10 Travelling Questions: Ask Something Different

An alternative to 'Where have you been? Where are you going next?' etc yawn yawn...

Travel.
The inspiration for numerous questions.

If you're backpacking around the world, or even planning a backpacker trip, then an excellent twitter account to follow is @STATravel_UK, and they recently raised a very valid point when they tweeted...

"Everyone asks the same travelling Qs: Where are you from? Where are you going? How long? Ask something different & we'll re-tweet the best."

After a few months of backpacking the standard introductory backpacker questions definitely become repetititive, so it's good to vary things up by asking a few alternative questions.  STA Travel UK's tweet drew a number of interesting suggestions for questions to ask on your travels, and I've featured the best suggestions below...

1) "If you had to pick one place you've travelled to settle down & live where would it be? #travel"
@STATravel_UK

Map Of Haad Rin Hostels

Before booking your Haad Rin acommodation, check out the locations of all of Haad Rin's hostels.

Haad Rin Guide Book features various maps focusing on the various locations in and around Haad Rin, such as Sunrise Beach, Sunset Beach, Leela Beach, Haad Rin Village, etc.  Also included are maps focusing on a specific theme, such as hostels, hotels and restaurants.

You can check out all of the maps in the Haad Rin Guide Book, but to give you an idea of what to expect, here's a map of the hostels found in Haad Rin.

The Fire Hoop: Win Or Lose?

Backpackers risking life and limb in the name of entertainment...

The fire hoop.

I've mentioned before on this blog that a popular late night form of entertainment on Haad Rin Sunrise Beach is the fire skipping rope, where drunken backpackers attempt to skip with fire ... not always successfully.

The fire skipping rope isn't the only fire related late night activity that you'll find in Thailand though, and other fire activities include the fire limbo, fire jugglers, flame throwers and a particularly dangerous fire activity ... the fire hoop.

The video below features drunken backpackers attempting to jump through a flaming hoop of fire ... with mixed results.  To make things a bit more interesting though, rather than just edit together a compilation of fire jumps, the clips are instead presented in the form of a quiz...

Basic Map Of Haad Rin

...and street name index.

I’m not a professional cartographer, so the maps featured in the Haad Rin Guide Book won’t win any awards for graphic design.  However, the locations of hotels, hostels, restaurants and other landmarks are accurate, so the maps in the guide book should be a practical help for first time visitors to Haad Rin.

Where maps have been included, their purpose is to help you find your way around Haad Rin, so rather than use the official Thai street names, I’ve referred to streets and lanes by their 'unofficial' backpacker names.  This should be more helpful for finding your way around, as for example the term ‘Restaurant Lane’ will mean more than ‘Soi Tonson’.

As an example, here’s the first map from the guide book which is a basic map of Haad Rin:

The Fire Skipping Rope

Don't try this at home!

Drunken backpackers getting burnt on the fire skipping rope.

Visitors to Haad Rin will know that fire related activities play a big part in the nightly entertainment at the bars and clubs on Haad Rin Sunrise Beach.  For the benefit of those who have never the witnessed the fire skipping rope, just as the name suggests, it involves drunken backpackers attempting to skip over a skipping rope which is set on fire.

Generally speaking, as the night wears on and party goers get more and more drunk, people gradually get less concerned for their own personal safety, so you often find that the number of volunteers increases later in the evening.  You also find that as people get more drunk their co-ordination skills go downhill, so if ou enjoy watching people get burnt then the best time to watch the fire skipping rope is later in the evening!

In all seriousness it doesn't take a genius to work out that although it's very entertaining, the fire skipping rope can also be dangerous.  If you're considering giving it a go, I therefore recommend watching the following fire skipping rope compilation video as a warning of the potential dangers involved...