Phuket and Krabi tour
Day
1: Travel from Bengaluru to Phuket
We flew from Bengaluru to Bangkok on 25th October (Thai airways costs around 42 to 45 K INR for two if you book early). Thai airways leave from Bengaluru at 00:30 (IST) and reaches Bangkok airport at 5:30 (BANGKOK LOCAL TIME). The first thing you need to do is get "Visa on arrival" (You need to get "visa on arrival" at Bangkok, even though you are travelling to Phuket). We reached the visa on arrival counter by 6:00 (BANGKOK LOCAL TIME). Make sure to have your documents at hand to avoid any delays at the arrival counter. It took us around an hour and half for the complete process.
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Visa
on arrival requirement:
- Passport or
travel document with a validity not less than 6 months.
- Visa
application form (Download here: Thai on arrival visa pdf )
- One recent
(4x6)cm. visa photograph of the applicant.
- Round-trip
air ticket or e-ticket (paid in full)
- Proof of
financial means (20,000 baht per person) will most likely be asked.
- Fee for visa
in Baht (Not applicable until April 2020 for Indians)
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Our next flight was at 8:30 and boarding would
start at 8:00. Since we finished the visa process by 7:30, we had to rush to
the Immigration counter and Security check which took around 15 min and we
could finally reach the boarding gate before the scheduled time. It is better
to book the connecting flight with at least 3 hours of layover.
We landed at Phuket International Airport at
10:00 and took a minibus to travel to the hotel. The minibus costs around 180
Baht/person for Patong area and 200 Baht/person for Karon area but you need to
wait for 15 to 30 minutes until bus gets full. Taxi is also available and it
costs around 800 Baht.
We booked Sawaddi Patong
Resort which is located 10 min away (by walk) from the
Patong city centre (i.e., Jungceylon mall and Bangla walking street). We first
bought the true-move tourist SIM from the 7-Eleven shop which costed 299 Baht/8
days validity. These 7-Eleven shops are found in every lane in the city.
Day
2: Phang Nga Bay and James Bond Tour by Luxury Boat
For three days we booked the tour from India
through phukettravelcompany.com.An air conditioned
Minibus picked us up at 7.45 A.M. The first place is the Samet Nangshe View
Point it took one and half hour to reach there and it’s a beautiful view point.
The travel company suspected rain in the evening, so we made the trip in the
morning to avoid it. But at any other season of the year you will be fascinated
with the sunset view from that point.
Later we travelled to the Klong Khien Pier
where we started our journey to Phang Nag Bay and James Bond Island. We booked
a luxury cruise that had both AC and non-AC seating. James Bond Island is the
small needle-shaped island and is officially called Tapu, but it's known as
James Bond Island because it appeared in 1974's The Man with the Golden Gun
movie. The big boat will not reach to the Island so they transferred us from
the boat to Island by a long tail boat.
Buffet lunch was then served in the boat as it
passed the surreal limestone mountains. You will barely get vegetarian food;
however, you will get some fruits. Then the Boat reached the Hong Island where
we started our Canoeing which is one of the famous canoe sites in Phang
Nga. We canoed for 20 mins and returned back to our boat. After canoeing we
could spend time in the boat or even take a dip in the sea and swim around.
Tea/Coffee and snacks were available on the boat. Later we came back Klong
Khien Pier and returned to our hotel by 5:30 P.M.
Day
3: Hanuman World
Hanuman world is a forest park where you can
do tree top zip lining. We booked hanuman B+ Package. The
price varies from 2700 to 3100 baht/person. We were made to wear all the safety
gears and then headed to the zipline. There are 16 Platforms, 10 zip lines,3
abseil points, a sky bridge, spiral staircase, honeymoon slink and a sky walk.
The highlight was 800m jungle roller coaster. All our activities took around
two hours to complete. Later they served seasonal fruit juice and seasonal
fruits and we returned to our hotel for the day.
After taking two hours of rest, we still had
some time to explore the Phuket city. Jungceylon Mall was the nearest place to
our hotel and if you walk further towards the beach you can find the Bangla
walking street. This street is LIT all night where you can experience the
exclusive Phuket night life.
Day
4: Phi Phi 4 Island Green Island Khai Nai Island by Speed Boat
The Toyota minibus picked us up from our hotel
at 7:30 and took us to the Phetphoom pier. They provided us the life jackets
and we went on the speed boat which carried around 40 people headed towards
green Island for Snorkeling and Swimming. I did snorkel for
the first time and I don't even know to swim. Yet, I managed to enjoy it
because of the life jacket and the company of my wife. They stopped here for 30
mins and moved to Khai Nui Island, again for snorkeling and swimming. Later
we moved around Phi Phi Lay Island, Viking Cave and stopped at Monkey Beach.
There are monkeys running around the beach and you can have a small photoshoot
here. Then the boat departed to Phi Phi Don Island for lunch. Here we had
more vegetarian food options. After lunch the boat took us to Khai Island.
Here we had enough time to relax on the beach and go swimming in the sea. Then
we arrived back to the pier and then returned back to our hotel.
As mentioned before, we had only booked a
three-day package prior to our tour. We still had five days in hand and had a
brief idea on what we wanted to do. Also, we had done our research on few other
travel agencies and decided to book tours for the next five days through Phuket
travel company. The package prices are negotiable and we got a pretty good
deal.
Day
5: Phuket City Tour and Fantasea Show
We
booked half day city tour which covered the following places:
- Kata Viewpoint
- Meet the Baby Elephant
- Big Buddha
- Wat Chalong Temple
- Cashew-Nut factory
- Tiger Kingdom
In the evening we went to Phuket Fantasea Show
which is a Cultural theme park. Here, we got to experience and visit tiger
jungle adventure, also enjoy a good Indian buffet dinner.
Day
6: Travel to Krabi
We traveled to Krabi by ferry. A minibus
picked us up from our hotel and took us to the pier at Phuket.
From the pier we traveled to Krabi Ao Nang
pier in a ferry and to Sugar marina Cliff hanger hotel on road. The hotel has a
beautiful cliff view. In the evening we went shopping. Most of the shops are
surprisingly owned by Indians. There is a good collection of T-shirts, footwear
and bags.
Day
7: Krabi 4 Island tour speed boat
On the next day we luckily met our friend in
Krabi. He had just arrived from Bangkok and both of us booked the same tour
package for the day.
At first the speed boat headed to Poda
Island, where we had to pay 400 Baht as national park fee (It’s usually not
included in the package). Poda island is a white sandy beach and is an ideal
place for swimming and sunbath. We did some good photo session then moved on to
the chicken Island for lunch. The vegetarian fried rice was good. You find a
place change into swim clothes, in case you want to go swimming. Then in
between chicken and Tub island our boat stopped for snorkeling. Then visited
Tub Island for swimming. Later we travelled to Pranang cave beach. From the
beach we returned back to Ao Nang pier and then to our hotel.
You will get plenty of good massage center
both in Krabi and Phuket. We got out foot massaged for 250 Baht which was
helped us relax from all our adventures.
There are plenty of Indian restaurants
available in Krabi and the best one we would recommend is madras café.
Day
8: Krabi day tour (Tiger Cave Temple Hot Spring Emerald Pool Tour)
This was the final day of our vacation. We
arrived at Hot Spring after travelling for an hour. It’s a jungle bath tub with a temperature of 40 to 50 degree
Celsius. After relaxing into bath tub we headed to the Emerald pool which is a
20 min journey from hot spring. We hiked into the rain forest for
around 20 minutes and arrived at emerald pool for swimming. This is the biggest
natural pool. And its about 4-5ft high.
Then, we had our lunch near emerald pool and later
visited the Tiger Cave Temple and returned back to Hotel.
Day
9: Travel back home
We left our Krabi hotel at 10:30 and it took
us almost three hours to reach Phuket airport as we booked a minibus. Our
Phuket to Bangkok flight was at 4:30 P.M and there was three- and half-hour
layover time and then we reached Bengaluru at 11.30 P.M (IST).
Some
important tips
Best
places to eat:
Phuket:
Madras cafe, Burger King (for veg option), The pizza company.
Krabi:
Madrass Cafe, Bombay Palace Indian restaurant
Local
Tour package company : ( But it was booked from Phuket
travel company)
At
Phuket: Seaangelcruise, Amaging Phuket travel,Phetphoomtravel,Hanuman world
At
Krabi: All tours by Au Nang Travel and Tour co.,LTD
Hotel:
Phuket:
Sawaddi patong
Krabi:
Sugar marina Cliffhanger
Things
to buy on 1st day:
Tourist
SIM, Mobile plastic cover may require during water sport, Swim suite.
Currency
convert:
You
can carry Dollar currency and convert it in the city or you can also carry an
International Forex card which will be accepted in most of the restaurants.
For
more detail watch below video:
Wonderful blog post here you have shared great information with us about Phuket Tours. Thanks for this informative post.
ReplyDeleteA wonderful blog.You write simple, unique blogs that anyone can understand. Our 5 Nights 6 Days Phuket Krabi Tour Package includes airfare, hotels, activities and transfers.
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