Thanksgiving in Thailand

One of the beautiful temples in Bangkok

Last October, an alert came through my phone for a Groupon deal with Affordable Asia to China.  I’ve been looking to go to China for a while and the prices listed were very inexpensive.  I followed the company’s site and  ended up finding a 9 night 7 day trip to Thailand that peaked my interest even more for the week of Thanksgiving.  The price was outstanding and transportation, hotels, and a lot of activities were included – which meant I could sit back and enjoy the ride.  I’ve been on tours in the past to Egypt, Peru, and Iceland, and have always found them stress-free and flexible.  Since I don’t know Thai and wanted to see as much as possible of the country in a short week, a tour seemed like the best way to go.

 I remember sitting in my seat on the Amtrak train from Boston to NYC at the start of my long journey reading my itinerary for the next 9 days split between 4 days in Bangkok and 3 days in Phuket.  While all the activities looked incredibly exciting, the one thing that stood out most on the page was the 16 hour flight from JFK to Hong Kong.  I really hoped that flight was going to be worth it.  Even now that I reflect back on it, I’m not so sure. Luckily, 2 Benadryl and a glass of wine turned that long flight into a blissful slumber land leaving me forgetting about jet lag and arriving on Thai time (more or less).

Day 2 - Arrival in Bangkok

I want this little guy!

My flight arrived in Bangkok at 7pm on day 2 and I was met outside baggage claim by the tour guide.  All the guides had signs and flags and we were able to find our tour easily.  We sat in traffic for a while (this was a common theme in ALL of Thailand at any time of day or night) before arriving at our hotel, the Centara Grand at Central Plaza Ladprao . The hotel was tastefully decorated and the room was very comfortable and on par with a typical Marriot/Westin style hotel.  In addition, it was actually attached to a shopping mall through the parking lot, so we made a quick trip that night to pick up a case of water and some snacks before crashing for the night.  I always recommend getting a case of water at the beginning of a trip where it is not safe to drink water from the tap.  You never know if buying it on the street (even from a bottle) is safe. The one quirk of this hotel as well as our hotel in Phuket is that the bathroom was separated from the bedroom area by a glass wall looking into the shower.  While this does open up the room quite a bit, you can bet I was quickly looking for a button to lower the curtain and close off the view.  Weirdly, the button to close off the view was located outside of the bathroom area, meaning the person in control is the viewer not the person in the shower... hmm.

Day 3 - Temples and Shopping

Breakfast at the hotel was included each day.  The buffet spread was actually very nice and had a mix of American and Thai breakfast options.  Most days, I had some fried rice, a croissant, and some bacon to start my day.  That definitely beats my toast and coffee routine back home.  A couple mornings I felt more adventurous and included some stir fried beef and bok choy or a dumpling or two - truly a breakfast of champions!  At 9 AM that morning,  the group met our guide, Nop, in the lobby and piled into the big bus for a full day of sight-seeing. Nop's English was a little difficult to understand, but he did manage to get us everywhere on time and handled a couple of disgruntled tour members well enough throughout the trip.

The itinerary for the day began with a bus ride out to the Temple of the Golden Buddha.  As a first stop, this was a fun way to view a piece of Thai history and take lots of pictures.  It's not very big in comparison to the other temple we visited that day, but it was still beautiful and made of solid gold!  Our guide told us they know this because when they moved the statue a while back, it actually cracked in half… awesome. The next stop was supposed to be a stroll through the Flower Market at Paklong Talat, but really we only quickly walked down a street past some stalls to get to the next destination.  I'm not sure that this could be considered an attraction in our itinerary and should have been taken off.  The next real stop was at the Temple of the Reclining Buddha.  It was awesome!  There were actually multiple buildings and lots of different buddhas to see, but the Reclining Buddha was HUGE!  I'm very glad this was included in our tour as I have never see anything like it before.  It was bigger than the height of a house and impossible to get in a single picture, haha!

Lunch was included in the tour that day at a nearby hotel.  We ate at hotels and buffets a lot.  I’m guessing this is because they are generally safe and offer a variety with little prep time. There were a lot of options to choose from, but I quickly found that 90% of everything in the traditional Thai spread was insanely spicy!  Not just like wow, this is hot... no, it was like coughing and crying spicy.  I believe I ate a large portion of plain white rice and about 9 mini cakes for dessert.  The last stop of the day tour was at a "Gem factory".  I put that in quotes because this was the first of several stops where we were clearly there to shop and spend money so that our tour guide could get a kick back.  We arrived at the "factory" and were ushered into a room to watch a 1970's movie with horrible acting and music explaining the process of finding gems in Thailand.  10 minutes later, we walked out and were immediately paired up with our very own sales consultant and escorted onto the sales floor.  I had no interest in buying any of the gaudy pieces of jewelry on display, so I spent the next 40 minutes sitting in the shop staring at all the suckers being talked into a sale.

Classical Thai dancers

Eventually we got back to the hotel with barely enough time for a quick shower before getting back in a van with a smaller group.  That evening, we booked the optional Classical Thai dance shower and dinner.  This was the second time I was disappointed on the tour - not a good track record so far for Affordable Asia.  We arrived at the Riverfront shopping/entertainment area called Asiatique and were corralled into a restaurant/theater named Calypso Cabaret.  The advertisements for this particular establishment promoted a slightly different type of show than what I was expecting.  I will not go into detail here, but if you click on the link and look around, you'll get the idea.  We all sat at long cafeteria style tables pretty far back from the stage and were served our pre-fixe meals.  The food and service were bad, but the show was even worse.  It was all very amateur, and while I enjoyed the costumes, this was not at all what I was expecting for the price I paid for the optional tour.  I don't think they even advertise the classic Thai dance show on their website.   On the upside, Asiatique was a lot of fun.  The open air market seemed endless and there was a really good variety of shopping available.  I picked up some good trinkets here; I really should have bought more since I found the best deals (after haggling of course) in this location.

Day 4 - Relax and Restore

Floating market

I have a friend living in Bangkok, so I wanted to make sure to have a free day to meet up with her and relax a bit in between tour days.  While the optional day tour was tempting, I later found out from fellow tourists who went that the only thing worth seeing that day was the Grand Palace.  I probably should have made some alternative plans to see that on my own.  Instead, I did some research on the hotel in advance and saw  a special offer for a 3 hour spa package for what was the equivalent of $75 USD.  Since you can't get a deal like that in the US, I booked it.  That morning, I received a phone call in the room to confirm my appointment and headed down to the spa about 20 minutes early.  I was quickly greeted and asked to fill out an information form.   When that was done, I was escorted to the room.  The spa area in general was pretty small, but I did like that there were individual shower/changing areas attached to each massage room.  The masseuse turned on the steam function in the shower and I relaxed in there for 15 minutes before coming out and enjoying treatment #1 - a full body scrub.  The scrub smelled so much like a sugar cookie, I was very tempted to eat in when she got closer to my face.  Once that was all washed off, I had a relaxing body massage, followed by a facial massage and Indian head massage.  3 hours later, I was pleasantly relaxed and smelling of food.  A few of my fellow tourists shared their "Thai massage" stories from other massage parlors and they all left beaten up and in pain.  I guess I did not get the traditional Thai massage at the hotel, but I don't think I missed out on anything there.



Piling on the bamboo rafts

 That night, I took the public transportation system (subway and sky train) down to the large shopping complex, CentralWorld, for shopping and dinner with my friend. We walked around the mall to look at the shops as well as the stalls/stores in MBK nearby.  MBK was a waste of time since everything was very crowded and looked to be of a poor quality.  I don’t have a lot of patience for shopping in places like that.  We ate dinner in the mall and while the food was very good, the company was even better!  I hadn't seen my friend in several years, so that night was all about catching up!  Before heading home, we all jumped in a tuk tuk to the nearest subway station so that I could ride back to the hotel without making any transfers on my own.  The tuk tuk ride was a lot of fun and I'm glad I went with a local so she knew we were headed to the right destination, because I was totally lost!

Day 5 - Elephant Camp and Bamboo Rafts

Elephant ride through the river

The next day we chose to go on the optional tour with almost everyone else!  It was a packed bus and a long day of traveling.  I really wish tour groups would indicate travel time on their itineraries.  While I would not have changed my decision to go on this day tour, I would have liked to know the return trip back to the hotel was going to take 3 hours beforehand so I could pack additional snacks.
 We left after an early breakfast for the Damnern Saduak Floating Market.  Almost 2 hours of bus riding later, our group split up into smaller groups and jumped in some boats.  There were some boats guided by a man rowing, but ours had a small motor.  We floated through various canals and stands setup  on the edge of the water with souvenirs and trinkets.  The only problem was that if you pointed at anything or showed interest for more than 3 seconds, the shop owner would reach out with a long hook and pull your boat next to their stall.   You would then be subjected immediately to a high pressure sale.  We quickly learned not to make eye contact unless you were ready to buy.  The fruit sales were all down smaller canals that our boat could not fit into, so I think we missed out on some of the sights.  I wouldn't have purchased any fruit there anyways, so I wasn’t too disappointed.
 The next stop was yet another buffet lunch in Kanchanaburi on the River Kwai.  I ate my fill of white rice (no mini cakes this time) and some mildly spicy drunken noodles before browsing yet another souvenir market.  Another 45 minute drive took us to the highlights of the day, and possibly the entire tour - the elephant camp and bamboo rafting tour! There were a lot of people at the elephant camp when we arrived, so our guide decided we would do the rafting tour first.  ¾ of the group heard him say this and ran to change into their swimsuits.  The other ¼ was out of luck because by the time we were in tow to the rafting launch point, their suits were back on the main bus about a mile away.  We all put on our life jackets and walked out onto the bamboo rafts.  The river was quiet and perfectly serene… Some local guides steered us around small rapids and gave the signal for people to jump in.  I do not like swimming in water than I cannot see through, so I opted out from that part of the activity.

Me and a "baby" elephant

When we rode back to the Elephant Camp, there was no time to change back into normal clothes (sorry, swimmers!).  We all lined up to climb up the small platform and sit in a mini bench strapped to the back of an elephant.  I managed to purchase a small bag of bananas as elephants treats before I got on.  The first thing I realized about elephants from sitting on its back is that they have hair on their head.  I think they have it elsewhere too, but that made me laugh.  The second thing I noticed is that they sweat just like we do – and boy was it hot out!  The ride lasted about 30 minutes or so and was the perfect amount of time.  We waded through some water and through the woods.  At one point, my guide jumped off to go chew on some tobacco he got from a random woman (neighbor?  Wife?).  The elephant continued to walk on his own for a solid 5 minutes while he watched from the ground.  When he was done, he told me to slide down from the bench and ride the elephant from its shoulders!  What a fabulous idea!!   I immediately went right to the same spot he was sitting in and started to feed my elephant bananas until the guide yelled at me because the elephant stopped moving and just kept eating.   After the ride, the baby elephants put on a little 5 minute show for us really showing how intelligent they can be… they got to eat the rest of my bananas!  We got back to the city pretty late that evening and packed up our bags since we had to fly to Phuket the next day.

Day 6 - Phuket



Another beautiful temple in Phuket

The morning flight to Phuket was very well organized.  Our guide took us through the group check-in area and we had enough time to wander around for a few minutes before boarding the plane.  Upon arriving in Phuket, we were met with some unpleasant news.  Instead of going to the hotel to drop everything off and find some lunch, we were going to stop at a rest stop / grocery store to get something quickly to eat and spend the rest of the day on the bus “touring” around Phuket.  The tour piece included more driving (aka “City Tour”) and a forced shopping stop at a cashew “factory”. We did stop at a park with a lovely viewpoint of the Andaman Sea for photos as well as a beautiful monestary. 
Before checking into the hotel, our guide told us the optional evening activity would have to be pushed to the last night so that we could squeeze in all of our stops that day.  The hotel was beautiful!  The rooms were nicely decorated, there was an infinity pool overlooking the private beach, and we were back in time for happy hour at the pool bar.  We ended up eating that evening at the hotel restaurant before going to bed. 

Day 7 - Baby Tigers and the Beach

Traditional Thai fishing boat

The next day was a free day from the tour since I didn’t choose to go  on the optional day tour to James Bond island.  The people I spoke with who did go seemed to have a great time, but I didn't need two full days on boats back to back in the sun.  It ended up working out very well, because I got to do 2 very exciting things instead: Patong Beach and Tiger Kingdom!  The only downside to the hotel we stayed at was the proximity to the popular areas of Phuket, so we kind of got the raw end of the deal with cab fares.  In addition, a lot of cab drivers didn’t even want to drive all the way out to our hotel from the main attractions.  We managed to organize a driver through the hotel concierge to take us to Tiger Kingdom, wait, and then drive us from Tiger Kingdom to Patong beach. 

Tiger Kingdom was a small zoo-like area with Tigers of all ages.  There were multiple packages to choose from depending on what size tiger you wanted to interact with.  My companion had no desire to play with any tigers larger than a standard dog, so our package was limited to the smallest tigers only, haha.  You only have about 10 minutes to interact with each tiger, so I guess there is not a lot of value for the investment (I think translated to about $90/person with photo CD), but I would have happily paid twice the cost for my experience.  After washing my hands and changing into some slippers, I walked into a cage that held two 1.5 month old tiger cubs.  Initially they seemed sleepy, but after a minute or so, they started to play with each other and chase the toys in the cage.  The photographer was great and took a lot of pictures.   I also got to play with a much sleepier 2.5 month old cub, who was the size of a medium sized dog, except with much larger paws.  The photo CD was ready about 10 minutes after our time was up and there were computers where you can view your images and make sure everything works accordingly.  I really liked the way this small business was run –very efficient, yet enjoyable.

Swimming stop on our boat tour to Phi Phi Island

We found our driver waiting in the rest area and he took us to the next stop, Patong Beach.  Patong is the main beach attraction on Phuket.  There are a lot of nearby hotels, restaurants, and shops right on the main drag.  We walked through a small market where I picked up a beach mat and sat down on the beach to soak in the sun.  The water was like a warm bath.  The swimming paired with a few coconut drinks made for an awesome way to enjoy my free day.  Later in the afternoon it started to rain.  A lot of people were trying to catch cabs back to their hotels, but we decided to get some food and wait it out.  Rule #1 of eating in a foreign country is to go somewhere where there is a crowd of people already eating.  I enjoyed some incredible fried rice served up in a fresh pineapple and a cold Singha beer.   We eventually got a cab back to hotel and spent the evening in the pool drinking mai tai’s.

Day 8 - Snorkeling

Me and a tiger cub!

After such an exciting prior day, I was looking forward to a day on a boat.  The group was bused to the marina for a brief orientation.  We were all on the same boat with a small Russian group.  Unfortunately, the Russian guide was much louder and more vocal than our guide, who didn’t say anything the entire time.  I do think my experience could have been better with a guide that spoke more often and more clearly.

We stopped several times during the day for snorkeling and/or swimming.  Some stops were better than others, but I did like how there was a nice supply of water and fruit drinks for us to consumer on the boat to prevent dehydration.  One of the swimming stops was in a cove with a rock wall that some people were climbing and jumping off of into the ocean.  It was one of the more beautiful locations from the entire trip.  Even though there were 10+ boats in the cove, it was still incredible.   Some of the less exciting stops were a drive by of monkey island, and khai island.  We were supposed to have time to relax at the last stop, but it was the smallest of all the islands and there was no shade anywhere andif you wanted to rent a chair/umbrella, you had to pay even more and tip of course.  I don’t like when day tours are not all inclusive because then you had to worry about keeping cash on you, or on your towel, while you swim in the ocean.  I didn’t even get in the water on the last stop.  This ended up being a good decision since there was an influx in sea lice and almost everyone who went in got bit!  In retrospect, I don’t think I would book that excursion again.  I would much rather have booked a boat ride independently on one of the traditional Thai fishing boats.

Random souvenir from Fantasea...

Later that afternoon, we went back to the hotel to shower and change before going to Fantasea.  The website describes this place as a Disney style amusement park with so much fun for all ages!  In actuality, it was an interesting blend of amusement park, creepy carnival, and rave.  There were amusement park games, lots of shops, and a chance to ride an elephant.  There were also lots of food and treat stands and flashing neon lights everywhere, but the evening centered around 1) buffet dinner and 2) show.  The food was very mediocre, but the show was awesome.  Not quite cirque du soleil, not quite a musical, not quite a variety show… I’d say it was a mix of almost anything you can think of in about 60 minutes.  I only wish we had better seats, since I hate sitting in the nosebleeds for anything!   We had about 20 minutes or so after the show to collect our belongings and head back to the bus to the hotel.

Day 9 - Departure

The last morning was supposed to be dedicated to a leisurely breakfast and packing before going back to the airport for the long trip back home.  Unfortunately, I must have eaten something bad the night before at the buffet because I spent most of the morning in the bathroom.  I will spare the details on this post, but that trip home seemed 10 times longer than when I arrived.  When we finally landed back in New York my first thought was joy that if I had to go to the hospital, I'd be back in the US.  Fortunately, that wasn't necessary, but I was very glad to be home.