2022 A Year To Remember - Our Recap!
How to recap this year? Where do we even begin?
This year has had more changes for us than a chameleon in a fashion parade. The year started, much as it had done in the last decade, with us living in London and working in admin jobs. By mid 2022, it was finally time for us to depart on our round the world trip. We left the UK with Boris Johnson in charge, Elizabeth the 2nd still our monarch and the pound sterling not an international joke! How times have changed… not just for the UK but for us too! Instead of welcoming in the New Year in Streatham as we usually do, we will end 2022 living out of our backpacks, somewhere in central Thailand on a 13 hour bus journey from Krabi as we head north to the buzzing metropolis of Bangkok.
2022 really was a crazy year…
A frosty morning on Tooting Bec common - doesn’t motivate us to go running!
Like all those worldwide, 2022 started very bleakly with the festive period underlined with an ominous undertone as Omicron started doing the rounds. Our New Year’s Eve was a tame one as John had tested positively for COVID, so it was just us and our good friends Mrs Prosecco and Mr Wine joining us to toast in the New Year’s Eve fireworks! January continued in a constant cycle of long work days and short weekends. With the only highlights of the week being our Flat White coffees from Batch & Co and our sourdough bread from the Blackbird bakery over the road (yes we are those stereotypical millennials who rave about coffee and artisanal bread - you’ve got to love Streatham for having so many choices). When not at work, any spare time we had together was filled with us planning and prepping mainly in the form of travel YouTube. With COVID showing no signs of ending, our round the world backpacking trip was becoming an even more distant dream.
February brought along some light relief to the constant cycle of work with the celebration of John’s birthday. With COVID restrictions finally easing, we both took a couple of days off and spent our time wandering around central London and visiting our favourite pubs. As the weather got warmer and the park became drier, our excuses as to why we couldn’t go for a run became less and less credible, and so every other morning (or lunch time in John’s case) became a constant struggle of motivation as we battled with running around Tooting Bec common. Big shout out to the Zombies Run app for supplying entertainment whilst we were running. To turn running into a game is a genius idea!
March quickly came and London fully emerged from the darkness of winter. As spring took hold, the daffodils came out and the London parks exploded into blossom. We explored most of the parks close to home, Brockwell Park, Dulwich Park, Streatham Common and Tooting Bec as well as and those slightly further afield with day trips to Greenwich and Bushy Park.
Spring also gave us our first sighting of a seal in the River Thames, definitely an unexpected treat that to this day no one believes! Possibly not helped by our fuzzy Loch Ness monster style photo of the event.
See he was real!
Sometime between the end of March and the beginning of April, John’s company let him know that there were going to be a large round of redundancies. Seizing on this, he let them know that he would be okay being made redundant and so we finally locked in our departure date! Following this news, I then gave in my notice at work and realised that there was no backing out now (even if my manager was eagerly hoping that I would). Finally our big travel dream was beginning to look frighteningly real.
In April, we went back to my family back home in Wales for the Easter weekend. We visited the book town of Hay on Wye, climbed the The Skirrid and ate and drank in the local village pubs.
For my birthday we visited the Garden Museum restaurant in London for a treat of a lunch. Seriously, look this restaurant up, it really is one of the hidden gems!
May and June seemed to blur into one. From warm summer evenings spent in Brixton village to a colourful walk around the Azalea plantation in Richmond. We were winding down at work, whilst frantically preparing for our fast approaching trip. The highlight of this time was that we finally got to celebrate our friend's wedding after the pandemic had delayed the celebration for three years in a row.
One of our funnest memories of 2022 was playing in a confetti filled church. No it wasn’t some over top wedding, but quite literally a church that was filled with knee deep white confetti. An installation by the artist C J Hendry, despite being widly more popular than we thought it was going to be (we had to queue for 2 hours plus to get in), it was an unforgettable experience!
In the last week of June my notice was up and I travelled to the Brent Centre for Young People for the last time. Goodbyes said to my colleagues, it was time for me to travel back to Wales to see my family. Whilst John finished up his last week of work. In between all of this we decided to chronicle our adventures, and so the website you’re reading now was born.
In July as they say “shit got real”. The first two weeks of July were absolutely manic. As soon as John had finished work, it was suddenly a whirlwind of packing, tidying our flat and saying goodbye to family and friends. The day before our scheduled departure arrived we were exhausted and mentally unprepared for what we were about to do. John had also made things a lot harder for himself by adding a surprise rooftop wedding proposal in the mix. I said yes on a Streatham rooftop whilst watching our final London sunset with a glass of prosecco in hand! Very early the next morning it was time to leave London. In a complete daze following a night of very little sleep (thanks to post proposal excitement and general anxiety about our trip) we clambered on board the N133 night bus and headed towards London Bridge station to catch the first train to Gatwick airport. Sitting in the North Terminal we had no idea what we were about to do. We kept questioning ourselves. What are we doing? Was this really a good idea? As our gate was called we knew it was time for us to depart.
After what felt like a really long travel day we finally arrived in Istanbul and our first stop on our round the world trip. That evening we hungrily devoured the best kebabs we’ve ever eaten, before heading back to our tiny apartment in the Beyoglu district for some much needed rest. Our week in Istanbul was a whistle stop tour of the city's attractions from the Hagia Sophia to the Grand Bazaar, sampling as many of the cities famous foods and even spending a day circumnavigating (by foot) the island of Buyukada.
Istanbul was a great first stop and given its location (the stepping stone between Europe and Asia) felt like a significant starting point to our Asian adventure.
Our second stop on our round the world tour was a little more daunting. We left Istanbul on a full plane, but after stopping in the Maldives, it was only us and a couple of families that remained on for the flight to Colombo. Sri Lanka had a turbulent time that year, grappling with a political upheaval and a financial crisis. We weren’t sure we should go, the Foreign Office advised that we shouldn’t go, but a combination of stubbornness and non-refundable tickets landed us in Colombo airport. This turned out to be one of the best decisions of our adult lives.
What was only meant to be a 30 day stay turned into a 3 month exploration of this beautiful and diverse country.
From the modern skyscrapers of Colombo, through the ancient capital of Kandy to the tea plantations of Ella. We rode one of the most scenic railways in the world, visited the vast ancient capital of Anuradhapura, saw hidden mountain top ruins in Ritigala, and of course visited (twice!) the incredible Lion’s Rock of Sigiriya. We were gobsmacked at just how different each region of Sri Lanka was. From the more arid north of Jaffna through the elephant strewn savannahs of Central Sri Lanka to the highlands and the misty mountains of Nuwara Eliya and finally the white sand beaches of the south. As cheesy as it is to say, Sri Lanka was everything we had dreamed of and even more!
Quite literally on ‘top of the world’ at the World’s End - Sri Lanka we will be back!
In mid October and with heavy hearts we left Sri Lanka and boarded a flight to Malaysia's ultra modern capital of Kuala Lumpur. We didn’t know what to expect, and were nearly overwhelmed by the hectic big city pace. Coming from sleepy rural Sri Lanka, it was a full on shock to the system. To soothe our anxious nerves we grabbed the first set of bao we could find and thus began our foodie adventure eating our way through one of the best culinary capitals (and countries) of the world. In Kuala Lumpur we watched the Diwali fireworks from the 32nd floor of a high rise condo and visited the colourful Batu caves.
From there we headed south to the colonial coastal town of Malacca and sampled its many tasty treats.
From Malacca we journeyed to Kuala Selangor and its famous sky mirror, then on to the vibrant green rice paddy fields of Sekinchan. Next up we moved to the oldest rainforest in the world at Taman Negara, then went trekking in the moss forests and tea plantations of the Cameron Highlands before heading to the food capitals of Ipoh and George town. We had no idea what to expect from Malaysia other than that the food should be pretty good. We were wrong, the food wasn’t good, it was bloody amazing and we have found ourselves craving it ever since! The country and the people were friendly, beautiful and a delight to explore. We will definitely have to be back as we’ve only scratched the surface.
The end of November saw us return to our possibly favourite country we’ve ever visited, Thailand. Leaving the food haven of George town we crossed the border and visited Songkhla. Feeling as though we had returned home, we couldn’t have asked for a greater first day in Thailand. A spicy curry, Chang beers at sunset and finishing the day with a plate of Pad Thai sat on the street side on plastic stools, we knew we were back! Songkhla with its colourful old town, funky bars and laid back charm was the perfect reintroduction to Thailand.
After Songkhla we headed to the markets of Hat Yai before island hopping between the paradise islands of Koh Lipe and Koh Mook. Christmas was spent in Ao Nang watching the sunset over the Andaman sea, swimming in the turquoise waters of Railay beach and having a spicy Pad Krapow for Christmas dinner. It was perfect!
Our final day of 2022 was spent hiking 1260 steps up to the top of the Tiger Cave Temple. Sweaty and legs shaking like jelly, we eventually made it to the top! Following our strenuous hike we boarded a 13 hour bus ride to what might be our favourite city in the world, Bangkok. We saw in the New Year speeding through the Thai countryside, villages like pools of light flashing by with the occasional firework bursting overhead. It wasn’t a traditional way to celebrate the New Year, but given that 2022 has been the start of our travel adventure, this was a very fitting end to the year.
We’d just like to say a big thank you to everyone who has visited our website, read our blogs and reached out to us on social media this year. We wish you all a very Happy New Year and all the best for 2023!
Cheers 2022, you’ve been epic!
Thanks for reading,
John & Ellie x
#adventuresofjellie
Cheers have a great New Year!
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