were almost no other people there. So I found myself alone in this beautiful and romantic place, and it was actually good to be a alone for a few hours. That almost never happen, even if I'm supposed to be travelling alone. 

The next day I booked a raftingtrip from a random guy at the street. Luckily the other people in the group turned out to be crazyfunny! We had two boats and spent 2,5 hours on a 3/4 level river. I'm pretty sure I was laughing the entire time - even when I fell out of the boat. Half way we got fresh fruit, and I'm telling you that the pinapple from this area is amazing! Afterwards we went to a restaurant where they served us a big tasty meal. 

La Fortuna is not exactly a a partyplace.. The bar at my hostel was one of the most busy places in town, but people went to bed at 11 pm at the latest. Guess it didn't hurt me to drink less and sleep more. Tomorrow I'm crossing the boarder over to Nicaragua, and I'm superexcited. Everyone I met so far seem to like Nicaragua. I booked at taxi for 06.00 tomorrow morning!

COSTA RICA

1. Canadiens are the most awesome people on this planet. If Canada wasn't so cold I would move there ASAP. They are so funny, happy and make me feel good!
2. I'v started thinking and dreaming in English. It's now a challange to speak Norwegian.
3. Get to know the bartender and/or the chef. Free food and alcohol <3
4. A hot shower is one of the best things you can experience in this world.
Had several hot showers in Costa Rica. Oh the joy!
5. My sister is from Costa Rica. True story! Vero <3
6. Costa Rica has the best pineapple I've ever tasted!
7. Monteverde is the greenest place I have ever been.
8. Book a room with a shared bathroom online. The chance that they will upgrade you to a bigger room with your own bathroom is big. Happened two times!
9. Costa Rica is SUPERexpensive. Olalala. Didn't expect those high prices at all..
10. Rafting in La Fortuna was superscary, but at the same time one of the coolest days of my trip.

MONTEVERDE

I arrived in Monteverde at 10.30 am and was expecting it to be easy to find a place to stay. I went to two hostels before I found an ugly private room at Pension Santa Helena. The first person I talked to was a girl named Vero from Costa Rica who was there for the weekend. She invited me to lunch and a trip to the forest to walk on the suspension bridges. The forest was awesome and very GREEN, GREEN, GREEN! It was raining a bit, but I had a sexy orange poncho, so that was totally fine.

 Lots and lots of pretty hummingsbirds <3 Think I have like 100 photos of these guys.

 The best hot chocolate I've ever had with Vero and a woman from Spain (I'm horrible with names) at a nice café. Could seriously drink this every day for the rest of my life.

 My throat has been bothering me since I was in Puerto Viejo, and it's really annoying. It's getting expensive staying in private rooms (since I cough so much at night), and sometimes I actually lose my voice. The fact that Vero dragged me out drinking didn't help at all, but alcohol is a big part of my diet, so it's not an option NOT going. If you know what I mean? We took a taxi to a bar outside town where a friend of Vero was playing with his band. It was almost no people there, but we managed to have lots of fun anyway! The amazing food and the free ice cream was a plus. After we went to the club Amigos in town where backpackers tried to dance salsa. It was horrible to look at, so we couldn't stay there for long. Vero and I are by the way pretty sure that we are sisters. Why I grew up in Norway and she in Costa Rica is a mystery..

On Saturday we took a taxi to the butterfly-garden where they showed us around. 

It was really interesting and the butterflies were beautiful.

Then we walked for like forever uphill to get to this hollow tree that you can climb. 

Hiking is not our strongest side it turns out. Very proud of ourselves after.

 Vero talked me into getting banana-pancakes, and I love her for that. They were yummy!

 On monday I went canyoning in the morning. I was the only one who booked the trip, so I got two guides all to myself. They were great and helped me through the scary parts. I was not expecting it to be so challenging. I had to rapell down 7 different waterfalls, and the highest one was 40 meters! The rocks were slippery, and I was more or less IN the waterfall so I could't really see much.
In the evening I went on a night-tour in the woods with 10 other random people. We saw lots of different animals, but since my camera is so bad I couldn't really get any good pictures. Haha.
But here you can see two stickinsects mating. Haha.

Last meal in La Fortuna at my favourite café/restaurant. I don't like going out to eat alone, but luckily it almost never happens. I talked to my mom on skype and got amazing food, so in all it was great. Soon I will get picked up by a car that will drive 1-2 hours to get to a ferry. The ferry takes me to La Fortuna where I'm gonna stay at a FLASHY backpacker hostel. So excited!