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Trip – Thailand – Phuket – Phi Phi Islands

The Phi Phi Island in Thailand was our last travel destination during our internship in Singapore. We have heard so much about this paradise on earth, that we decided to see on our own how this one of the most beautiful islands in Thailand looks like.

Almost everybody knows that Phi Phi Islands, as well as Phuket and the whole Thai west coast have been heavily devastated by the Tsunami on 26. Dec 2004. We also knew it before going to Phi Phi and therefore were prepared to see many signs of the catastrophe that happened and took as many as 800 casualties. This is a huge number of people taking into account that the island is actually very small and there aren’t so many permanent inhabitants. In the dry season (Nov-March) however, there are thousands of tourists, as it was when the Tsunami came….

The greater was our surprise to arrive on the island and discover a true paradise. Actually, a huge deal of work has been done during the last 1.5 years, and in order to find the “tsunami” on Phi Phi you have to look for it pretty hard. On the opposite side to Ton Sai Beach, there are many palms without tops, and leaves, and the coast still looks a little empty. You can also see many houses and new hotels being built. On Ton Sai Beach, where the “down town” is situated everything looks NORMAL. Like nothing happened. Most shops and mini markets look and smell very new….the only proof that there has been a lot of reconstructing action taking place in the last 18 months.

Now let me present you some facts from our romantic weekend on Phi Phi We stayed in the Bay View Resort – a definitely good accommodation tip from Stephan. The chalets were very cozy and clean and all of them with closer or more distant sea view. The hotel is situated about 15min walk from the busy Phi Phi Village at the Ton Sai Beach and about 10 minutes away from the Long Beach where we spent very lazy and relaxing Saturday.

The sea was pretty rough at that time, since we went to Phi Phi in the middle of the monsoon season. Yet, we had two beautiful sunny days on that weekend, which is actually considered as very lucky! and we really appreciated and enjoyed that delightful weather! On Saturday evening we set off to town and found that you can have a real fish feast! Numerous cosy restaurants situated by the beach offer enormous variety of sea food, you simply cannot miss if you ever have the opportunity to spend your holiday on Phi Phi.

On Sunday, after a very relaxing first day, the time has come for a real adventure: a boat trip to Ko Phi Ley, a small island nearby, about 20 minutes ride. It is a real “tourist” destination since “the Beach” – the famous movie with the Lenardo di Caprio was shot there. However, since we set off pretty early, we managed to avoid the crowd and enjoy almost alone the breathtaking Maya Bay on Phi Phi Ley (check the pictures)! And the weather was beautiful again, despite the rainy season Only a bit choppy …so the boat trip to this small rocky island was really exciting! After the Maya Bay we did 1 hour snorkeling! We were really really impressed by what we saw underwater.

Phi Phi has one of the most beautiful corals in the world. And even Tsunami did not destroy too much of this nature’s miracle. We were lucky to have a very special guide during our Sunday escapade. Andrew has been living in Phi Phi for 12 years now, and he was one of those who survived Tsunami and with his “dive camp” team contributed greatly to the Phi Phi’s restoration and bringing the island back to life . He explained that they removed tens of tones of rubbish from the coast. If you would like to find out more about the Island’s restoration, take a look at the divecamp website: http://www.phiphidivecamp.com/. Thanks Andrew for the great snorkeling trip and for saving the paradise for all those that are still about to spend their unforgetfull holiday on Phi Phi.We really can recommend him and his crew from the Adventure Tours for a great snorkeling trip.

Oh did I forget to mention how we got to the Phi Phi Island from Singapore? I always have problems with the chronology, sorry about that So first we took a JetStarAsia tiny plane to Pukhet, and then took a ferry to Phi Phi (about 2 hours), depending on the weather conditions… Our weather conditions on Friday afternoon were extremely bad – meaning, I , and many other people on the boat, got really sea sick. I should have taken some medicines before the ferry trip, did not know however that it could get that bad.

Well, for the way back on Sunday I really prepared myself, mentally and physically….to our relief the weather got much better, and I managed to get by without throwing up. So after this experience I can only tell you: “always be prepared!” Don’t let the monsoon destroy your good mood and exotic holiday! It didn’t destroy ours for sure – we had a wonderful (last for me, and second last for Patric) weekend in South East Asia! A perfect end of our stay in Singapur and a perfect beginning of the next part of our lives!

Trip: Thailand – Bangkok – One City A Million Faces

Bangkok – [Slideshow] – Bangkok City was our second trip with Verena, our friend from Germany, paying us a 10 day visit. We planned this trip some weeks ahead and bought thailand flight tickets from Tigerairways (they often have promotions for thailand flights) for about 220 SGD (108€). Joana and her boyfriend Micha joined us for the trip to Bangkok.
Day 1 – Friday:

The tigerairways flight was scheduled for 1pm. Since we took a whole day off, Agusia came up with a brilliant idea – Why not go to the German bakery “Werners Oven” to have breakfast before leaving for Bangkok? So we packed our stuff and took a taxi to the Upper East Coast Road to enjoy the famous Brezel at Werners Oven (They taste good, but no comparison to the Tübinger Brezels from Bäcker Walker )

Unlike our previous flight to Hanoi, we flew from the new Budget Terminal at Changi Airport that recently opened and where TigerAirways is operating. The flight was relaxing and nothing special, everybody was excited to see Bangkok.
As we deboarded we could immediately feel the overwhelming heat! Bangkok is definitely hotter than Singapore. After Aga got her Visa (1000THB for all new EU members), we took a taxi (surprisingly they drive with meter!) and headed for our hotel using the expressway (2 toll stations 20 + 40THB). Our hotel – The Twin Towers Hotel – made a nice and clean impression at the first glance. It was pretty luxurious even though it wasn’t really expensive. In our package the price for a double-room was 1650THB++ (Don’t forget the ++ 1650*1,17=1930,50THB – 40€).

We changed quickly and left the hotel very soon again, curious to explore Bangkok: There were two really memorable things we experienced during our first evening in Thailand’s capital. We had a very very local dinner, some fried noodles prepared on the street! Delicious, simple and very cheap! (15THB-0,30 EUR).
And the second thing I obviously need to mention and highly recommend is the Sirocco Bar (Thanks Thomas for this perfect hint). It offers a truly breathtaking view of Bangkok, from an open terrace on the 64th floor of the State Tower! We had to admit that the Bagkok Scirocco Bar rates much much higher comparing to the famous New Asia Bar at the top of Swiss Hotel in Singapore.

This is a quick overview of what we did in Bangkok that day.
(Our rating: [+++]= must see | [++]= ok-lah | [+]= if you have enough time)

[+] Rehearsal 60th anniversary of the king on the river
[+] Chinatown flower market
[+++] Wat Po – The temple of the reclining Buddah at night
[++] Fried noodles prepared on the street
[+++] Sirocco Bar 64th floor of the State Tower
[+++] PatPong night market – the local “red light district”, nice Thai ladies tempt …and seem to be pretty convincing if you look inside any of the loud bars apart from THIS kind of pleasures, there is a market, a real bargaining paradise selling all possible fakes you can imagine!

Day 2 – Saturday:

On Saturday morning we got up early, since we were told to go to the Chatuchuk market in the morning because of the heat. We took the Skytrain from the MBK Center to the last very northern station Mo Chit. From there it was just a couple minutes walk to the Chatuchuk market: we just followed the crowd, as everybody was heading there. The weekend market is supposed to be Thailands largest market and consists of almost 15.000 stalls. It is really crowded and very hot! But most important- very interesting! You can find everything there from jewelry over jeans to dogs and cats. Actually the pets they sell there do not have an easy life – most of the times, the poor poppies are packed into tiny cages, squeezed together, sweating and whining. Amazing, if you compare to it the European attitude to animals, treated like humans almost or even making up for babies in some families… (sad but true). Anyways, you should plan about 2h for the market tour, and if you are a “shop-aholic” 3-4 should be enough
Our plan was to visit the temples after the Chatuchuk market, but after we got more and more into shopping mood we changed our minds and postponed the temple tour to Sunday. Verena and Aga decided, they still need to train bargaining… and in order to do that they needed some more shops to visit So the next stop was the MBK or Mahbunkrong shopping center. You can buy a lot of clothes there ! If I remember right it was on the 4th of the 8 floor high building. We bought some jeans (Diesel) and t-shirts. After another 2 hours of shopping, in order to polish the almost perfect bargaining skills, we headed for the Paragon shopping center at Siam Square. In the basement, we discovered a brand new Aquarium. We didn’t go in (cover charge was 450THB) but it looked pretty impressive on the leaflets we saw.
Back at the hotel after a nice chill out in the hotel swimming pool we decided to continue the shopping marathon an went to the Suan Lom Night Bazaar.

[+++] The Chatuchak market – only on Saturday and Sunday
[+++] Mabunkrong MBK shopping center – a must if you want to buy jeans
[++] The Paragon, Siam Paragon, Aqaurium – nice but ,compared to the markets, expensive shopping center, Aqaurium looked nice
[+++] Suan Lom Night Bazar – a government financed market with nice local food and a lot of art pieces and handcraft, a heaven for poeple that love to shop for interior decoration, next to the market there is a – oktober fest like- huge open air pub serving German beer (Erdinger & Paulaner) and playing live music.

Day 3 – Sunday:

We started this very exciting day with a boat tour on the small canals of Thonburi, the oldest part of town, even a former capital during the reign of King Taksin. Thonburi is also called “Venice of Asia” because of this small canals. We started our boat tour at a pier near the Grand Palace. It was about 1500 THB for 1,5 hours. This is something you definitely should not miss in Bangkok. Pictures enclosed speak for themselves!
After the boat tour we visited the Grand Palace and Wat Po Temple – the huge temple site. It was all in all very impressive, but the heat was almost impossible to stand! In order to close the Bangkok visit in a perfect way, you should choose the very original Thai massage at the Wat Po Massage School. The atmosphere there was really amazing! And the massage felt really good after 3 days of exhausting sightseeing! The place is not easy to find but you will get a half an hour massage for 220THB and an hour for 330THB. Value for money!!

[+++] Boat tour on Chao Phraya River and the small canals of Thonburi - Experience it and you will know why they name Bangkok the Venice of Asia
[++] TucTuc tour – Actually the rating is [+++] but once you got stuck in traffic you would wish to sit in a taxi
[+++] Grand Palace - mandatory
[+++] Wat Poo - mandatory
[+++] Thai Massage at Wat Po - very relaxing and very unique, almost spiritual experience, do not miss !
[++] Starbucks – finally the price meets the quality of the coffee, enjoy

Bangkok prejudices:

Bangkok is a dirty city – Hmm yes and no! The air is polluted due to the heavy traffic and the TucTucs, but there are also very nice and clean areas in Bangkok
Bangkok taxidrivers want to scam you all the time – Yes they try, but once you understand how to bargain, 80% of them will drive with meter.
Bangkok is only for sex-tourists – NO, definitely not!
The Chatuchuk market is HOT and it is HOT there – Yes and Yes indeed! better go there in the early morning
Bangkok is cheap – Yes, almost everything is cheap there

What else is there to say, actually nothing more except – Thank you all (Joana, Micha, Verena, Aga & Patric) for this great trip to one of the most exciting cities we have visited in Asia so far.
Photos are to follow soon ….

Bangkok – [Slideshow]

You can find other pictures on Joanas website –> click here

Trip – Thailand – Phuket – Phi Phi Islands

Trip: Thailand – Bangkok – One City A Million Faces

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