Before going to Africa we had to take care of some bureaucratic things like visas and more vaccines. In order to do that, we decided to go to Bangkok and stay there for two weeks, that way we could do everything slowly and with no stress and Bangkok is actually budget friendly, we could stay at "My House Guesthouse" for 300 baht and food is fairly cheap.
A few days before starting our trip to Bangkok we were surprised with great news, our friend Garcia was going to meet us there for a week it would be very nice to be with a long time friend for a few days.
As we predicted, Bangkok was great and we were able to arrange everything we needed. We were very surprised with the great facilities and the amazing treatment that we got in the travel clinic, the doctor recommended us to take the yellow fever and the meningococcal vaccines and he also gave us new malaria pills.
After some deep research we decided that we were going to do the visa on arrival in Uganda and that gave us more time with our friend Garcia.
Having Garcia there was great, he is also an SAP consultant and he travels a lot so he has the advantage of having plenty of points to stay in hotels for free. In Bangkok he chose to stay in Novotel in Siam Square. As soon as we saw his cleaned room, great TV, free breakfast and evening snack for two people, hot shower and all the amenities that a four star hotel offers, we camped in his room. It was great to be in such a good environment, we slept in great pillows, with AC and we were able to eat some western food for free. Thank you Garcia!!!
In the middle of Garcia's stay we decided to visit Ayutayya, a small city an hour away from Bangkok full of temples and ruins. It was very nice but we almost died... we decided the rent bycicles to explore the city but we did it in the middle of the day and to help us out, the distances in the map that we had were wrong so a temple that seemed really close on the map ended up being almost 1h30 cycling. We also gave Garcia a little of the backpacking experience by going to a place with no hotel bookings, bargaining with the bus driver until having to leave the bus for 60 baht (more or less $2) and staying in a room with a shared bathroom but he was actually lucky, it was one of the best shared bathrooms from our trip.
Having Garcia with us also allowed us to do some shopping without worrying about carrying anything so we bought a huge elephant head made in wood and a Thai mask to put in our future home and a fee clothes.
As soon as Garcia left back to Portugal we had to do our final arrangements, we bought the travel guides to Africa, started the Malaria pills and bought a tent, a mosquito net, a blanket and a mini mattress. We read on the travel books that most of the hotels in Africa allow people to camp in their gardens and that makes the trip a little cheaper so we didn't even think twice. It was perfect that Bangkok had a decathlon, we knew we were buying quality items.
Ready to go to Africa we ate at Mc Donald’s for three times, we know it is not good food but Mc Donald’s is probably the only restaurant in the world where the food tastes the same no matter if you are in Portugal, US, China or Thailand so after eating pad thais and Chicken Basil with rice every day, tasting a familiar taste becomes delicious.
When the date of departure started to approach we got more and more nervous, we didn't know if Africa was the right decision and everything was so unknown... we had tons of butterflies in our bellies... probably more than when we went to India! But the decision was made and now it was time to go and get out of our comfort zone one more time!
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