Hello!
This is our first travel post and our first oversees trip together! Prior to this flight we only had experienced Mexico but this time we traveled much further.
At the beginning we thought the trip would be really inexpensive, but for we ran into some bad luck.
While living in Sunnyvale, CA (in the Bay Area) we booked roundtrip flight tickets to Phuket, Thailand. Heidy had already traveled to Thailand and wanted to mainly concentrate in the South Islands to visit the heavenly Beaches.
Friday Nov. 17, 2017. Our flight departed from San Francisco’s International Airport to Phuket, Thailand. We booked the flight through CheapOair with China Eastern. There was a scale in Shanghai Pu Dong Airport. For a total flight time of 18h 25m. $500 dlls
Sunday Nov. 19, 2017. We arrived to Phuket at 2 am and stayed at My Place Phuket for the night, which was about 15 minutes from the airport. We spent one night for $22 dlls. The room was unforgettably humid and we could not cool out bodies from the heat. We even took a cold shower that helped us just for a while. We did have an AC in the room, but took a while to get the room to a comfortable temperature.
We woke up late and had breakfast in The NaiYang Cafe and ordered a plentiful breakfast all for $648 Bahts.
After breakfast, we took a Taxi to the bus station for $350 Bahts. Our goal for the day was to reach Surat Thani.
At the bus stop we waited about an our for the bus and paid $230 Bahts per person.
We reached Surat Thani at 5pm (3 hour bus ride) and reached a travel agency. Here we got a travel package that would take us to the pier in a bus, round trip to Ko Sumai vía Ferry and trip back to Krabi for $1,300 Bahts
We took of at 5pm and on the way got snacks $79 Bahts – where I got chips that tasted horrible and looked like Cheese Ruffles.
We got to Ko Sumai at 9PM and had to get a Taxi to the Coco Palm Resort for $400 Bahts – this was a really high price to pay for the Tuk Tuk, the driver told us that the hotel was way off the main road and would struggle to take us there. She tried to explain how she was going to get there, but we were tired and wanted to rest, so we accepted reluctantly. We later found out that she took us in circles to validate the high cost. When possible, ask around for cost in advance from multiple drivers.
We arrived to the resort Coco Palm Beach Resort at 9:30PM. We reserved the resort through SnapTravel for $33dlls per night. We stopped for dinner just outside of the hotel, I must say it was one of the best Pad Thai I have ever had $500 Bahts.
Monday Nov. 20, 2017 We woke up in the bungalow, it was fine for me but terrible for Heidy. She woke up with multiple mosquito bites and struggled to had a good night sleep. We did experience a great breakfast included with the reservation. Because we woke up very early we were the only ones in the restaurant and had the beach and the Pool for ourselves. We enjoyed a ride to the restaurant by a Club Driver and tipped him $50 Bahts.
I must say that in all Thai breakfast there are some sausage links that I cannot withstand the taste of, but the eggs are exquisite. They have kind of an orange yolk, but very tasty.
The Pool was great and enjoyed it very much. We took a lot of pictures and videos. We danced in the beach as well.
We only spent 1 day but the resort but we enjoyed it quite a lot.
Check out was at 12PM. At this time I checked how much money we had left $7,180 Bahts and $150 dlls. And 6 days left.
We asked for the Golf Cart driver to take us to the main road for a $60 Baht tip. And then we haggled to get a really good Taxi ride for $200 Bahts. We told the driver we needed to catch the ferry and have him the tickets, he told us that we were late. Fortunately he rushed and passed by other vehicles to catch it. We thanked him and ran to the counter to get across. We were the second to last to board the Ferry. That was an adventure into itself.
We bought some snacks $55 Bahts and played Uno on our 2 hour Ferry ride to the pier. Once we arrived we also had to run to catch the bus to the city. We spent an hour on the bus. Which was also paid.
We arrived to Surat Thani early to catch the bus to Krabi and we were hungry so we decided to get a quick bite in the Surat Market that was just down the street. We got good food and drinks for $130 Bahts and made some time for the bus at the Travel Agency. They told us that they would let us know when it got here. Here we learned our biggest lesson: do not pay in advance if you know you will come back to the tour guide for additional service. Here is what happened:
We sat at a waiting area inside the agency eating our food. At this time Heidy’s phone was low in battery and charged the phone. While we waited we saw multiple buses stop and pick up other tourist and locals, but we were not reminded that our bus was one of those. Hopefully he returned for us. But we quickly realized that Heidy’s phone was missing and we had to step out of the bus and walk back. We missed our bus to Krabi and got into an argument with the lady that sold us the tickets. We haggled and managed to get them down to $360 Bahts.
We highly recommend visiting Ko Sumui, and the best way to get there is taking a plane from Phuket, this would be less time and cost consuming.
We arrived to Krabi at 10 PM. Heidy took care of the hotel and sounded promising. At the bus stop we had to take a Tuk Tuk for $100 Bahts and had to find another Tuk Tuk to take us to the hotel. We eventually found out that it was $700 Baths because our two-night reservation was pretty far off from civilization. The hotel was pretty bad, it had huge roaches and the breakfast was horrible. We had to leave after the first night.
Once back we were back in Krabi, we had breakfast and booked a trip to to Railay Beach for the afternoon. While we waited for our trip to start, we decided to book a day trip to the Phi Phi Islands.
The boat trip was great, we had a lot of fun and sunburn.