Thailand in 7 minutes
Ever wondered how to better spend your time in Thailand? This article ain't gonna give you all the answers, although it may help you with your travel planning and point you out a couple of interesting places that you don't know of. I will share with you some of the places that we’ve visited during our stay with some photos and brief descriptions.
You can choose between four types of experiences in Thailand:
- Water activities like visiting a variety of unique islands, beaches, boat trips, snorkeling, or scuba diving.
- Visiting Thailand's natural wonders (hot springs and natural emerald lakes), beautiful national parks, jungles, finding your hiking trail or hidden temples.
- Urban experiences - partying, enjoying the nightlife, visiting Bangkok, Pucket or any other big and crowded city.
- Relaxing in amazing hotels located in the jungle, having daily massages, visiting night markets, going to a tailor, taking cookery lessons or just finding your place that will bring you peace and joy.
Good to know:
- All interesting activities can be booked from the hotel. Always check what is included in the price and try to negotiate it (if you want) in a polite way. The end price depends on the number of activities that you pay at once. TBH, they expect you to bargain :)
- Most of the tours take half-day, which means that you can leave something else for the evenings as well, like visiting the local markets, having dinner in authentic restaurants, night bars, or attending a muay-thai match.
- Don't fully trust the weather forecast, for our November stay it was supposed to rain every day for a couple of hours, but it didn't (light 40-minute rain is nothing).
- Have Travel Rest Days, or simply put, a time to recharge, refill and reflect. Thailand is a unique country, and you should be aware of what’s happening around you and be mentally and physically in good shape to better enjoy it.
Let’s begin!
🎉 Patong city, Phuket
Lively place, full of bars, restaurants, massage studious and street markets. If you are looking for a party place with socializing opportunities you found it. Keep in mind that there is no pause button once you are there. You might get dizzy from all the noise, the smell and this overwhelming feeling of people passing quickly around you or just yelling at you to move out of their way or buy something.
🚤 Phang-nga bay (video)
It’s a great whole-day trip that includes visiting a small village called Koh Panyee, a Cave, a couple of beautiful beaches and a Canoeing. We had lunch in the village after visiting some beautiful islands and sightseeing a lot of limestone rocks standing vertically out of the emerald-green water. I definitely recommend considering the speed boat, as it is private (up to 10 people) and more comfortable. The price of 2500 Baths includes — transport, guide, drinks and fruits on the boat, one big meal, and other small ones.
🌊 Similan Islands
Have you been to Greece? It's similar but more crowded 😇 The most interesting part of the trip was that we did our first snorkeling for the trip, check out this video.
We had only оnе hour on the beach, to rest, although we couldn’t do so, because of the many tourists around us and all the yelling take-a-picture-of-me-here people. The worst part of this day was the transfer! It felt like forever to get there, 2 and a half hours from Patong, Phuket by shuttle (Thai’s are the worst drivers that I’ve ever seen) and then an hour and fifteen minutes to the first island.
In general, I its a must-see destination and I would recommend you to go there if you already had a good rest the day before, there is no time for catching your breath and enjoying the trip, everything is happening really fast and you are always with 40+ people around you.
🧘🏻♂️ Relax, Hotels and Massages
Yep, that's a thing! We choose Ao Nang province for our majority of days to stay in Thailand, because of its beautiful beaches, islands, great hotels, and surrounding nature.
For a Thai massage, you should definitely consider places like Let’s Relax, Radarom Spa and some of the cheaper alternatives. Prices vary from 300 to 1000 Baths and now I regret that I didn't find time for more massages a day :) Everywhere you will feel the warm and welcoming energy from the studios.. having a Pandan or Matcha tea when you enter the place and right before leaving, mmm.
We stayed at Ao Nang Fiore Resort, a magnificent place that I highly recommend.
🌴 Into the jungle
Krabi is well-known for its areas of outstanding natural beauties and one place that should make your must-see list is the Emerald Pool in the Thung Teao Forest Natural Park. Located in a forest rich in bio-diversity, with a nature trail and a crystal pond. Near the Khao Pra-Bang Kram area, you can find also the unique Natural Hot Springs and on your way back you may consider visiting the Tiger Cave Temple. I will leave the pictures to speak for themselves.
🏄🏻♂️ Phi Phi islands
My suggestion would be not to visit them with a tour operation because the tours are very intense and full of people. There are plenty of things that you can do there on your own, having your own time
Something interesting about the way Thailand preserves its natural wonders— Maya bay beach in Ko Phi Phi Le (“The Beach” movie) would be closed indefinitely until the ecosystem fully recovers.
🤿 Ao Nang 7 Islands Tour — One of our best days in Thailand!
We went on the 7 islands tour, organized by Mariam. We went to a beautiful beach on Ko Tup and had a wonderful time there, and after a few more islands we had dinner at Railey beach watching the final lights of the day, just beautiful.
After the dinner we went for night snorkeling with luminescent plankton in the open ocean, this was one of the best experiences ever, it was dark and you were supposed to get in the water, holding a rope connected to the boat at the end. Darkness. Open see. Magnificent.
There was a surprise from the tour operators at the end of the day, although I won't say more, except that Mariam just knows how to entertain and take care of their tourists.
I hope these brief explanations with visuals will help your trip planning. To wrap this up I will just say — do your own research, find time to plan most of your trip but also be open to spontaneous moments and enjoy this unique country and culture 🙏
