Every time we come to Thailand we drop past Bangkok for a night or two and wish we could stay longer. It’s loud, hot and smelly, but oh so enchanting and alive. This time round we stayed 3 nights, and thought this would be more than enough with a toddler in tow. But maybe you just never feel ready to leave the hustle and bustle and honking hooters, and always go away wanting more. The time had come though to make our way to Samui, and a new home for the next few months.

Being someone who has battled to travel light at the best of times, and is always keen to take back much more than I arrived with, all my previous holidays had been good practice for this trip. I had 3 suitcases, 2 hand luggage bags, a trunki and a changing bag to fill. And if there were prizes for this sort of thing, I’d have won them all!

(Initially we’d thought we’d pay for an additional bag or two on BA, at a cost of £60 each. But I decided to save the money, not to mention the extra effort – when you factor in that we’ll be shifting our luggage along with a car seat and pram around South East Asia!!) So all our summer clothes, 20-odd cloth nappies, some food provisions to get an already-set-in-her-ways toddler started with (lentils, split peas, protein powders, marmite, Weetabix, Ready Brek, mixed nut butter, organic fruit pouches and a few other bits and bobs), a scooter and helmet, a plastic lawn mower, some Duplo, a My Little Pony collection, a plastic tea set, books, some puzzles, teddies, plastic animals, mozzie nets, and even some preemptive birthday presents for September, were all fit in, without being even 1kg over our aircraft weight allowance!

I am a proud packer, who is very ready to unpack those bags and start feeling settled into a new life (albeit a nomadic life)! I’m just not looking forward to having to re-back those bags in 3 months time!