Metadata:
- Date: 14.2.2016 (friendship day in Finland)
- Days before trip 0
- Travelers: Jouni, Reetta, Aleksi and Laura
- Where now: In southern Finland (Tuusula)
- Whether: About 0 celsius and env full of snow (well there is snow, but maybe 20 cm at max)
- Readiness: More or less all done including online checking. Also Thailand maps downloaded to Here app to ensure that not getting lost.
Thoughts from the trip are that this one could hold also some sport in it like jogging + snorkeling etc. Few boat etc trips and good food and naturally need to try out few chili beans... As said actual trip not yet started so let's see how this story evolves :)
Prob. in Thailand not so much snow so one pic on flight day .. Anyway as flight is scheduled to start on midnight so better to take a little bit of rest before it...
Day 1-4 (15.2-19.2):
Correct no snow, when we arrived there was +41 c (in the bus). Once in hotel only around 35 c so quite ok.. During evening checking swimming pool and then we were ready for the bed.
Couple of first days (15-16) we spent on hotel area and in near proximity area meaning Kamala beach, beach is about 100 m from hotel.. In first few days we got to understand how really hot sun is in here so have used lot's and lot's of sun oil etc. Water and climate is extremely pleasant, but if one is not careful it can lead to pain.... so sun oil is a must and one should use common sense for staying in sun.
On Wednesday (17.2) we took elephant trekking and naturally spent time on pool and restaurants as always. On Thursday we took our own organized trip to Bang Tao and from there to rock island and to Banana beach. In these islands we did some snorkeling and got lot's of sunshine.
At a time writing this is Friday (19 th) and so far we have just stayed on beach and and have tried ring ride (ring with is drawn by muscle boat) & it was super fun. In food vise have visited different good quality restaurants and personally have eaten most of time thai food, which has been spicy but kind of easy for me (so a bit of disappointment, maybe I should encourage them).
Tomorrow (20 th) plan is to visit phi phi and bamboo island so lot's of snorkeling and sun included. This time it's Tjareborg organized trip so let's see will it be as good as already done trip. Now need to go to pool so writing more later. By the way no "loska" in Thailand :)
One more thing, when coming to Thailand notice that wine is expensive !!!!!
Day 5-6 (20-21.2):
Reporting from yesterday, which was extremely nice day. We went for the Phi Phi island and to Bamboo island trip. However it was more than that as we visited few other places ex shore where Leonardo Di Capri did his beach movie.Boat trip all alone was nice as it was a big muscle boat capable of having + 30 people and had 3 x 225 horse power motors so there was some speed in it also. We had possibilities to visit different beaches and do snorkeling. One surprise also for me when we did snorkeling that some fishes did a bit of attacks and bite us to the legs a bit. It was still nice thing to see close by different color wishes.
At evening nice dinner (duck brest for me and tuna steak for the lady, kids always take either hamburger, chicken nuggets, meatboals..).
We also bought kind of lamp,,, not having good word for it, but it has kind of candle inside and when you let it go it fly up to kilometer etc and you can see your own light ball / box flying in heights.. I googled it and it's sky lantern, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_lantern
Today (21 st) nothing special, planning to swim and relax as always... well I visited gym during morning...
Day 7 (22.2):
Gym, Tiger Kingdom, swimming and eating.... Tiger kingdom was great, but it could easily be improved. Main point still that ladies got hug tigers and it was defenetly better than korkeasaari.
Few images from Tiger Kingdom
Need to add one hot Thai Food image also..
23.2 Eating + swimming + hair cut...
Got my hair done for summer look.. and cannot do more than wonder how good professionals there are. It took a while, but it was well worth of it even that I personally have to say. Cost was 7.5 euros ... so compering to Finland 26 euros or around that it's a bargain.
24.2 Jung Ceylon mall:
Great and modern place with full of staff playing with their own smartphones and not much interest to sell foreigners. However prizes were higher than in Finland (is this possible ?) so I guess we were not target group either...
We anyway went for big market inside of mall and bough variety of food and drink etc related stuff. Also bough something small from outside. I knew it, but as have not traveled much lately, it was a bit of surprise that you don't package stuff to bags by yourself... it's done for you. this would be needed in Finland also :)
Anyway great visit and saw long Patong Beach (have seen couple of times already...). Worth of visit even if one need to have small escape from sun for a while.
25.2 Dolphins
Amazing dolphins and seal show (best in Asia as they claim), great performance and defensively worth of visit. Book trip if possible, but book it elsewhere than from hotel as then you get rid of extra expensives as we did.
26-29.2 Rest of the vacations days
Visit on Central Festival (11 km from Kamala beach) was a great trip also. We bought new mobile phone for Laura and it was bought from Samsung store. Also other great purchases done for example massage related etc. Plenty of swimming and few trips to local markets. Additionally have started running so few times on beach and nearby streets to keep me ongoing and kind of healthy.
Today 29 leaving to home, actually bus leaving 2 pm (40 min from now ...) and then trip back to land of ice and snow starts... Wouldn't be finish, if I wouldn't complain at all, but really this day to day heat not good for me all year around so preferring changing seasons like we in Finland have.
