A Visit To The Astounding Land Of Thai

My family and I had the time of our lives during our visit to Thailand. I just want to share our experience for anyone who is considering a similar trip. We spent 5 days in Phuket and 5 in Bangkok.

Thailand is a popular destination which, my friends, I do not doubt because it did seem like the whole world’s population had descended upon Thailand right from Suvarnabhumi Airport.

Before I start, let’s agree that there is a lot of content available online about places to visit in Thailand, places to visit etc. Soooo, I will not get into that but would recommend looking at this comprehensive article by Travel Triangle. I will simply shed a bit of light on our experience, bust some myths and bless you with life-saving recommendations – You’re Welcome!

TICKETS

I booked our return tickets with an agent called E-dreams. They were offering an inviting Nairobi – Thailand return-ticket deal via China Southern Airlines so I hopped onto that real quick and secured tickets as early as September 2019. All was well until it was time to change my sister’s booking details because the surname I used isn’t the same one on her passport – long story for another day.

My family and I spent the next three months trying to get through to the agent and reach some sort of solution. Eventually in December we decided to cancel her booking and go with Cheapoair but by this time the price had skyrocketed. E-dreams co-operated with the cancellation-refund option because of course *rolls eyes hysterically* they get to keep 20% of the amount paid. They did refund the 80% within 5 days but frankly I can’t tell if it’s because we spent so much money calling them or the fasting and prayer affair we embarked on.

VISA AND TRANSITS

Acquiring visa was easy-peasy! My sister submitted our documents at the Thai Embassy in Nairobi on the 29 Nov 2019 and we had the visa by 6 Dec 2019. Contrary to the terrifying online reviews about China Southern, we had a great experience. Our concern was quality and quantity of food, general treatment and customer service *read racism* and transits. The food was perfect – good taste and adequate. The staff were very friendly as well.

If you fly China Southern you will have transits through Changsha and Guangzhou in China like we did. I understand this policy was introduced by the airline in June 2019. Our flight back to Nairobi included a 22hr overnight transit. An immigration officer at the China Embassy in Kenya insisted that although Kenyans qualify for a 24hr visa-free transit, we should play safe by securing a visa to China. She proceeded to insist that without it, we run the risk of being detained in a cell in case, for some reason, we stay in China for more than 24hrs.

As you can imagine, my mum and sister compiled horror stories of people detained at airports and cells in China to get me to pay a whole US$420 extra visa cost. Nope. Nope. Nope. I was not falling for that story because I had a gut feeling that we’d be okay without the visa. I utilized my crisis communication and change management skills on them and we eventually decided to travel without the visa to China.

ALL WENT WELL. *Can I get an Ameeen*

So, our trip to Thailand was basically: Nairobi – Changsha – Guangzhou – Bangkok (Suvarnabhumi Airport) – Phuket and from Thailand: Phuket – Bangkok (Don Mueang Airport) – Changsha – Guangzhou – Nairobi. Yep! You guessed it: Long trip! 30hrs of fly time (minus the transits)

Other flights offer shorter schedules but we hoped to have a feel of different airports, respective duty-free goods etc. which was attained. Thanks to the long transit we also had a chance to explore China, shop and eat.

ACCOMMODATION

We secured accommodation on AirBnb. In Phuket, we stayed at The Deck. The location was extremely convenient. We could walk to most of the crucial places e.g Jungecylon, Patong Beach and most importantly – the exalted Bangla Road. Food vendors on the street, massage parlors and souvenir shops were spread out through the entire street making it easy to indulge. If you love sea-food, just prepare to consume a year long of stock.

In Bangkok we stayed at a residential owned by a helpful but rather antsy old lady. It was also in a suburb area of the city so getting around meant taking taxis which was not ideal. We caught the BTS Skytrain whenever we could though. Do take the train so you can have a chance to view the city from above.

NB: We always go for self-contained houses so we can cook whatever we want esp. for breakfast or in case hunger strikes in the middle of the night. We also never take expensive accommodation so we can spend more on visiting places, wine + dine, relaxation, shopping and in-like luxuries.

PHUKET VS BANGKOK

Knowing what I know, I would spend 7 days in Phuket and 3 in Bangkok.

I enjoyed Phuket more because immediately you’re out of your accommodation you could feel the festive vibes looming – tourists everywhere laughing, the smell of the beach, music. We made friends with a teacher from Abu Dhabi who introduced us to a lovely Ireland-Thai couple who own a tour company. Through them we got to visit several gems of Thai: Jungecylon, Simon Cabaret Fantasy Show, Phi Phi Islands, Had Kata Noi and the Tiger Kingdom.

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The island hopping is a tour you need to make! It is so pristine you get sucked into a serene sense of calmness and urge to enjoy life. You will forget your reality – that crazy ex, your annoying landlord, your bills, conniving co-workers, excess belly fat, E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G! At least for the moment.

If you enjoy a loud, hype night out – Bangla Road is the place! It’s a 100 metres long street of clubs with different kinds of music. What I didn’t like was the pole dancers in the clubs and the ping pong shows salespeople shoving pamphlets with nude people in our faces. I wish there was the choice to enjoy yourself without being a part of that. Well, my mum was with us so…you know…awkwaaard! Some families had their kids out there, others pushing them on strollers so I guess your comfort at Bangla Road really is up to whatever floats your boat.

We had lots of fun plus of course a bucket of vodka. The surprising thing is that we had no hangover the next day. I do not want to imagine how I would be if I did this in Nairobi.

If you enjoy antique shopping and taking pictures in medieval kind of scenes, hop onto a local bus to Old Phuket town. Great for souvenir shopping too!

Bangkok on the other had was generally quiet. I found it comparatively expensive including street food. Coming from Nairobi, Bangkok was basically city life. We did get to visit: The Chatuchak Market and also go on a relaxing evening boat ride along the Chao Praya river, periodically getting off to see different sites along the river like Wat Pho, Grand Palace, Wat Arun and Khao San Road.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Ladies and gentlemen, if you see a travel agent by the name E-dreams and think of falling for their great deals – ABORT MISSION!
2. Book your flights way in advance to save on cost.
3. Use an agency whose communication details are available online and reachable otherwise you will need all the chill pills in existence.
4. Dress very warm if you’re flying China Southern. The flight was rather cold despite the blanket they offer.
5. If you have a long transit through China, check the entry requirements. Also, the Chinese immigration officers were rather helpful and polite to us.
6. You may want to pick Oubon International for a transit hotel because of the shopping complex and food bazaar a short walk away.
7. Take note that language barrier is a huge problem in this part of the world and thanks to an English speaker in the restaurant we ended up eating pork and not the frog meat we almost ordered after falling for the tantalizing pic on the menu.
8. Check luggage requirements with each flight. We flew Thai Lion Air from Phuket to Bangkok and turns out they only allow 7kgs luggage and you have to pay for all the rest so we had to pay for a total of 90kgs of luggage. Whew! No need to explain how excruciatingly painful that was.
9. If transiting to Phuket using a domestic flight, time management is key. Maneuvering through SVB can be rather confusing especially since we had to go through the health scan, immigration and collect our luggage. Make sure you schedule enough time to finish with this and catch the next flight. We made sure that our next flight departs from SVB but if your depart from DMK then your stakes of missing the next flight are even higher.
10. Go early morning for the trip along the Chao Praya River so you fully enjoy the tourist sites along the river and get value for money.
11. If you get on this boat, return to the departure station about 15 minutes early. We arrived on time, and the boat had already left. We tried to complain to the lady at the docking station who shrugged her shoulders and did not utilize any of the customer care skills she learnt /if at all any. Thanks to language difference, we too had a few nasty words for her in Kiswahili. Definitely source of a good evening laugh.
12. Spend more time in the islands, maybe spend a night where you can for max relaxation. I hear Krabi is even more beautiful!
13. A common question I get from friends is about the cost of trips. I believe if you have US$2000 you can comfortably take a trip to Thailand – as a Kenyan.
14. If you like shopping and sight-seeing like my ladies do, your bank account isn’t the only thing you’ll be stretching. By the time we were getting back to Kenya we had all kinds of problems with our feet from walking around all day. Get hold of an efficient massage balm.
15. Chinese and Thai people are still taking pictures of Africans in 2020, so just keep calm and go on about your tourism. Speaking of which, to my surprise we met only a handful of Africans through our entire trip in Thailand. I understand that only an average of 158,630 visitors are registered annually from Africa mainly South Africa (80,109). There is definitely opportunity to encroach with our melanin awesomeness in this end of the world. We even had to give the DJ at some nice spot along Bangla Road some African songs to play (You’re Welcome WizKid) and everyone was jamming.