Friday, 29 January 2016

What's In My Travel Backpack?

January 29, 2016 2 Comments
Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog.

I have just come back from a holiday in Jakarta and I thought I would show you guys what is in my travel backpack.

I do travel quite often and finally I know what are the essentials or basic things that I need to pack in my carry-on backpack.

I hope this blog post would help you guys a little on what to pack in your carry-on backpack.
Or if you have any tips to share, don't forget to comment down below.

Okay, let's get started!

This is my backpack that I brought with me to Jakarta.

As you can see from here, I am a HUGE Mickey Mouse fan!
This backpack was my 24th birthday present from my bf and he got it from Vans.
If you are more of a Minnie Mouse fan, they have it in Minnie Mouse design too.


In my backpack: Camera, umbrella, water bottle, cleansing wipe, notebook, power bank, passport holder and two purses. 


The reason why I love this backpack so much is because it has a very spacious space and of course, it is Mickey Mouse! =P

I always put my camera in the camera bag and sling it over my shoulder but sometimes, I find it difficult to like moving around. The strap of the bag will be keep falling off from my shoulder and it is kind of irritating when you are carrying a lot of things with you.

Thanks to this backpack, I managed to put everything including the camera bag in the backpack.

Many of you may be wondering why don't I just carry the camera with me, without the camera bag.
It is my precious camera and I am a very rough person so, it has got to be in the bag to avoid any unnecessary scratch or whatever possible incident that could happen to it.

My Preciousssss (Please ignore my bad photoshop skill)

Moving on to the next item in my backpack, umbrella.
Honestly, I hate carrying an umbrella with me because it is heavy to me but you never know when it will rain so yeah, better be prepared than to end up soaking wet.

A water bottle, it is important to keep yourself hydrated throughout your holiday.
It is considered as a basic human needs to me.
Just bring along an empty bottle with you then fill it up at the airport and don't forget to fill them up again before you leave the hotel to explore the city.

If you have an oily skin like me, don't forget to bring a packet of cleansing wipe with you.
I have a really oily skin and it can get really nasty so I need a cleansing wipe to keep my face fresh all day.

I am the old school type of person who is still using a notebook instead of the note app that you can find in your smartphone. Writing down stuff is very important to me because I have a really short term memory.

One of the most important things to have in your backpack, power bank.
We used our phones a lot throughout the trip just to Google. We Googled what to do, where to eat, what to buy and all sort of things. This is where power bank comes in handy, to make sure our phones will never run out of battery and of course, don't forget to charge your power bank while you are sleeping at night.

To me, it is very important to carry your passport along with you and I think having a passport holder like this is quite convenient. I can keep every important documents such as my boarding pass, bus ticket, train ticket or whatever it is all together in this holder. It is much easier to look for the document that you want when they are all well organized in this passport holder.


Why am I carrying two purses?
I prefer to keep different currency in a different purse. It is much easier for me because sometimes, different notes might have the almost same colour and it is seriously confusing.
Imagine all the coins are placed together in one same purse, you will have a hard time in looking for the right coins.


Let's move on to the front pocket of my backpack.
I really love backpack that has a front pocket, it is much easier for me to access little things that I need during the trip.

In my backpack's front pocket: Facial tissue, medications (just in case), sanitary pad, lip balm and candy or mint.


I can't live without a pack of facial tissue because I tend to sweat a lot during a hot sunny day.
I used to steal tissues from my hotel room (cheapskate me =P) but then sometimes, they only provided toilet paper instead of facial tissue so yeah, better carry one myself.

Don't forget to bring along some medications with you, you will never know what might happen next. My bf got a really bad food poisoning during our last trip in Bangkok, luckily there was a pharmacy next to our hotel else I seriously had no idea where to look for a pharmacy so, the best thing to do is to at least carry some like paracetamol or whatever you think you might need.

Girls talk now. You will never know when your girl is going to pay you a visit so yeah, just carry one to be safe because sometimes it is unpredictable when your hormones are going cray cray. Girls problem.

Carry your favourite lip balm with you because your lips can get very dry when you are in the plane.
My lips crack easily so I always carry one or two with me.

Candy or mint, it is a must. You know how you get one of those stinky breath when you are traveling for a very long time so yeah, just to keep your breath fresh and clean. Or maybe just something for you to chew on when you are bored.

Okay, that is it for my backpack story.
I hope you guys enjoy it and somehow find it useful.

Thank you for reading and I will update you guys on another blog post soon.

See ya!



Rachel.

Friday, 22 January 2016

Koh Lipe Haul?

January 22, 2016 0 Comments
Hello everyone and welcome back to another Koh Lipe blog post of mine.

I know some of you are bored with my Koh Lipe blog posts so don't worry, this will be the last Koh Lipe post. I promise, finger crossed! 

In this blog post, I am going to share some of the things that we bought in Koh Lipe or what I called as the Koh Lipe Haul. 
Does it even make sense???

There will be a lot of food so that everyone is happy! ;)

It was our last day in Koh Lipe and the sky was a little gloomier compared to the other days when we were there. 


One last breakfast before we left this beautiful island.

Imagine having your breakfast everyday with this view. HEAVEN!


Our furry friend was there too and he kept giving me that kind of stare.

"Hey you, when are you going to feed me some of your food?"


Seriously, that was the most patient dog that I have ever seen. He didn't bark at us at all while waiting for us to feed him some of our breakfast. 

My FiFi would bark the hell out of me when she sees us eating especially chicken, her favourite food.

"Are you talking about me, mommy?"


There you go, some eggs for you.


It was time for us to pack our bags so let me just show you guys what we had bought for the past few days when we were there.

1. Rice Crackers
Who doesn't love rice crackers?

2. Lays Lobster Choochee Flavour and Lays Satay Flavour
I don't even know what choochee means, anyone here knows? 
The lobster flavour tasted a little weird whereas the satay flavour chip was kinda good and weird at the same time. 

You can give it a try but those are not the best chips that you can get in Thailand.


3. Jack 'n Jill
The first one from the left is Takoyaki flavour but it didn't taste anything like Takoyaki.

The other two are just BBQ or grilled flavour, it was pretty good if you love BBQ or grilled kind of flavour.


4. Jack 'n Jill, Chicken Hot and Spicy Flavour.
When I looked at this, I was thinking "Oh God, this is going to burn my tongue" but it turned out to be not really spicy at all.


5. Lays Scallop Flavour, Lays BBQ Flavour and Lays...
I don't know the flavour of the green packet Lays because I can't read Thai but it tasted something like sour lemon with chili kind of thing (if that even makes sense).

Scallop flavour and BBQ flavour are my favourite! 

Don't forget to try them out guys, they are one of the best that I have tried in Thailand!


6.Coffee Flavour Peanut
Not really a fan of peanut, my bf bought those and according to him, it was good.


7. Seaweed Snack
I can't read Thai but it is something like seaweed on a chip kind of thing.

I loved it so much and my whole family loved it too.
I think this can be found at our local supermarket. If I am not mistaken, I have seen this selling at Aeon Supermarket.


8. ... 
And again, I can't read Thai so I don't know what is this called.

I will just call it "Fries Looking Snack with Cheese". xD

Yeah, it comes with a small little container of cheese for you to dip your fries in.
Honestly, it was not really that tasty because the fries itself was kinda tasteless to me but the cheese did help to "enhance" the taste of it.

I don't really recommend you guys to get this.


9. Souvenirs
Bought some magnets and key chains for our friends.
You can get 3 of them for 100 Baht at Walking Street.




10. 7-Eleven Food
Seriously you guys, you have to try the sandwiches or burgers that are selling at 7-Eleven Thailand.
It is cheap and delicious, trust me.

We will buy a lot of sandwiches and burgers whenever we come across a 7-Eleven in Thailand.

Pork Burger with Bacon & Cheese is one of my favourite burgers and it is one of the best burgers that you can find in 7-Eleven.

Pork Burger with Bacon & Cheese

Chicken Steak Burger

Grilled Chicken Burger

Crab Meat Pizza

Don't forget to try their Prawn Burger too because it is made from real prawn meat.
We didn't expect to have real prawns inside.

Prawn Burger

Pork Katsu Burger

Cream Puff

That is all that we got from Koh Lipe. 
I actually filled up half of my bag with snacks. I am one happy girl. 
SNACKS FOR LIFE!


We felt so sad to leave this island, I wish we could stay a little longer. :'(

Look at his sad little face, haha!


We had some time to kill until 3:00 p,m. so we decided to get a foot massage and a pedicure.



And also some ice-cream!

Raise your hand if you are excited to see SPRINKLES all over your ice-cream!
SPRINKLES FOR LIFE!

Coconut Cookie Ice-cream

That is it for our trip, had to say goodbye to this beautiful place.

Bye Koh Lipe. We will definitely come back to this place again in the future.


Thank you guys for reading and I hope you enjoyed it.

And don't forget to read on my Everything About Traveling to Koh Lipe post to know more about this beautiful island.

Thanks again people!

Till next post!
Don't worry, it will not be another Koh Lipe post. =P



Love,
Rachel.

Sunday, 10 January 2016

Met Our Friends in Koh Lipe

January 10, 2016 0 Comments
Good morning beautiful world!

I couldn't get enough of the beautiful sunrise view yesterday so we decided to wake up early today.

While we were chilling on the beach waiting for the sun to rise, our furry friend was there with us.


I really loved how relax it was to chill on the beach with the cool breeze blowing towards you and of course, the accompany of our furry friend. 
Yeah, I am a dog person, I love dogs very much. 

But too bad, luck was not on our side that morning because there were too many clouds and we couldn't really see the sunrise.


Breakfast time at Elephant Beach Bar & Restaurant and their food are actually quite good! 
I would rate them 4.5 out of 5! Double thumbs up!

I had a Banana Pancake and it came with some fruits, a cup of tea and orange juice. 


We had some time to kill after breakfast so we decided to walk around Lipe Beach Resort.

Here is the main entrance to Lipe Beach Resort.


Those small bamboo chalets behind me are the Bamboo Garden Rooms.
They looked very cute and cozy to me, it was like entering another little bamboo village. 

Here is the Sea Breeze Premium Bungalow and since it is a premium bungalow, the price for one night is quite expensive.


Another beautiful sunny day and we were ready for another day of snorkeling!


Honestly, we were a little regret of our decision to go snorkeling on the next day. 
The reason was we were still feeling a little tired from our first snorkeling trip.
We were out on the sea from 9:00 a.m. and only came back at 4:00 p.m., all the sunburn had seriously burned us off!

Was it worth the torture?
I will tell you at the end of this blog post. ;)

For our day #2 snorkeling, we went for Program B.


If you compare the snorkeling spots from both Program A and Program B, you can see there are some spots that both of the programs have but don't worry, you still get to see a totally different view. 
Our guide stopped us at another part of the island and that was why we got to see a totally different view.

WORTH THE TORTURE!

We were a little excited about Koh Dong because we were going to meet our friends, our long lost friends, haha! xD

In search of our long lost friends, LET'S GO!


First stop, Koh Hin Sorn where there are many strange rock formations on a tiny island.





Since we didn't have a waterproof camera, it was kinda sad to not able to take some beautiful pictures of the corals and fishes. 
I am so gonna get a waterproof camera next time! xD

Let's skip to lunch time.

We had our lunch at Tarutao National Park.

Remember we had our lunch at Tarutao National Park too in my previous blog post?
This time our guide stopped us at another part of Tarutao National Park and we got another different view of it.



For lunch, you can either choose chicken fried rice or seafood fried rice and it comes with some fruits and water.
We had seafood fried rice and some refreshing watermelon to recharge our energy.



Next stop, to our friends' house, Koh Dong!


Honestly, it was kinda scary to look at an island that is full of monkeys. 
I was wondering how they ended up in this tiny island. Did they swim all the way from somewhere else?

Our guide gave us some fruits to feed them and don't worry, they are not really aggressive but still please be careful.



We said our goodbyes to our friends and we headed off to Koh Hin Ngam, the same place that we went yesterday


We were back at Koh Lipe at about 4:00 p.m. and we were so freaking tired! Oh God!
But in the end, it was WORTH THE TORTURE!

Time for some reward after a long day of snorkeling, ICE-CREAM and this time I got a lemon flavoured ice-cream.


Back at our bungalow, took a shower, slept for a while and we were off to go!

But first, let me take a selfie! #selfie LOL! xD


Food hunting time!
We passed by this Thai Fruit Pancake stall everyday and we had to try it out this time.


We got ourselves a Banana Nutella Pancake and Coconut Shake.


Seriously guys, you have to try their Thai Fruit Pancake, it is one of the kind!
It satisfied my sweet tooth! Double thumbs up!

And we also got a plate of Mango Sticky Rice.


I don't understand how is this considered as a dessert in their menu because you can feel very full by just eating this. I ate like half of this and I was so full! 
Maybe it was the sticky rice that made me feeling so full and it was kinda sweet too.

That was our dinner, too full from eating the Mango Sticky Rice and we couldn't eat anything else.

We then walked around randomly to see what Walking Street has to offer.
There are seafood restaurants, bars, cafes and souvenir shops.






And last but not least, our favourite shop in Thailand, 7-Eleven!

7-Eleven in Thailand has never failed us!
They have a wide variety of foods to offer, I loved their sandwiches and burgers. 
Yum yum!

And of course, my favourite POTATO CHIPS!

7-Eleven for life! =P



It was our final night in Koh Lipe and we felt a little sad to leave this beautiful place the next day.
It was fun exploring this beautiful island!

We still had one last day to explore before we headed back to Langkawi.
Stay tune for my next Koh Lipe post!

Thank you guys for reading and I shall update you guys soon!
See ya!



Love,
Rachel.
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