Copenhagen: Exploring artsy Vesterbro and Nørrebro

I'm still vlogging away in Copenhagen, and really enjoying myself! On my second day in the city I decided to explore the hipster neighborhoods of Vesterbro and Nørrebro.

What do you think of the vlogs?

How to save for long-term travel

Travelling for months at a time is expensive, realistically you will need a few thousand pounds in the bank plus the cost of flights, insurance, immunizations etc. So how do you do it?

I find saving for travel fairly easy because I would much rather spend my money on experiences than new possessions. I've never been a fan of designer labels, owning the newest technology or pay-day shopping sprees, I would rather squirrel away my money with plans for the next big adventure in mind. If you want to save enough money to travel you need to make your trip a priority and get a tight hold of the purse strings.

Work out a budget

Sit down with a pen and paper and work out your income vs your expenditure to see in black an white how much disposable income you actually have, you will probably be amazed at how much cash you fritter away. Set yourself a realistic sum to save each month leaving enough for a few treats, but be tough.. the sooner you save the sooner you will be on an exotic island topping up your tan! I would recommend setting up a direct debit into your savings account each month, this way your money will go out of your bank account like a bill and you will be more likely to treat it like money you never had, if you move it manually each month you may be tempted to put it off or save less than you had intended. Set up the direct debit to go out on pay-day and it will be like the money was never there. Track your progress by checking the balance of your savings account occasionally, watching your savings grow is so satisfying.

Nusa Lembongan, Indonesia

Get a second job

If you've drawn up a budget and discovered that it will take years to save up enough to travel, you may need to take on a second job... (I can hear the groaning already) I know you don't want to work more than you already do, nobody does, but how much do you want to travel? You need to keep your goal in mind and remember that it will only be for a while. Sacrificing your life style for a few months isn't so difficult when you have an end-date and when you know you have a huge adventure on the cards. The other advantage to working evenings/ weekends is that you will actually have less opportunity to spend money which means you will save quicker and stay motivated.

Don't spend money

Speaking of spending, the easiest way to save money is to not spend it!  You will have your fixed expenditure like rent, phone bills, car insurance etc. but the rest is fair-game and you need to try not to spend it. I have found the best way to stop wanting new clothes, handbags, make-up etc is to avoid shops and magazines... how can you covet that amazing new dress in Top Shop if you don't know it exists?.. ignorance is saving bliss! Of course there will be occasions where nothing you currently own will do, but make sure it's the odd occasion and remember that clothes are much cheaper when you are travelling.

Also try not to be tempted to buy a beautiful new wardrobe to go travelling with, it's not necessary and depending on where you go you won't be able to wash clothes yourself so you may find that your favorite top goes missing or has been damaged when you get your laundry back. 

This is what my knickers looked like after a stint at the local Cambodian laundry!

You will also need to curb those Friday night blow-outs, it can be easy to spend upwards of £50 on a night out especially when jager bombs are involved, but remind yourself how much more satisfying that drink will taste on a Thai beach.

Koh Lipe, Thailand.

Move in with your parents 

This won't be an option for everyone, but if you still find yourself struggling to save you might want to consider moving back in with Mum and Dad. If you are planning to travel for 6+ months you will probably move out of rented accommodation while you are travelling anyway, so why not do it a little earlier than planned and save on the cost of rent and bills? You may need to contribute towards the food bill and do the washing up a bit more often but that's not a big ask if it allows you to travel.

Sell your stuff

Lastly you may consider selling some of your 'stuff'. This isn't a tactic I've used because as mentioned I don't have anything worth selling, but if you have recently upgraded your phone, laptop or games console you could sell your old one and save what you make. You could also sell bigger items like cars, sofas and beds if you are planning on travelling for a year or two and don't want to pay for storage fees.

Good luck, and remember that nothing you buy will be better than the feeling of travelling the world and all that hard work will be TOTALLY worth it!

Mui Ne, Vietnam

Bed Hopping

Accommodation is the biggest expense (after flights) when travelling, particularly if you are doing it solo.

Sticking to a shoe-string budget means that finding a cheap nights sleep will be a priority, and often a lot more time consuming than you would first expect.

When arriving in a new destination the first thing you will need to do is find somewhere to dump your backpack and rest your head. Generally speaking the cheapest accommodation for a solo backpacker will be a bunk bed in a dorm room of a youth hostel and it's really easy to compare prices and book online- www.hostelworld.com, www.hostelbookers.com. If you have booked a hostel in advance all you will need to do is find it (not as easy as it sounds) however not many South East Asian destinations have youth hostels, in this situation your best option is to resist booking accommodation in advance and find somewhere to stay when you get there. Waiting until you arrive at your destination will mean that you can walk around and compare prices to get the best deal (the cheapest options are unlikely to advertise online) it will also give you the opportunity to negotiate a cheaper room rate.

Another money saving option I used a lot was to share a room (and even a bed) with a fellow backpacker. I would make an effort to be-friend other travellers on the bus/ boat/ tuc-tuc to a new destination and suggest that we share a room when we got there, which saves money for everyone. I realise that this sounds pretty crazy to a non-traveller but backpackers are a really friendly bunch of like-minded people and sharing a room with a virtual stranger is quite normal and a great way to make friends to explore your new destination with. This also applies to camper vans, when road-tripping in New Zealand I advertised for a travel partner on gumtree.com as I could not afford to rent a van on my own, plus it was great to have some company on the journey.

Sleeping while you travel is also a good way to make the pennies stretch. When travelling long distances in countries like Thailand and Vietnam there is often an option to take a sleeper bus or a night boat which are equipped with bunk beds, pillows and blankets to allow you to sleep during the long journey. If you plan cleverly you will be able to travel over night and sleep on the bus arriving at your destination in the morning, this way you save the cost of a nights accommodation.

A free accommodation option is couch-surfing (this is more likely to be available in Western countries and bigger cities). Couch surfing involves sleeping on a sofa/ spare room/ air mattress of a person's house for free for a few days, the website www.couchsurfing.org helps to connect travelers looking for accommodation with people who have something available. This is a great way to meet local people and have an authentic experience of a new destination. I didn't do any couch-surfing on my trip, but I did get in touch with friends that lived in the countries I was travelling to and arranged to stay with them while I was in the area.

My last cheap sleep suggestion is to be prepared to bed-hop. On various occasions I moved rooms or hotels in the same destination because a cheaper option came-up part way through my stay. For example a fan room is cheaper than an air-con room, if a fan room was not available when I arrived I would stay in an air-con room but move as soon as a cheaper fan room became available. It's a bit of a faff, but every penny counts when travelling on a shoe-string.

During my six month trip I slept in 64 beds, 1 sofa, 1 night boat, 4 night buses, 1 indigenous tribe village, 1 camping bed and 1 camper van. The most expensive bed I stayed in was at Christmas in Koh Samui, Thailand which cost £37 per person in a twin room and the cheapest bed I slept in was in Chaing Mai, Thailand which cost £1.80 per person in a triple room!

Vientiane with a capital V?

It's very hard to believe that Vientiane is a capital city. It's unlike any other capital I've ever visited; it is very compact and easy to navigate, it has very light traffic, it has no malls, no chain stores, no business district, no crowds and no buzz, leaving it feeling more like an unimposing town. However, for little sleepy Laos, with it's largely rural population, Vientiane makes quite an apt capital.

As the traffic is so light, I decided to hire a bicycle to explore the city. I started my sight-seeing with Laos version of the 'Arc de Triomphe'. It's an odd choice of monument which on close inspection is really quite ugly. It's built from concrete and due to Laos turbulent history didn't get properly finished. Even the building itself recognises how ugly it is, with a plaque on the wall describing it as a 'concrete monstrosity'. It does however provide a nice view of the city and the manicured boulevards below.

I continued my mornings sight-seeing with the presidential palace, and Wat Si Saket, which in a few short hours pretty much concluded the major sights of Vientiane!!

After getting the obligitory sights out of the way, I was keen to visit 'Cope Centre' which is based in the capital. Cope is a rehabilitation centre and providor of prosthetic limbs to local victims of UXO (Unexploded Ordnance) left over from the Vietnam War. It is a really interesting centre, and brings attention to how badly Laos (a neutral country) suffered during the war, particularly due to the use of cluster bombs.

The museum documents some very sad stories of local people who have lost limbs as a result of UXOs. A particularly sad story was that of 9 year old Hamm, who died after a bomb his friends were playing with exploded. He didn't die immediately, but local hospitals were ill-equipped to deal with his injuries, and so the only option was for him to be sent home to die. This is a common tragedy for ill-educated locals who do not realise the dangers of UXOs or are willing to risk of handling them due to their scrap metal value.
Another story tells of a local man who lost both arms and an eye when he found a UXO while fishing with his Sons. He believed that the bomb could be used to catch fish, but unfortunately it exploded it his hands leaving him severely injured. His sons had to row for 5 hours to reach a hospital. The man survived, but spent years struggling to get around and was forced to eat like a dog as a result of his injuries. Luckily cope centre workers visited his village and explained that they could provide him with artificial limbs and rehabilitation free of charge. This is one of the fantastic things cope does, it sends workers into the communities to educate locals and inform them that rehabilitation/ prosthetic limbs are free and available. Cope also have a team who work to destroy UXOs buried in the countryside.
Despite the serious nature of the centre, it has a really positive vibe focusing on improving people's lives  and changing international legistation on the use of cluster bombs. It was a really great experience at cope, and opened my eyes to the problems many Laotions are dealing with as a result of the countries turbulent history.

Trying out a prosthetic leg

Another sight I was keen to visit while in Vientiane was Buddha Park. I traveled to Buddha park by bus for 10,000 kip (80p) round trip, saving myself 13 pounds that a tuk-tuk would have cost. It was an over-packed bus, made even more uncomfortable by the pot-hole filled road, and my location next to a cage of cheeping chicks, but it was worth the journey, as Buddha Park was even better than I'd anticipated. The park consists of fantastic sculptures portraying the artists unique religious ideas, which seem to cross a few different religions. I wandered around the park taking photos until I was interrupted by a local man named Dao, who asked if I would sit with him to help him practice his English. I agreed, and we spent quite a while chatting while he made notes about any unfamiliar words I used. Dao had an interesting sense of humour and after a while decided that I was 'supergirl' and he was 'spiderman', he rambled on about our alter egos for a while which started to border on an odd version of flirting! After listening to his hopes for 'supergirl' and 'spiderman' to save the world together, I felt I'd heard quite enough and left him to it. I left a false email and promised that I would be in touch!

After a few days in the capital I'd seen pretty much all there was to see, and eaten rather too many croissants, and so I decided it was time to leave and head further south. My original plan had been to head to Vietnam after Vientiane, but I'd heard about a few good sights in the South of Laos, so I decided to change my plans.

Baguettes aplenty in Vientiane

Death Railway

The town of Kanchanaburi is west of Bangkok, close to the border of Burma. It's a relatively unassuming place set in beautiful countryside, however it's role in WW2 is much less pleasant and is a big reason to stop in the town. Kanchanaburi was the site of a Japanese-operated prisoner of war (POW) camp, made famous by the book and film 'The bridge over the river Kwai', and as a total history geek this really interested me so I decided to spend a couple of days in the town to learn more about this chapter in history.

I ended up staying at 'Tara Guest house' which was a great little place and fantastic value for money. In fact, since leaving the islands I have noticed that everything is cheaper, and my money is stretching a lot further. Hurrah!

On my first day I decided to get a bit of background information at the Thailand-Burma railway centre, and was extremely impressed by how well presented and informative the museum was. The exhibit began with an explanation of Japan's role in WW2 and their intentions for the Thailand-Burma railway, then moved on to explain how it was constructed and how terrible life for a POW working on 'death railway' was. I felt both sufficiently informed and moved by the exhibit, and spent the whole morning completely engrossed by the story.

Across the road from the museum is a beautiful graveyard for the prisoners of war. It is immaculately cared for and the manicured grass and flower beds make quite an unusual sight in Thailand. I wandered around the graveyard for a short while to pay my respects before walking across town to visit the famous railway bridge.

The next day I decided to visit the 'hellfire pass' memorial which is an original railway cutting carved out of mountain terrain. This section of the railway was the most gruelling for the POWs and was nicknamed 'hellfire pass' due to the unearthly shadows cast by the nightly fires of the labouring POWs. Hellfire pass is now a beautiful trail along the original railway bed which provides gorgeous views of the surrounding countryside and Burmese mountains. The pass itself is absolutely massive, and it's really hard to believe that men actually cut through a mountain using virtually no tools and minimal supplies. It was a humbling walk, brought to life by a particularly good audio tour.

Hellfire Pass

Walking trail

I'd planned to spend one more day in Kanchanaburi to visit nearby Erawan waterfalls, but due to inaccurate bus timetables and misinformed staff I managed to miss two buses to the falls, which meant it was too late in the day to go. So, as my Thai visa was running out, I decided to move on and head north to Chiang Mai; and it's a good job that I did, as I got there just in time to meet new friends- the fabulous Katie and Ashley!

Not so bonkers Bangkok

I was very apprehensive about visiting Bangkok as I was well aware of the city's terrible reputation. All the stories I'd heard and guide books I'd read had lead me to envisage the city as a mass of dirty, dark alleyways and manic roads, heaving with con-artists, hookers, and aggressive tuk-tuk drivers. -How very wrong I was!-

I was immediately struck by how 'normal' Bangkok is. It's just like any other big city filled with people moving around in a hurry, too busy to take advantage of me. There's lots of traffic, lots of activity, and it's really difficult to navigate, but it wasn't intimidating, nor was it dark or dirty. In fact, I quite liked it! I felt at ease.

I decided to stay in the backpackers haven of Koh San Road to take advantage of the cheap guesthouses there... and cheap they were. I stayed in a complete flophouse, that turned out to be very noisy at night, but I invested in a pair of earplugs and decided that as it was cheap, I didn't really care!

The first thing on my agenda was to replace my camera which had met it's fate in Koh Phagnan, so I headed over to the shopping mecca that is Siam Square. Having been 'stuck' in the islands for the last 7 weeks Siam Square was 'real-world' heaven, with all the facilities and amenities I could want. I spent most of the day deliberating about a camera, and perusing the various malls to stock up on essentials, before treating myself to a yummy dinner, and a movie (Sherlock Holmes 2).. and I don't think I have ever enjoyed a film quite so much; I had missed normality!

The next day, armed with my new camera I decided to tackle the city's tourist sights, starting with the Royal Palace and Wat Phra Kaew. The palace and temple are located in the beautiful 'royal district' and are an amazing visual feast of  golden stupas, glittering mosaics and colourful statues. A perfect opportunity to get snapping. In the afternoon, I headed over to MANIC Chinatown to explore the commercial-chaos, and then spent the evening people-watching in Koh San Road.

There are LOTS of wats (temples) in Bangkok, so in order to avoid wat-fatigue I decided to limit my sight-seeing to the ones that particularly interested me. Wat Pho immediately appealed as it is home to a huge reclining Buddha; I had read the stats (at 46m long and 15m high, it's the country's largest) but it wasn't until I actually saw the statue that I could appreciate how large that actually is. Wat Pho also holds the record for housing the country's largest collection of Buddha images, which again is an easy statement to dismiss, until you see how many images that amounts to. The last temple I visited was Wat Traimit, which shelters a 3m-tall, 5.5- tonne solid gold Buddha image, which definitely managed to impress me even after the millions (it felt like millions) of Buddha statues I had already seen!!



Reclining Buddha; far too big to photograph in it's entirety

As I was in Bangkok over a weekend, I was fortunate to catch the awesome Chatuchack weekend market. There are lots of markets in Bangkok, but Chatuchack is 'the big one'!! It covers more that 35 acres, and sells absolutely everything from puppies to second-hand trainers. No matter what you are looking for, you are guaranteed to find it in Chatuchack! I spent a few hours wandering around the market, checking out the array of goods and sampling food as I went until sunset when the stalls started to pack up.



Everyone is peddling something..!

After 4 days in Bangkok I had seen all that I wanted to, and I was feeling re-charged and ready to get back on the road. So I bid the not-so-scary, not-so-bonkers capital farewell, and headed into Thailand's countryside.

The pearl of the orient

For me, Penang has it all. As the oldest of the British straits settlements it oozes history and culture, it has unique architecture, (arguably) the best food in Malaysia, it has both beaches and malls, tonnes of beautiful religious buildings, a national park, quirky neighbourhoods and friendly locals.

Every day was a surprise in Penang; I usually know what to expect when I get to a new place from previous research, but the lonely planet was quite vague about Penang and so the sights I happened upon during my stay were a complete surprise, and consequently all the more enjoyable!

On my second day on the island, I had wandered down to the waterfront in Georgetown to check out the sights, when I happened upon the fantastic 'clan jetties'. The jetties are traditional houses built over the sea on stilts, and connected by wooden walkways. Walking through this neighborhood was a brilliant experience, and I was so in awe of this completely unique way of living. The jetties were buzzing with activity; women were sat in groups peeling vegetables, kids were running around the rickety walkways, and men were collecting scrap metal on their scooters. Nobody seemed to mind that I was wandering through their tight-nit community, peering into their houses and taking photographs incessantly, in fact by the time I had finished wandering around I had built up quite a rapport with one of the local men and he had nicknamed me 'England'. I still can't believe that this area doesn't get a mention in LP... but maybe some secrets are better kept that way.

Another sight I happened upon by accident was the 'Kek Lok Si' temple which is just outside of Georgetown. I had got on a bus intending to visit somewhere else when we drove past Kek Lok Si, I was so struck by the temples appearance that I decided that I had to jump off the bus and check it out- my original destination could wait!
Kek Lok Si is the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia, and stands on a hilltop at Air Itam. As I made my way up the hill through the temple complex I was struck by how detailed the decoration of this temple was- money was obviously no object when constructing this place! Kek Lok Si is definitely no secret, and there were plenty of other people milling around enjoying the temples beauty, but it somehow still managed to feel peaceful and sacred. Definitely a lucky find!

The other real highlight of my time in Penang was 'Penang Hill' which served as a hill retreat for Europeans during the colonial period. The hill is 830m above sea level with refreshingly cool temperatures and panoramic views of the island. It was a fun, if expensive, ride to the top of the hill via funicular train, but it was worth every penny once I saw the views! I could see across the whole island and back onto peninsular Malaysia, it was very clear why Europeans came up here for a break. Atop the hill is a pretty Hindu temple, a mosque, a hotel, a restaurant, walking trails and pic-nic spots, making for a perfect afternoons entertainment.

Penang was nicknamed 'the pearl of the orient' during the colonial era, and after a few days spent soaking up the sights I think it is still very much a 'pearl' with an abundance of wonderful sights waiting to be discovered. I really enjoyed my time in Penang, wandering around the colourful streets and meeting the friendly locals and could have easily stayed longer, but I had applied for my Thai visa during my stay, and with it freshly stamped in my passport I was more eager than ever to continue my journey to Thailand!