My Thai Honeymoon Itinerary

It has been nearly an year since I planned my honeymoon trip to Thailand and almost 7+ months since we went. Yet the itinerary and trip is as fresh in my mind as if it happened yesterday. Ever since my wife & I returned to India and to reality, we wanted to blog about this for a lot of reasons. Of those one major reason is for the benefit of friends & family. If ever anybody wanna make a trip to Thailand, what should one hope for and what should one be wary off.

So blog is the step towards that final ultimate travelogue. Eventually, I hope to write about the entire trip broken down day-by-day. For starters here is
the itinerary we hoped to follow & what we finally followed. Few points to note here are:

  1. NO CITY. ONLY BEACH.” was our theme.
  2. My itinerary is made for a leisure time and not with an idea of seeing everything in that place.
  3. This was a honeymoon trip yet I did not want to splurge on hotel rooms at the same time did not want to be stingy.
  4. Both my wife & I like to explore the city at our own pace and, more importantly, at our liking. So, thankfully, we did not opt for city-tours. (pssst… a word of advice these city tours are terrible. AVOID IT! Will explain in detail about my Bangkok city tour!)
  5. Our main focus was on adventure. We wanted to try some romantic adventure like snorkelling, etc…
  6. Spend 2 days travelling or activity based & take rest for a day” was the motto. And, it worked out pretty well.
  7. We both are vegetarians and Thailand isn’t easy on us. So we eat primarily at Indian restaurants, which are pretty expensive.

Day 1 – Arrive at Phuket

View from the Balcony of Ocean View Hotel
View from the Balcony of Ocean View Hotel
  • Travel from Bangalore to Bangkok to Phuket: Start from Bangalore at 0100 hrs, reached Bangkok at 0615 hrs and reach Phuket at 0920 hrs. Note, for on-arrival VISA get it done at Bangkok else you can’t proceed further. It costs about THB 1000/person. We ended up taking the fast-track visa processing (means lesser people in the queue) as we were late to reach the VISA counter. The fast-track stuff costs you an additional THB 200/person.
  • Check-in at hotel (Ocean View Phuket Hotel): Loved this hotel. Truly ocean view from the balcony though ocean is, at least, 500 mts away aerially. Take the highest floor as possible. Note, this has a super steep climb and it is near impossible to climb. So, the additional cost of THB 500 for a private taxi from airport is worth it. Trust me! We did not know this and we spent 20+ mins climbing with our super heavy luggage.
  • Rent a bike: After enquiring, we realized the hotel rentals were similarly priced & seemed pretty reliable. Also they have your details so it is quicker. THB 200 for 24 hours and it is worth every penny.
  • Patong Beach: Rode to Patong Beach. This is a bloody crowded place but yet it was beautiful in itself. This is a very commercial spot.

Day 2 – Phuket

Big Buddha Road
Big Buddha Road
  • Ride to Karon beach: A brilliant beach. Beautiful. Much less crowded than Patong. Should have spent more time here though. Because of the rains the sky & the climate was fabulous.
  • Ride to Big Buddha on the hill: Since it had rained a bit that day the ride up the hill was beautiful. The big buddha wasn’t spectacular but on the way down we stopped to soak in the view of Kata beach & it was breathtaking. Don’t miss out riding up the hill; that means, do not take any covered transport like a car. Btw, Tuk-Tuks can’t climb up and so don’t believe the tuk-tuk drivers.
  • Phuket Fantasea in the evening: Firstly, nice Indian food there. The show started great but kinda fizzled down; still worth the THB 1800/head spent. Don’t buy the tickets online instead walk around the Patong street and you will find roadside stalls selling packages. Pick up from there to get a brilliant discount. You can even talk them to give you additional stuff like pick & drop et al.
  • Walked up & down Bangla street: This is where the major sex-tourism action happens. Thankfully this street does not gross you out and so it is safe for a newly married couple to walk up & down too 🙂 Also, this is where the nightlife is kicking and alive. There are wonderful pubs. Nice market to purchase stuff (including artistic showpieces) even at 2am into the night. The nightlife does not even spill outside this street. Don’t miss visiting this street.

Day 3 – Phuket

Original Plan!

  • Check-out & head to Maya bay camping. But due to clearance problem this plan got cancelled from the organizer’s side. So we spent another day at Phuket. Thankfully there were vacant rooms & so we did not have a problem extending our stay.
  • I would suggest to do the Maya Bay camping. This would have been super awesome & exciting.

    Surin Beach
    Surin Beach

But what we did!

  • Surin Beach: Did not mind missing Maya Bay because of this beach. Another one of the beautiful beaches around Phuket. Don’t miss riding up to this spot. I mean, it ride to this spot. Beautiful ride.
  • Sarasin bridge: We had heard this is a beautiful bridge. Wanted to check it out. Since we had all day at hand, we just did a 50Km one-way ride to Sarasin bridge on the other side of the Phuket Airport. Well, the bridge wasn’t fabulous but we found a private beach (i.e., a beach with no one else around) and it was fabulous.
  • Bangla street was our point of entertainment by this time. We just walked up & down! 🙂

Day 4 – Arrive at Kho Phi Phi

Beach view while having dinner
Beach view while having dinner

Original Plan

  • Go from Maya bay to Kho Phi Phi

Final Execution

  • Phuket to Kho Phi Phi island: Booked a ferry ticket with a pick up facility. Was extremely useful. Please go early & get into the ferry else you will be forced to sit on the top for 2+ hours baking under super hot sun!!
  • Check-in to hotel: I had booked Phi Phi Natural resort at Laem Tong Beach side and this was my bestest part of the trip. We truly had a private beach and with just 4 resorts covering that side of the island even the common/public side of the beach wasn’t crowded at all. Worth 8K/night in here.
  • Dinner by the beach side 🙂

Day 5 – Maya Bay

Monkey Beach
Monkey Beach
  • Maya bay island: Another best memories during the trip was this day. Took a private long-tail boat all for ourselves with a super helpful driver(?). He took us to over 6+ islands including Maya Bay. He chose perfect spots for us to snorkel and another brilliant spot for open sea diving. He clicked pictures for us (in my D-SLR!!). The lunch was provided. All for a mere THB 3000!! Remember to ask for Monkey Beach.
  • Dinner at Holiday Inn Resort. Nice dinner. Don’t miss out the tender coconut in there. Very tasty. They even had a live show with few dances.In fact, they danced to a Bollywood number as well. 🙂

 

 

Day 6 – Arrive at Krabi

  • Kho Phi Phi to Krabi: Ferry ride and this time around we were informed enough to sit inside the boat! 🙂
  • Check-in at hotel: We stayed at Aonang Goodwill hotel and it was pretty decent too. We rented out a bike, at THB 150/day and road the streets nearby.
Noppharat Thara Beach
Noppharat Thara Beach

Day 7 – Krabi & Arrive at Bangkok

  • Noppharat Thara beach: What a splendid beauty this was. It was a super shallow beach. There as many tiny tiny island less than 100mts off the beach and you can literally walk to it!! We couldn’t spend more than 1 hour here and it was bad we couldn’t. Very quite and peaceful yet fabulous.
  • Shopping: Right along side the Aonang beach, there are brilliant shops. Check out beautiful showpieces and stuff in here. Very beautiful.
  • Fly to Bangkok & check in at hotel: We chose KC Place hotel as it was near the local rail link + close to Pratunam market. Do take the rail-link else your private taxi is 10 times costlier; rail-link was THB 80 for 2 where as the private taxi was THB 800 (also drive time of 90 mins while the rail-link drop us in 30!)

Day 8 – Bangkok

  • City Tour: This was the highlight of my trip. THE BIGGEST mistake. Such a waste of time. Please don’t even try this. They take you to a tailor shop to get you a jacket stitched!!! Morning was supremely wasted! But do visit Wat Pho. Beautiful.
  • Sky Bar: This is located on the 87th floor of Baiyoke towers, right next building to where we stayed. Don’t miss the opportunity to view Bangkok city from the 88th revolving roof top! Beautiful view.
  • Pratunam market shopping: This is where India lives. No, I am serious. Everything about this is India. There is a road side chai-point. The place is called ‘INDIRA’ square. You find the SAGARs & DARSHINIs (i.e., restaurants) here. You are even greeted with a ‘Namaste Bhai sahed!’ So super cheap shopping can be done here. Don’t miss it.
Wat Pho
Wat Pho

Day 9 – Bangkok & Return to Bangalore

  • Shopping: Forgot the name of the mall we had been; I think it is MBK mall. It is a 7 floored huge mall with everything available in it. We got tired just walking around trying to figure what all in there. We even went into a audio/video store and sat for a while :-D. We wanted to pick up a laptop and so spent the last few hours in here.
  • Back to Bangalore: Rail-link into the airport & back!! 🙂

Hope this was useful. 🙂

 

Additional Info

  • For pictures please look into my FB.
  • I took Thai Airways. “Bangalore-Bangkok-Phuket” and “Krabi-Bangkok-Bangalore” costed me Rs. 26000/person.
  • I used AGODA to book my hotels and it was a smooth experience.
  • My overall budget including airfare was less than Rs. 1,00,000/- (for both of us)

 

Follow up blogs

 

One thought on “My Thai Honeymoon Itinerary

Leave a Reply