Tomek Ścisło - There's a way - Thailand

Thailand - Oct/Nov 2016

Details: Created on Sunday, 20 November 2016 20:06; Last Updated on Sunday, 20 November 2016 20:21; Hits: 5310

Bangkok

We started our trip to amazing Thailand by staying four days in its capital - Bangkok. We came at the end of October when the raining season was supposed to be nearly finished, however we did experience some heavy showers, thankfully they all were in the evenings or at night. Lucky us! Bangkok is easy to move around especially if you decide to use tuk-tuk. Price for tuk-tuk ride will vary between 50-200B (1B=0,1zł). You can move around even cheaper using boats sailing the Menam river, however piers are not that easy to find. It took us quite a while to find the one near our hotel at the first day, therefore you need to be prepared that it will take you some time too. Prices for such boats vary between 4-20B. We also used a lot of BST (Bangkok Sky Train) and Metro, there are not that many lines there but it’s enough.

Generally speaking our hotel in Bangkok was clean and comfy, however one day after we got back from the city we noticed an ant trail to a place where we left some food leftovers. So always keep your food in the fridge.

While in Bangkok we visited a few must see places, such as Wat Arun, Wat Phra Kaeo, Wat Pho. It basically means that we saw statues of lying, sitting and standing Buddha We came to Thailand in the time when Thai people were mourning their beloved king Bhuimbol Adulyadej so King’s Palace was closed for visiting There were also many pictures and alters in memory of dead king all over Bangkok. Besides visiting all Wats (temples) I can also recommend you going to Lumpini park where we came across a few wandering around lizards, we do not know what they were, but we were scared at first time we saw them You should also try all kinds of Thai and Chinese food in Bangkok - it’s really amazing.

Ko Lanta Yai

After those four days in Bangkok we moved to the south of Thailand to the Krabi district and more specifically to Ko Lanta Yai island. Traveling there was rather easy, we took Airasia flight from Bangkok Don Meuang airport and landed in Krabi airport. At Krabi airport there are a lot of options to reach Ko Lanta. We took joint minivan, which took us to our hotel in Ko Lanta for 400B each. I must say that everything I read about Ko Lanta back in Poland turned out to be true. It’s not very crowded - beaches nearly empty, with nice sand and very warm Andaman Sea. It’s very easy to go around in Ko Lanta using a motorbike, which you can rent almost everywhere. Funny thing is that gasoline for motorbikes is sold in 1L bottles which cost 40B each. We stayed mainly on Long Beach for swimming and sunbathing. The other day we rented a motorbike and drove all the way to the south to Ko Lanta National Park. It was one of the most amazing experiences in Thailand so far. We watched wild monkeys and went all the way up to an old lighthouse at the very end of the island. There is also an amazing 2km jungle path which I recommend all to take, however you must be prepared for high heat and humidity so do not forget about a lot of drinkable water. I almost forgot about our favourite restaurant with the most amazing Thai owner - Uncle-O. He is extremely friendly and he almost reads customer’s minds Stop by and try for yourself! Moreover we followed the advice of other people and we did some elephant trekking. It was an interesting experience, especially because we were caught by a heavy shower while riding on elephant’s back in the jungle. So we came back soaked wet, but extremely happy! The other day we took our chances for getting lost in the jungle when we decided to visit Khlong Chak Waterfall. It’s located to the south of the island just before the national park. We read in some guidebooks that you should have Thai guide to reach that waterfall, but we thought how hard can it be, right? It turned out that it was not that hard since it’s just a matter of going up stream so definitely if you have some good waterproof mountain shoes they would be handy, we had none of those so the best replacement are sandals, because as I said you are mostly going up stream deep in the water.

Ao Nang

Ao Nang in Krabi province is a very convenient starting point for many interesting destinations. We made all of our reservations with Polish tourist company: http://artthai.leszek.asia/. Booking through them saved us a few baths (around 100-200B for each trip).

One of the key ones is Railay Beach which is a must see place in the whole Krabi. We went there by longboat (round trip costs 200B). Railay is pretty amazing with very warm water and beautiful tropical scenery. From Ao Nang we set off on a trip to Similan Islands (3200B). We got up very early and were transferred to Khao Lak pier and from there we started a bumpy ride by a speedboat to the islands. We didn’t have the opportunity to fully experience the area due to the rain that caught us at the very beginning, fortunately soon the sun came out and we went for some snorkeling and boat jumping! We got back round 8pm. I can really recommend http://fantasticsimilan.com

As a big James Bond fan I couldn’t miss the opportunity to visit so called James Bond island. In fact the name of the island is Khao Phing Kan. It featured a Roger Moore 007 movie - The Man with the Golden Gun. It was really cool to be there and visit this place, however we were a little disappointed with how overcrowded it was. In the price for James Bond trip (1150B) there was also visit to Monkey Temple. Amazing experience with all the monkeys dragging food out of your hands. We’ve already seen some monkeys on Ko Lanta, however there were much more of them and for the first time we saw baby monkeys. During this trip we also had the opportunity to visit Pun Yee a Floating Village. It’s the fully facilitated village with school, temple, shops, restaurants and houses that float on the water. We were allowed to look at children in their classrooms through a window, but we considered that as being very distractive for them and we quickly went back to the other part of the village.

As our time in Ao Nang was coming to an end we decided to visit one more touristic place - Phi Phi Islands (1200B). This included vistitin Maya Bay - which was made famous by Leonardo DiCaprio in The Beach movie. The resemblance to the movie was really striking, however as Maya Bay is now a very famous place it has become a very over crowded place as well. Unfortunately we can tell the same about Phi Phi Islands. During this trip we experienced the best snorkeling adventure of our entire Thailand trip it was in Hin Klang near Phi Phi.

That’s all folks! Visit Thailand - it’s worth it!

Comments (1)

John

1Sunday, 04 December 2016 11:02

John