Bangkok and Phuket Family Trip

This year in February 2016 we planned our trip to India. This was our 'first trip' to India after getting married :) Recently I have discovered a new habit in me, which is to find 'the first time' in everything we do. If its the first time, its special, so a blog post worthy :) Also, this being our first family vacation, I wanted to write about it. Without further ado, lets quickly get to our 6 day Bangkok and Phuket trip. 

Things to keep in mind before planning a trip to Thailand:

Visa on arrival: Make sure you have 1000 Thai Baht cash/person and passport sized (4x6 cm) photograph with you as you land at the airport. Keep your passport and other travel documents and the return tickets as well as hotel accommodation print outs with you as you might need to present them to get your visa on arrival.  Don’t forget to take a pen and a glue stick with you J You might be able to get that around but no harm carrying these with you.

Forex card: We had got Axis bank’s Travel Currency Card so that we do not have to carry any cash around the city, we would withdraw money as per need every couple of days and avoid carrying any bulk cash with us - http://www.axisbank.com/personal/forex/travel-currency-card/overview.aspx

Misc: Beware of pickpocketing in Thailand.

 

At the airport and in the flight! All set for vacationing :)

Day 1 – Feb 11^th 2016 – Bangkok

* Landed at Suvarnabhumi International Airport and took us around 1 and ½ hours to get our visas.

* We went to our AirBnB and immediately left for city tour with Lou-Lou. Before leaving she told us that Orange was the color of the day and coincidently most of us were dressed in orange color J After looking up online, I found that in Thai tradition, there is an astrological rule that assigns color for each day of the week. The color is assigned based on the color of the God who protects the day. Details - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_the_day_in_Thailand

* We took the City Tour with http://www.tourwithtong.com/ company. We were a group of 6 people, so we took their VIP van option. It was only 4000 THB for a full day guide for 8 hours + admission, food, parking fees etc extra on the top. They have a dress code at most of the temples in BKK. Details can be found here: http://www.tourwithtong.com/tourtips.htm

The places that we visited are:

* The Grand Palace

* Temple of Emerald Buddha

* Wat Po

* Wat Arun

* Reclining Buddha

* River Cruise

Day 2 – Feb 12^th 2016 - Bangkok

We visited the Bangkok Safari World on our second day. We watched fascinating animals shows in the Safari World:

* Orangutan Show

* Dolphin Show

* Seal Show

* Feeding Tiger Cubs

* Hugging Orangutan

* Elephant Feeding

* Giraffe Feeding

* Elephant Show

* Elephant Massage - Manoj was very thrilled for getting the elephant massage and luckily in the elephant show when they called for volunteers he was picked from the crowd J I was very nervous during the actual scene and my hands were shivering while taking his video at that time.  

After the shows, we went to an open safari in our closed van where we saw the wild animals which were set free.

Later that evening we went to eat some local food and explore the city.

* Street Food @ Kao San Road - Pad Thai & Spicy Tom Kha Shrimp Soup

* Tuk Tuk Ride - A tuk tuk is a three-wheeled colorful rickshaw. Riding a tuk-tuk is more of an experience rather than a practical way to get around in BKK.

* Waiting for Bus at a bus-stand – A hopeful Bus ride that turned into Taxi hunt & finally back to hotel – Beware of the taxi drivers that are are waiting to loot you ;) We found the pink cab drivers to be friendly and fair while charging us for our ride.

Day 3 – Feb 13^th 2016 - BKK

* We went to Chatuchak Market for shopping. It is one of the World’s largest markets that has more than 15,000 booths selling goods from every part of Thailand. It is a very popular place for tourists and has over 200,000 visitors each day.

* After shopping till we dropped, we took foot massage which felt like we were in heaven and didn’t want to get up from the recliners.

* To experience the public transport, we took a train to Bangkok Airport for our Phuket Flight. We reached our Phuket Airbnb around 10 pm at night and went to bed after the long day.

Day 4 - Feb 14^th 2016 - Phuket

* The first thing we did in the morning was to go out and get the Bike Rental. It is the best way to explore the city.

* We then spend our valentines's day at the Patong Beach. We enjoyed the Jet ski at the Patong Beach.

* In the evening we went to Phuket FantaSea which is one of Phuket’s main tourist’s attraction. It is a huge theme park with a huge stage show, a huge buffet, restaurants and plenty of shops to tempt people into spending more than just the entry fee. There are a lots of local artists who will attract you with their amazing artistry.

Day 5 - Feb 15^th 2016 - Phuket 

We did an Island Tour on this day.

* Monkey Island

* Maya Bay

* Krabi

* Snorkelling 

* Feeding the Fish

Day 6 - Feb 16^th 2016 - Phuket 

We did a full day Bike Tour of Phuket on our last day of vacation. We went to several places around the city. Few of them are:

* Big Budha

* Lunch at Mountain Restaurant

* And concluded our vacation at Patong Beach with an exotic Thai Massage on the Beach!

Instead of pictures I decided to share a short video of our Thailand trip: