Aaaaand we're back to reality. Having spent the majority of my summer in Asia it's been oh so weird to be back in good ol' Blighty. I have spent the last week in Southampton for freshers week ahead of lectures beginning on the first. The week started off really well with a spontaneous phone upgrade. My Dad and I were in town and I just popped into my phone provider to ask when my contract was up - October if you were wondering. Long story cut short, we walked into another phone shop and I walked away with an iPhone 10. Wowzers. I am so so impressed with my new phone so much so that I treat it as if it were a newborn child; always in my hands and leaving it at home when I go on nights out.

Speaking of nights out, our freshers week began with an ABBA themed club night and it was brilliant. Literally everyone I knew was there, dressed in quirky clothes, grooving to Super Trouper, and it was great. The greatest hits CD was definitely on repeat however, I heard Dancing Queen at least 17 times and Money Money Money 14 times. I don't think I'll be needing another ABBA fix for a verrrrry long time now.

On Monday, feeling a little worse for wear, I met my supervisor and we discussed third year and my current idea for my dissertation. I'm not going to go into it too much now but the general topic is going to be homelessness. I'll update you when I know a bit more...

Tuesday I spent unpacking. I've already posted my Third Year Uni Room Tour linked here and I feel right at home. As mentioned in that post, this house is a great improvement on our last so I'm really excited for the year ahead. Tuesday night we went out out for the second of our freshers week rendezvous. It was really nice to go out with both my housemates and my coursemates and have them all in one place.

Ahhh, Wednesday. Another day spent feeling a little delicate. We spent the day on campus wandering the clubs and societies fayre trying to decide what to join this year. At the moment I'm thinking Photography and Sign Language... Wednesday evening saw us have our first house meal - enchiladas. I'm excited to have more house meals this year, I'm thinking roasts on a Sunday, fajitas, pasta bakes, the lot. A proper cozy household.

On Thursday my coursemates and I headed to Nando's (it's a tradition of ours) for lunch and a sober catch up. It's pretty hard to discuss all the goings on in your life 6 vodkas deep in the middle of a club. That evening we had Dominos for dinner. Can you tell it was student loan day?

Friday was the Freshers Fayre aka the free stuff fayre. I'm going to be honest, it was pretty disappointing this year, but we did walk away with some tshirts, pens and a couple of slices of pizza. I wandered around town with my housemate before heading back for dinner and then onto a house party - our third night out in freshers.

Now, Saturday was both a spontaneous and brilliant one. What initially started as just going for brunch with one of my best friends - I had pancakes and a pink lemonade - ended as a full day of activities. We went charity shopping (something neither of us ever do), went shopping at West Quay and then did a food shop. Saturday evening was a very quiet one and I ended up tucked up in bed by 9.30. Rock and roll. I was meant to be going to a huge house party on my old road, but yanno, sometimes an early bed time calls.

And finally, Sunday. Today was the day of the Soton Bloggers coffee morning for Macmillan. I ate alllll the Collin the Caterpillar cake (courtesy of M&S) and chatted all things blogging with some other local bloggers. I finally met Cara and she's just as much of a babe in person as she is online. We took outfit photos - look out for those soon over on my instagram and chatted about all kinds of things. I'm having pie and mash for dinner tonight and am already in my onesie... A proper cosy Sunday.

How has your week been?

What have you been up to?

Back in May, I received my first ever Birchbox and I posted alllll about my first impressions of it here. Well, fast forward to September and here we are with my latest box - I cancelled them for whilst I was away. Now, as aforementioned over here on becc4.co.uk, I absolutely love the idea behind Birchbox and I think the wide range of products they include is fantastic. I do, however, sometimes question the value if all the products are ones you wouldn't personally use, a duff box if you were... 

So, as I'm sure you'll agree, this is a very decent box indeed. I can see myself using all of these products - the hair balm and face mask especially! One thing I love about the body scrub is that it is microbead free, the 'bits' in it are walnut shell and hence are all natural.

 And there we have it, a box that I think passes the Becc4 test with flying colours 

Have you ever bought a Birchbox?

What's your favourite subscription box?

So, other than a one-night layover in Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) was the first place we visited on our Southeast Asia Tour, and what a place to start. We flew in from Bangkok (1hr 35m), and took a taxi to the hostel. We arrived just in time for dinner, so dropped our bags and went straight for some food. We had a bit of a wander of the streets and spotted a skybar called 'The View' so had a few drinks there before jet lag got the better of us.

Speaking of the streets, I don't think either of us were prepared for the absolute carnage on the roads. Never in my life have I seen so many scooters in one place. Let alone scooters darting and diving through the traffic and scooters carrying entire families of four.

The following day we woke up fairly leisurely and headed towards the War Remnants Museum. I'm still not sure I fully understand the Vietnam War, even after a trip to the museum, and messaging my friend back home to teach me, so definitely do a load of reading up before you go. The museum is full of photos, maps, posters and outside there are tanks, helicopters etc - it's definitely worth going to if you're in HCMC. Our other touristy stops for the day were the Central Post Office, Notre-Dame and the Ben Thanh Market. All are worth seeing and very much doable in a day on foot.

What I wasn't expecting in HCMC was a strip, Magaluf style, full of bars with happy hours. We spent our second evening drinking 2 for 1 cocktails, planning our next few days. On the way back we stopped at one last bar and I spotted 'Vietnamese Banana Seed Shots' on the menu. They can't be too bad, right? Well, let me tell you, they were awful - waaaaay more potent than Glen's Vodka, and that stuff strips paint off walls.

We'd booked a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels online (pssst don't do that, it works out a lot more expensive than the locally advertised tours) and woke up early the next morning ready to be picked up. It was a two-hour drive from the hostel, but we stopped halfway to look at some eggshell handicrafts. (From what I've read, all of the Cu Chi Tunnels trips stop here, regardless of who you booked with). Anyway, the tunnels themselves were fascinating. They're zig-zagged and on many levels, with booby traps every few meters. Lots of the tunnels had been widened and fitted with stairs for the tourists, but a couple you can visit are still as they were. Let's just say you couldn't eat a Toby Carvery and then squeeze in there. 

Our tunnel tour included lunch, so we had lunch at a hotel on the way back. After our day at the tunnels we both really fancied a shower, but unfortunately, we'd already checked out of our hostel as we were taking the night bus that evening. We were sweaty and covered in mud, so we came up with the idea of heading to a swimming pool. We googled pools and somehow ended up in a flashy 5 star hotel and soon came to the realisation that a swim there was a) expensive and that b) we stood out like a pair of sore thumbs. So, we had another google and ended up at the local swimming pool. We paid 50p to get in and headed straight to the showers, towel and shampoo in hand, flip-flops firmly on our feet. Now, we were incredibly grateful to have a shower, but, let me tell you, it wasn't a pretty sight. Mrs Hinch would not approve. 

We had dinner and then headed to the ticket office to wait for our first ever sleeper bus. Now, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect having heard some absolute horror stories but I was very pleasantly surprised. We used the company 'The Sinh Tourist' which was reasonably priced and very clean. You're given a blanket, and each person has their own bed-seat for the night. There's also a seatbelt, which let me tell you, I was very grateful for. It's fair to say the bus drivers like to swerve, which, when paired with being on a top bunk fast asleep isn't an ideal combination. Thank you, seatbelt. I actually slept fairly well on the buses, and for the price, they're definitely worth doing.

It's in an ideal location, right in the main backpacker street and very well priced. The beds, however, were the least comfortable of the 6-week trip, which is definitely saying something. There are also thin walls between the beds which rather than protect modesty just made it feel a bit like a prison. 

Wowee, what a couple of months I've had... Sorry for the radio silence over here on becc4.co.uk, but it's fair to say I've been rather busy of late. I landed back in Heathrow this morning after spending the majority of my summer in Asia, and what a blast it has been.

One of my housemates and I spent 6 weeks backpacking Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Malaysia, and then I flew out to Bali to spend two weeks there with my family. I posted pretty much everyday on my Instagram (@becc4_blog) if you'd like a peek at a few more photos and a little spiel on what I'd been up to.

The backpacking portion of the trip featured hostels, motorbikes, sleeper buses and pretty much everything you can think of in between. We covered the entirety of Vietnam by bus in about three weeks, and then flew between the other countries for the rest of the trip. We hadn't initially planned to go to Malaysia, but booked flights to Kuala Lumpur during one rainy day in Laos, having looked up where had the best weather in S.E. Asia at the time. And, oh, what a good idea that was, KL certainly didn't disappoint.

My time in Bali couldn't have been a more different experience to the other 6 weeks. There were no more hostels, hellooooo gorgeous villas, goodbye crappy bunk beds. The perks of traveling with your parents and sister, hey? We spent a week in a villa in Seminyak and then a week in Ubud in another villa, and it was great to see two very different sides of the island in one trip.

I'm going to be writing an entire blog post on each city/country of the trip, with photos, tips, advice, and recommendations, so expect to see those start to pop up shortly. If anyone has any questions on anything trip-related leave them in the comments and I'll be sure to cover them! After being in the pipeline for such a long time I can't believe it's all been and gone already? There's only one thing for it... Start thinking about summer 2019, hey?