[Rajeevraj]

It had been a very very long time since we did a family international trip. And long time meant 10+ years. Last trips were to Dubai and that too because my sister was based there. My kid was a toddler and obviously has no memories of the same. Prior to this one, in early 2019 we had started thinking about a Thailand trip after seeing a very nice travelogue from Mod Crazy_Driver. I actually just realized I had even spoken to him in detail about it. For various reasons, could not proceed. Then in 2019 December we had made plans along with extended family and booked a 10 day European Tour. The trip was booked for April 2020- And we all know what happened then. It took us 2 years to even get back the advance money paid.

So overall it would be safe to say, we had never done a proper international trip as a family and this would be the first one.

We had just decided we would do a trip in 2023. No thoughts or compulsions about the destination when we made the decision. Around July we had decided the trip would be from September 16th to 21st.

Why was this date decided?

• It was the Vinayaka Chathurthi Weekend and hence there was 2 days of Holidays.
• It was just after the mid term exams for my kid and hence it was kind of ok to take 2 days off from school.
• Being a monsoon season in most of South East Asia, it was slightly a lean season in lot of the popular places and the main tourist season would not have started. I absolutely hate massive crowds.

So dates were decided, next was some of the bookkeeping activities on the passports, Address change for my wife and renewal for my kid. Thanks to our extremely efficient passport seva processes, all that was done in 2 weeks for both.

With all this, we entered August with no destination yet and we finally got down to finalizing it. Started with the process of elimination, Being a 5 night 6 day trip 2 places we always wanted to visit- Europe and Australia were obviously out of contention. This brought us to the South East Asian countries and surroundings.

• Singapore? No, want someplace closer to nature and relaxed
• Sri Lanka? No, not really 'international' international
• Vietnam? Possible, but being a first trip. Decided against it
• Cambodia? Same reason as above
• Malaysia,KL? No, did not excite us.
• Bali? YES- great choice. All of India now goes to Bali.
• Thailand? Maybe- came up as we were looking at flights to Bali

So Bali was 'mostly' decided upon. Then couple of things happened.

• Between the time we identified Bali and finalized it, the flight tickets rates went up significantly. Started hitting 1.4L 2 way for 3 people.
• Couple of my team members had been to Bali recently, one unanimous opinion was that 6 days is too short for Bali as you lose 1 day each going and coming.

This took us back to square 1. Then finally the revelation struck- Why not Thailand itself. We hear so much about Thailand, it is pretty much the go to place for Indian Tourists and almost everyone I know have been there on vacation. But ultimately we have not visited, it is a great place and so we thought-Why not? Thailand it is!!

So that was decided and then the next question! Where in Thailand?? I did not want to go for a tour package as we are not the type of people who want to get up early, get into into a bus or a car and then do a whirlwind tour of 10 places a day. Wanted a more relaxed itinerary and being a destination like Thailand, thought I could plan it out myself. Which worked out pretty ok.

We decided we will do 2 places. One destination we quickly decided was Bangkok itself. Being a first visit and having heard a lot about the city, decided to spend the first couple of days there.

The 2nd one was a little more of a confusion. Quickly dropped Pattaya as it is not really a family oriented destination. Phukhet, Krabi were in shortlist and based on feedback and inputs from Bhpians vb-san and Ninjatalli in the Thailand Thread (Thailand 101: Advice, Tips, Planning etc.) Koh Samui, Hua Hin and Chiang Mai got added. Although we liked what Chiang Mai had to offer, felt a first trip would be incomplete without a visit to Thailand's famous beaches. Koh Samui was more expensive and dropped. Hua Hin seemed more like a 1 day thing. So the final choice was between Phuket and Krabi. Since Krabi was expected to be the less crowded of the two, finalized on it.

So after a lot of deliberations and back and forth- The plan was finalized. 2 Days in Bangkok, 3 days in Krabi and we were all set to do the booking and pre-travel activities

[Rajeevraj]

The Preparation

The preparations and prework seemed pretty simple. As I mentioned earlier, did not want to book a standard tour package and hence went about doing it myself. When I started, I was a little apprehensive as to whether I was being overconfident about it. Started checking off things one by one.

Flight: Bengaluru - Bangkok - Bengaluru: Needed a late night flight and primarily looked at Air Asia and Thai Airways. Indigo had an early morning flight and that did not work for us. Air Asia is typically the default option for flyers from India. Air Asia rates were around 68k for 3 people both ways. With check in baggage added, this went up to around 85k. Thai Airways was around 92k with meals and baggage included. Being a proper full size carrier, I felt the premium on Thai was worth it and went ahead and booked it. In addition, I wanted to fly into Suvarnabhumi Airport. Air Asia flies to the other airport Don Muang.

Flight: Bangkok - Krabi -Bangkok: This is roughly a 1 hr. flight. Since we had to fly back to Bangkok on the last day from Krabi and then catch the flight to Bengaluru, had to make sure that I fly out and in to Suvarnabhumi. Most of the domestic flights operate out of Don Muang. Fortunately Air Asia had a convenient flight from Suvarnabumi. So booked this sector also. One thing I could have done differently is time the outbound flight better. Booked a 2pm flight on Day 3, this meant most of the day 3 was lost in the travel. Ideally, should have taken either a morning flight or a later evening flight so the day could be better utilized in either of the places. Well, everything cannot be perfect!.

Hotels: This was a bit of confusion. Where to stay in Bangkok. Got some good inputs from the Thailand thread and finalized a hotel in the Sukhumvit Area in Bangkok. Since we did not expect to spend too much time at the hotel, booked in one of the Hyatts- Hyatt Place as they had some good rates and also was a high rise hotel. From my experience after the visit, below are the key areas where one can look at staying

• Sukhumvit-Asok Area: This is kind of a core business area. Tons of hotels across ranges, access to the train system, enough shopping areas around.
  
• Siam: This is one of the main centers of Bangkok. 2-3 massive malls, shopping streets, food streets and seemed a tourist epicenter. This area is more expensive than Sukhumvit.
  
• The Riverside Areas: This is closer to the 'older areas' and key tourist places of Bangkok and the riverside views are great. Again lot of options across all ranges.

In Krabi, again lot of options. The city center is called Ao Nang and lot of hotels and resorts are in this vicinity. After a lot of searching, finalized Nakamanda Resort for the stay

Visas: Thailand of course has Visa on Arrival, but you have the option of doing an EVoA also through VFS.. If you do VoA it is 2000 Baht (~INR 5000) per person. There is an additional fee of 500 Baht via VFS. I would say, this is totally worth it especially if you are travelling in peak season. Can save a lot of time at Bangkok. You need to have the copies of tickets, hotel, passport bio page and cover page, photo ready. It is a straightforward process. I applied at night 8pm IST and next day morning by 9am I got the confirmation and the EVoA issued. The SLA called out is 3 days.

Currency: Got a contact from a friend who travels a lot and he delivered the currency at home. There seems to be a requirement to carry 10,000 Baht per person or 20,000 Baht per family. But no one checks this.

Insurance: Again, it is no longer mandatory, but took a basic insurance from ICICI Lombard that had a medical cover of $250,000 and smaller amounts for other stuff. Cost was ~INR 2500 for 6 days.

Phone/SIM Card: For one of our phones decided to enable international roaming. Airtel had a pack costing ~INR 2000 for 10 days. 5GB of data and free minutes to India, unlimited local calls etc. A local SIM would be cheaper, but decided to keep one phone on the home number.

So with that the trip was finalized. Depart Bengaluru 00.30am on 16th Sept. Arrive BKK at 5.30am on 16th Sept Saturday Morning. Saturday, Sunday and Monday till 11am in Bangkok. Depart to Krabi at 11am on 18th. Arrive at Nakamanda in Krabi by 5pm. Return leave Krabi by 4pm on 21st Sept. Arrive at Bangkok by 5.30pm. Flight to Bengaluru at 9.25pm. Arrive at 11.30pm.

One thing we did not do, which may have been risky but ended up well, is make a detailed itinerary for each day. We had a high level idea, but thought we will figure out as we go.

Thailand-Here we come!!

Although the flight was at 12:30am in the night, considering it was a Friday evening, start of a long weekend and in general rainy. Did not want to take any chances considering Bengluru's traffic. Decided to leave by 5:45pm (Bengaluru folks will understand why so early). For the airport drop, booked a Shoffr Electric Taxi after reading reviews here in this Shoffr thread (Bangalore: Shoffr airport cab service; an alternative to Ola/Uber). The booking app is fairly basic but does the job. The cab gets assigned only 2 hrs before the scheduled time and this was a little worry. Even once it is assigned, there is no way to track it. Fortunately no surprises and the cab turned up at 5.15pm itself.

Shoffr has a fleet of BYD SUVs. This part of the journey itself was exciting as it was my first time in a BYD.

We left at 5.30pm itself. The car was comfortable. The driver asked all of us, including the rear seat passengers to wear seatbelts and said it is mandatory. This was music to my ears as it was the first time I was hearing someone other than myself insisting on rear seat belts . My respect for Shoffr and the driver went up 3-4 notches.

The drive was uneventful. As expected it took a solid 2hr 15 min. Fortunately no unexpected delays. The driver drove fairly well, but being a powerful electric car, I could sense his inner struggle between driving in a controlled smooth manner as is expected of him and just wanting to punch it. He did start talking a bit and said although this car was good, his brother has a Polo TDI and he likes that better- I was like 'Yeah Sure, can totally relate to that'

The other highlight at the start of the trip was the fact that all International Flights had moved to Terminal 2 just 3 days before. Although I had landed in T2 in a domestic leg, this was the first take off from T2.

T2 is definitely a beautiful terminal. I wonder about the difficulty of maintenance, but visually it is great and functionally also seems to be good. Currently not many shops and restaurants yet, but I think more is set to open. Also, when it gets crowded, need to see if the focus on aesthetics will come in the way. Some random pictures of the terminal. Missed to take any of the boarding gate area.

[Rajeevraj]

Bangkok-Day 1

Had an smooth uneventful flight. It was a full flight and interestingly there were very few Indians on the flight. Seemed to be filled mostly with Korean folks. I assume this serves as a convenient connection into South Korea.

At Bangkok Airport, things were smooth. Landed a little before time at 5.15am. In general there was not much of a crowd, but there was some rush at the VoA line, since we had the eVoA, proceeded to the counter for that, and went through immigration quickly. Luggage had already arrived and were out of the airport by 6.30am.

Initially had planned to take one Tourist SIM at the airport itself. There were several counters near the baggage area, but thought to take once we stepped out and that was a wrong decision. I could not find any shops outside at the arrival area and when we went down to the taxi area also there were no counters. Decided to do this later in any case.

Although had downloaded Grab for taxi, the first attempt to use it was a failure as I could not figure out where the driver wanted us to come. Cancelled that and headed down to the ground floor and took a taxi. There are self service counters where you get your taxi assigned and then you head to the bay where it is parked. I assume they are supposed to run by meter, but did not happen and I did not argue about it. Fare asked was 800 Baht and randomly negotiated it to 700 Baht which seemed in the ball park of what was expected.

Disclaimer: We are bad negotiators and in general whatever rates I quote here, in my view can be taken 20-30% down.

Reached the hotel in 45 min. Had asked for an early check in which the hotel had confirmed and hence quickly checked in and headed to the room which was on the 32nd floor. Nothing much to say about the hotel. Neat, efficient, like any business hotel. breakfast was included and was ok.

The view of Bangkok from the hotel room on the 32nd Floor

Since we had an almost sleepless night, decided to leave by around 10am. Now the unplanned part of the trip kicked in. Figuring out the places to go and the sequence. After some last minute read up and videos and based on the random list of places we had put. Finalized the following places to visit on Day 1.

• Wat Pho or the Reclining Buddha Temple
  
• Wat Arun
  
• The Grand Palace
  
• Chatuchak Weekend Market
  
• ICONSIAM Mall and Riverfront

Had read a lot about Bangkok's extensive MRT and Metro systems, since we had no proper idea of the city and the locations, decided to take taxi's on the first day. Booked a Grab Taxi and had to wait ~15 min. In the meantime picked up a Tourist SIM from a neighborhood 7/11. The journey took around 40 min and we were at our first stop by around 11am.

Wat Pho

Will not spend too much time detailing the history of each of these places as there is enough info available on the same. Wat Pho is one of the largest temple complexes in Bangkok. The highlight is the massive statue of the Reclining Buddha. One can spend any amount of time through this large complex, The place was not crowded and calm and peaceful. We spent a couple of hours visiting the various parts of the complex. Entry charges were 200 Baht(INR 500) per person.

The next stop initially planned was Wat Arun, but we decided to drop it and get a glimpse of it from a river ride and thus headed straight to the Grand Palace. Grand Palace was around a km from Wat Pho. The Tuk Tuks were asking 200 Baht. Since the weather was pleasant, we just decided to walk.

The Grand Palace

Summarizing The Grand Palace from Wikipedia

Rather than being a single structure, the Grand Palace is made up of numerous buildings, halls, pavilions set around open lawns, gardens and courtyards. Its asymmetry and eclectic styles are due to its organic development, with additions and rebuilding being made by successive reigning kings over 200 years of history. It is divided into several quarters: the Temple of the Emerald Buddha; the Outer Court, with many public buildings; the Middle Court, including the Phra Maha Monthien Buildings, the Phra Maha Prasat Buildings and the Chakri Maha Prasat Buildings; the Inner Court and the Siwalai Gardens quarter. The Grand Palace is currently partially open to the public as a museum, but it remains a working palace, with several royal offices still situated inside.

As implied above, it is a huge area with a large number of buildings. The temple of the Emerald Buddha is probably the most famous among them. Once again we spent couple of hours roaming around the different attractions within the palace. Was interesting to see the Thai version of Ramayana completely depicted as mural paintings across the walls. The place was fairly crowded and entry charges were 500 Baht (INR 1250) per person.

Some pictures from Wat Pho and the Palace below. Overall it was a very good and unhurried start to the trip.

Chatachuk Market

Our next stop was the Chatachuk Weekend Market. This market is open only on weekends and is a huge area with more than 15,000 stalls. Anything you want is available here and there is a lot of scope for bargaining also. Huge number of food stalls, curios, apparel to name a few. You name it, you get it at this market. We spent 2-3 hours here and still maybe covered like 10% of the area. Although it is called a weekend market, many sections are open through the week with different timings. Weekends is when it is completely open. We spent only 2+ hours here and that was sufficient for the shopping we had in mind. Ideally if you are serious about shopping, you can spend a whole day here. Also would be good to look at a map of the market in advance and decide where all you want to go. Covering the whole area is pretty impossible. Some how missed to take any generic pictures of the market.

ICONSIAM Mall and Riverfront

Once we were done with Chatachuk, the final stop of the day was the ICONSIAM Mall and Riverfront. Again took a taxi and reached ICONSIAM by 6.30pm. ICONSIAM by itself is a huge mall, but has some key features.

• Has a large number of food stalls selling all kinds of dishes and delicacies.
• Has an indoor floating market that is pretty popular.
• Is located on the riverfront. On the banks of the Chao Phyraya River.
• Has a multi media water fountain show. Said to be one of the longest in South East Asia at 400meters. Link
• Most of the famed dinner cruises start from here. Hence it is typically very crowded.
• Can hire boats for river cruises also from here.

Although unintentional, we had timed our arrival to ICONSIAM pretty well. When we reached the place was buzzing with activity. Pretty crowded too. We straightaway headed to the river front. Just as we reached the first show of the dancing fountain started and was quite enjoyable. We then wandered down to the river side where there were operators who did the river cruises. Casually asked when we can go and the cost. The guy said, 'Right Now' 1500 Baht. This was for a 1 hr river cruise with views of Bangkok skyline and some of the landmarks including Wat Arun. There was also a 'Fish Feeding' included. No clue what it was, but sounded good to us and signed up.

The Dancing Fountain. Was more focused on enjoying the show and hence did not take too many pictures of it.





Not a great picture, but a typical long tail boat for the river cruise. We were the only people in it.



The view of the Bangkok Skyline as we cruise the river. The picture does not do justice to the view.

We then soon turned into one of the canals called the Bangkok-Noi Canal and went till a temple where the fish feeding activity was. I could not get the name of the place and unable to search and identify it also. Huge swarms of fish break the surface as you drop food into it. Since it had already turned dark, the whole area was deserted and silent. This canal goes through the older neighborhoods which seem far away from the glitz and glamor of Bangkok. At one point we were actually worried as it was only us in the boat with the boatman in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. Not a soul around. Since we could not do anything about it, just relaxed and enjoyed the solitude and the sounds of the river.

Got back out into the main river and the next view was the Wat Arun Temple, beautifully illuminated.



The Rama VIII Bridge. A cable stayed road bridge. Once again nicely illuminated which enables a great view from the river



The Grand Palace was also seen in the cruise + couple of other temples and sights. Overall it was a peaceful 1 hour cruise in the river. Got back to the crowd of ICONSIAM.






A typical dinner cruise boat. There are tons of these that start from various places. The attraction is a 2 hour cruise of the river + a large dinner spread.

An additional note on the river cruises: These seem to be very popular and is there in every tour package. All the crowd seen in the pictures above were waiting for boarding to this cruise. I honestly felt it was over-rated and a tourist trap. While the cruise boats look magnificent, I saw people were kind of packed into it. Queueing up and getting into the boat itself was a task. In one boat, people were in long lines to pick up food. In my view, there is no use in going for the cruise for the food as you can probably get much better food outside. The intention is to relax and enjoy the river and sights from the river which I felt you could not do well if you needed to focus on getting food. In addition, the layout is like a bus or a plane, so unless you have a 'window' seat, enjoying the sites becomes more challenging.

Of course there maybe more private cruises with less people, but the ones I saw were massive ones packed with people. Also note that this is kind of an off season. My recommendation would be to just hire a boat with a smaller group and enjoy the river.

Once we finished the boat ride, spent time in the mall and surroundings and finally got back to the hotel by 11pm. That ended an eventful Day 1. While the planning was a little last minute, it worked out well for us.

[Rajeevraj]

Bangkok-Day 2

We had 2 options for Day 2:

• Visit additional attractions like the Bangkok National Park, Ancient City, Couple of temples.
• Hit Bangkok's famous malls and attractions within them

We initially planned to go with the first one. But realized that, just couple of places would pretty much take up the whole day. So then finalized on the 2nd option. With the roaming around of Day 1, I had got some sense of how the public transportation systems are organized and a quick checked showed that most of the main malls were close to the BTS Sky Train System. So Day 2 was going to be on public transport. We took a day pass which was 15o Baht(INR 400 per person). The plan was as follows:

• Head to the Siam Area. This is one of the major shopping centers of the city. There are 3 malls next to each other. SIAM Paragon, SIAM Center and SIAM Discovery.
• Visit the Ocean World in SIAM Paragon.
• Some travelogue videos indicated great deals in shops in SIAM Discovery. So that was next in the plan.
• Spend time at the massive food stall complex between these 2.
• Visit MBK Center. Again supposed to be a major shopping location
• Visit Terminal 21 Mall.

Siam Paragon is more of a luxury mall(Kind of like UB City in Bangalore). There is nothing you can buy there. What it has is 'Ocean World' which is a massive Aquarium. The ticket was INR 3000 per head which included entry to Ocean World and also Madam Tussad's wax Museum, A portion of popcorn and a drink, a 15 minute Aquaman 4D show and a small glass bottom boat ride. Overall the ticket price was worth it. Huge set up, very well organized and designed. We quite enjoyed the place. The glass bottom boat ride and then 4D movie were nothing too great, but still was ok. The Madam Tussad Museum was a bonus. We had not planned to visit that. Since the ticket included that, visited and again liked it. Both places were not very crowded and hence it was more enjoyable.

A sample of pictures of the 2 places:

Siam Paragon also had these Luxury Car showrooms all next to each other. Aston Martin, Porsche, Bentley, Maserati. Sight for sore eyes for car lovers.

Rest of the time was spent roaming around all these malls, some of the streets outside, doing some shopping, having some of the famed Thai food. We did a lot of walking this day. Day 2 ended at 11pm. No taxis taken, all travel through the MRT system and by walk. This kind of ended the Bangkok section of the trip, day 3 we had to leave to the airport by 11am. So did not have time to do anything. As mentioned earlier, could have planned this part slightly better. Is 2 days enough for Bangkok? I would say, maybe 1 more day would be ideal to cover some more places, but for us, for this first trip, we were satisfied and happy with what we were able to do.

[Rajeevraj]

Magical Krabi-Day 3 and 4

It was a major transition from the busy, bustling modern Bangkok to the idyllic, quiet province of Krabi. Journey was uneventful. Took a taxi (again some haggling needed) and reached the resort by 5pm. While Ao Nang is the main beach and city center, our resort was a little away from the main city. It was a beachside resort set along miles of beach dotted with different hotels and resorts. As we drove in itself, realized that the place was very less crowded. The resort also seemed to have only 5-6 of the 15 odd cottages occupied.

A view of the Resort and the cottage. It was set on a slope and hence had steep steps. Not a place to go with elderly folks

We reached just before the sunset and it was a glorious evening in Krabi, below pics are of the private beach area of the resort. This was during the low tide. During high tide the water rises and makes the land mass seen an island.








Wide expansive beach with not a soul in sight. At this moment we knew we had chosen the right place and right time to be there.





While we had mixed opinions on the food we had inn Bangkok, Food in the resort was excellent. Beautiful presentation as always

Thus ended Day 3 watching that beautiful sunset and getting the first experience of the beaches of Thailand.

Day 4- The Phi Phi 7 Island Tour

The Island and Beach Tours are pretty much the main and standard activity in Krabi. For this we did not attempt to or want to do anything on our own. Checked with the hotel and they had options to book the tours.

• All tours started with a pick up from hotel at 8am to one of the piers for boarding. Return by 5pm.
• There is a 7 Island Tour covering Phi Phi Island
• Another 4 Island Tour which covers 4 Islands in and around Krabi
• Tours are by speed boat. You can book a private boat or be part of a group.
• Which ever the tour, the activities include swimming, snorkeling and of course lazing around in the beaches. Lunch is also included. It is all different combinations of the same
• You can do this in the evening with a sunset and dinner included.

We decided to take the Phi Phi Island Tour. It covered 6-7 points. Maya Bay, Losamah Bay, Phi Phi Don(which is the main island of Phi Phi), Bamboo Beach and a couple of other places. This tour included snorkeling at 2 places, swimming at couple of the bays and 2 beaches. There was also a Viking Cave and Monkey Beach which was just shown without getting out.

The start of the tour. Normally all these boats seen are used in the tours. As it is a lean season, there was only one boat from this point with ~30 people.



It was a beautiful day and hence got some postcard like shots of the various areas.




Maya Bay- Apparently the place where the Leonardo movie, 'The Beach' was shot. They don't allow access to the beach any more.



This was the first stop for swimming. The sea was a little rough. My kid and wife enjoyed it. I was content to just soak in the scenery.



The island and beach of Phi Phi Don. This was also the lunch stop.








The next stop for snorkeling. Here the water was much calmer and crystal clear.



Couple of more pictures

We were dropped back by 5pm. This day was probably the highlight of the trip as this is one of the major reasons people go to Thailand for. The weather was glorious, it was not too crowded and all of us enjoyed it tremendously.

A nice dessert to wind up the day

[Rajeevraj]

Krabi Continued: Day 5 and 6

On the 2nd day in Krabi, we were not too keen on another round of beaches for a couple of reasons. Wife and kid felt maxed out on beaches and swimming and snorkeling after all the activities of the previous day. Then on the final day- since we had to depart by 12pm, we intended to relax in the resort and spend time on the resort beach side itself.

There was another tour package from the hotel that covered some of the other Krabi Attractions including Tiger Cave, Emerald Pools and a couple of hot springs. This again meant a 7.30am departure and also costed around 3000 Baht (INR 8000) for the day. We kind of decided that we will visit couple of these spots, after seeing the nice calm scenic roads of Krabi, I had this urge to take a car and drive around.

Checked with the hotel and they had connects to couple of car rentals. After checking google reviews and based on feedback from the hotel, connected with Greenday Car Rentals .They had Toyota Vios and Yaris available. Although I would have preferred something more exciting, this was more than sufficient. With the hotels help booked the car for 9.30am.

The following were the key aspects of the rental.

• The owner turned up at 9.30am on the dot in an almost new Toyota Vios.
• Rate was 1000 Baht(2500 INR) for 24hours.
• Read through the terms and conditions. Insurance was comprehensive and max deductible from renter was 10,000 Baht.
• Key loss was 5000 Baht
• One major question of course was whether the Indian license was sufficient. He said that for all legal and insurance purposes it was ok. If the police stop they may ask for an IDP, but he was vague about it. Since the insurance aspects were covered, went ahead with it.
• Car was delivered with a full tank and had to be returned with a full tank.
• Passport and license copies were taken.
• Refundable deposit of 5000 Baht or you hand over the original passport as a collateral. I preferred to give cash.
• Did an inspection. Took a few pictures and took the vehicle.

I was a little apprehensive initially, but again thought, lets go ahead. Had observed the driving patterns during the initial days and observed a few things which actually made me decide to drive.

• Thailand like India, drives on the left. I actually did not know this.
• Even though roads are crowded and traffic is high(in Bangkok), driving is disciplined and everyone follows the rules.
• There is rarely any honking.
• In Krabi, the traffic seemed to light and free flowing.

Although I drive in the chaos that is Bangalore Traffic, my driving style- especially in the city areas, is also oriented towards defensive driving, laidback and minimal honking. So I felt I can do ok. In fact, I was proud of myself that in the 200 odd km I ended up driving on that one day, I did not even touch the horn even once.

The Vios that was our ride for the day

The Tiger Cave Temple and Summit

The Tiger Cave Temple was our first stop and the main itinerary for the day. It was around 40km from our resort and took us about 35 min to reach.

The Tiger Cave Temple, also called Wat Tham Suea is a Buddhist temple located north-northeast of Krabi. It is known for the tiger paw prints in the cave, tall Buddha statue at the summit and most importantly the strenuous flight of stairs to reach the summit. The climb is 1260 steps and extremely steep. You climb about 300 meters to reach the summit. Some of the steps were more than a foot high and the angle of most sections of steps were like maybe 110-120 degrees. We are reasonably fit people, but we were not sure if we could climb it. We took about 45min but were proud of the fact that we managed to reach the top. There was very little crowd and during most of the climb it was like we were the only folks out there. We could see many folks who aborted the climb and went back down.

We also realized it was good that we did not book the tour package as many of them do not allow the time for the climb to the top.

This is the tiger cave temple at the base.



Another view at the entrance of the cave.



Part of the 1260 steps. The picture does not clearly show how steep it was. Pretty much all of the 1260 steps were this size and at this inclination.



The beautiful views after the strenuous climb was totally worth it. Almost all of Krabi town and the seaside and bays were visible on one side. The other side was the forested hills.

A view of the statue at the top. There were like 5-6 people at the summit and it was again a beautiful day, windy and clear skies. We just relaxed here taking in the views for more than an hour.

After that fruitful visit to the summit, we the descent was fairly quick. It was almost 2.30pm. We then decided to drive out to one of the hot springs. There were a few of them, we decided to go to one that was a hot spring waterfall. It was another 50 km drive and was mostly an enjoyable drive through some good roads and beautiful countryside. But as we almost reached the hot springs, the good weather we had been encountering, finally gave up on us. Got caught in a massive thunderstorm as we reached the hot springs. We waited for it to stop and went inside, It was almost 4.30pm and we were the only ones there. We also had no plans to get into the stream itself. So just spent half hour roaming around, and then returned. This became just a checkpoint visit-that we had been to a hot spring in Thailand.

This is what the hot spring waterfall looked like

Our last plan for the day was to get to the Ao Nung beach in time for the sunset and spend the evening and night at the Ao Nung Marketplace. Half way through the return, google started showing a massive 30+ min congestion and suggested to deviate. I was a little wary of this but a 30+ congestion meant something was wrong. I took the deviation which started taking us through some interior roads. While I was taking these routes as per google, was also careful to ensure that I was following some local cars. Finally google routed back to the highway in the opposite direction and it was right at the point of congestion which was some massive water logging on the highway due to the rain(Felt right at home in Bangalore at this point). While cars were wading through, there was no way I was taking a rental car through that. Again did a big circle and finally joined back further ahead past the congestion point. This deviation cost us an hour and by the time we reached Ao Nung, the sun had set, but was treated to some beautiful views of the sky as we reached Ao Nung and at the beach also the sky was a multitude of colors.

The Ao Nung main street and market again were not crowded at all and we spent 2-3 hours wandering around, making some small purchases and having dinner.

A blurry view of the night market street.

Since I had the car till the next morning, spent some more time generally driving around and then headed to the resort

The Final Day

We were due to check out at 11am hence did not plan anything outside on this final day. Got up in the morning and headed to the beach alongside the resort. Once again a beautiful morning. Miles of beach on both sides with not a soul in sight. Spent time walking, playing in the water, collecting some shells. Came back, had a leisurely breakfast, took some spa treatment and then once again just walked around the beach watching the tide rise and the boatmen prepare to head out to sea.

An idyllic end to our stay at Krabi and the end of our busy but at the same time relaxing holiday in Thailand.

A bunch of photos of the beach on the final day

Took a taxi to the airport. It became cloudy and overcast as we reached the airport and started raining heavily as we reached the boarding gate. The rain continued to become heavier as boarding time approached, heard announcement for delay in couple of flights. Fortunately our incoming flight landed on time and we boarded and took off in the heavy rain. Had not seen such intensity of rains in the time we were there. It was almost that the rain gods were telling us- 'Kept myself away so that you could enjoy your long overdue holiday, thank you for coming, now I am back in full force'

[Rajeevraj]

Some Final thoughts

Some final comments before signing off.

• It was an enjoyable vacation. There may have been more monuments to visit, more beaches to go to, maybe more places to shop, but for us, for this first trip we felt totally satisfied.
  
• There were some elements we could have planned better, but fortunately nothing really backfired and the last minute planning was also fun in its own way.
  
• Thailand is a beautiful country. In spite of being a tourist haven, it is all always very clean, well maintained. The beaches were pristine, no garbage anywhere. Even restrooms in places like the crowded chatachuk market were spic and span.
  
• The food is wonderfully presented and looks very enticing, but unless you are a foodie open to eating all kinds of stuff, it may be a struggle to actually enjoy the good. And not talking about being vegetarian which is definitely harder. Even for us, being non vegetarians, found that we were unable to have a lot of the items. Lots of fruits, juices, shakes also. Again, all good, but did not blow us away- Of course this is just our personal opinion.
  
• September is actually not a peak season time for Thailand. Especially the beach destinations. It is technically the monsoon season and most days can be rainy. When making the decision to go at this time, we knew we may end up not being able to enjoy due to the rains. Somehow we were extremely lucky. All the days we were there- Especially in Krabi, it was bright and sunny. Even the locals were surprised at the kind of weather. they were seeing. Apart from that one major thunderstorm, the weather did not play spoilsport at all.
  
• Going in the off season, especially during weekdays does have some disadvantages. Lot of places are open in full flow only during the weekends. But again, if you are fan of less crowds and a relaxing time, then this will be a suitable time.
  
• It is definitely no longer a cheap destination. I had thought I was unlucky with the flight costs, but I checked now for the October-November timeframe and it is already 20-30% higher. While we did some shopping, overall we did not find value in buying a lot of stuff. One aspect is bargaining, but even with that, it was not like things were dirt cheap.
  
• Being a favorite destination from India, I expected a lot of Indian tourist crowd like us. Strangely across the trip, we hardly encountered anyone from India. Especially in Krabi. Could be because it was the festive season in India and the holiday season was yet to start, but still was surprising. A lot of the tourists seemed to be from Europe.

The return was uneventful. The return flight to Bangalore was one of the emptiest I had ever been in, hardly 50-60 people in that huge plane. Had booked a Shoffr cab for the return journey also. Once again was impressed with KIAL and how it is maintained. Signing off with a final pic as we exited the airport.

Hope this write up was useful and will be helpful to folks planning a trip to Thailand. Thanks for reading.

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[robincsamuel]

Excellent write-up! Thanks for sharing all these details. Your post came at just the right time, as our vacation is coming up in two weeks, and it's really helpful.

I've also noticed a lot of similarities in our plans. For instance, this is our first international trip, and I too am not a package tour person, so we're planning everything ourselves. We've even booked the same flights for the same reasons and booked Shoffr for our airport transfers. And, I'm just about to click 'submit' on the e-VOA application.

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

What it has is 'Ocean World' which is a massive Aquarium. The ticket was INR 3000 per head which included entry to Ocean World

Did you buy the tickets there or did you purchase them online in advance? I was thinking about buying them online in case we don't get tickets when we visit, but then we'll lose flexibility in our planning.

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

It is technically the monsoon season and most days can be rainy.

I really hope the rain gods are kind to us. Fingers crossed for clear skies during our visit!

[Rajeevraj]

Originally Posted by robincsamuel

Did you buy the tickets there or did you purchase them online in advance? I was thinking about buying them online in case we don't get tickets when we visit, but then we'll lose flexibility in our planning.
!

Thank You. For Ocean World, we just went and purchased tickets, one suggestion is to go there when it opens. Crowd will be much lesser. The crowd picks up post 12pm.

Have a great trip

[kkunal.shah]

Excellent post, reminded our family trip with almost the same itinerary as yours. We went in 2019 before the pandemic hit.

Thailand is a beautiful country & has a lot to offer, we’ll be planning to visit the north side in our next trip to cover the Chai Mai.

Thanks for sharing.

[Rev2Serenity]

Excellent Travelogue! Beautiful Photos. Been to Bangkok, Ayutthaya and Pattaya in August. Thailand did mesmerize me beyond my expectations. Your post reminds me to put my own travelogue here soon as well!

[gauravdgr8]

Krabi. That one proper noun brings in a lot of memories. Been there twice. A beautiful place with poster beaches. The time you visited is the best, totally sans the crowd

[realcoolhand]

Great post. I’m planning to travel to Phuket. 7 days. Would you recommend taking self drive from Airport and for full tour till drop off? I guess driving won’t be too tedious even though a change of pace from India. Planning to take IDP to be on safe side. Do you know how much time it takes for IDP to arrive?