Ferie til Thailand

[Lina Linnea]

Jeg og samboeren skal reise til Thailand

Skal først ha 3 netter i Bangkok før turen går videre til Phuket i 11 dager.

Har bestillt på et (familie)hotel i Patong, men etter å ha lest litt, så tror jeg vi heller kunne tenkt oss en roligere by og strand..

Noen med erfaringer fra Patong/Karon/Kata beach?

Vil dere anbefale Karon eller Kata og hvorfor??

Vi er ute etter en fin strand, godt utvalg av gode restauranter, og litt shopping

Endret 10. oktober 2007 av Lina Linnea

[reiseglad]

Jeg og samboeren skal reise til Thailand

Skal først ha 3 netter i Bangkok før turen går videre til Phuket i 11 dager.

Har bestillt på et (familie)hotel i Patong, men etter å ha lest litt, så tror jeg vi heller kunne tenkt oss en roligere by og strand..

Noen med erfaringer fra Patong/Karon/Kata beach?

Vil dere anbefale Karon eller Kata og hvorfor??

Vi er ute etter en fin strand, godt utvalg av gode restauranter, og litt shopping

Karon er roligere enn Patong, men likevel stort nok til at der finnes en rekke restauranter og shoppingmuligheter (turistting, for det meste.....) Kata er rolig med nokså begrensede muligheter for shopping, men der er likevel masse spisesteder. Det koster ikke mye å ta en bil fra Kata til Karon hvis du vil tilbringe kvelden på et litt større sted, Kata er roligere og triveligere (synes jeg). Har også bodd i Kata Noi, og der er det kjemperolig og litt kjedelig.

[Lina Linnea]

takk for svar gjest1

Står mellom Karon og Kata beach..

Noen flere med erfaringer fra noen av stedene?

[Ciara]

Kata

[Grissini]

Kata, uten tvil! God tur og vær forberedt på mange skandinavere

[Lina Linnea]

har bestillt på et SPA-hotell på Kata beach!

Gleder oss!! :love:

Noen som har tips til utflukter, skreddere, resturanter etc??

[gard]

Hei

Vet ikke om det er så mye til hjelp men her er noen tanker jeg gjorde meg da jeg besøkte Bangkok for litt over en uke siden.

*************

Some of you (the ones with a good memory ) will probably remember that I went to Bangkok and Thailand in May and I posted a little story about my “first impressions” of the city. I’m in Bangkok again at the moment in connection with a short business trip to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and on the way back I had to stop in Bangkok for a meeting so I got a couple of days here.

Once again I have ventured of around in the city. I have seen many of the major sights and that actually feels very comfortable as I don’t have to rush around to cover that and I’m also pretty relaxed when it comes to all the tuk-tuk drivers that comes up me to try to drag me along on some sort of bogus tour, the various tailors that will give me a “special deal” etc.

Yesterday I started out on the river express boat but this was actually a bit different compared to what I had taken before. This cost 20 Baht and featured a lady speaking away about the various sights along the river. Unfortunately it was not that easy to hear what she was saying as a combination of the bad speakers, her English and the roaring noise of the engine. I jumped of in Chinatown and walked around there for a while and it is fascinating to walk thru these narrow streets. There are small stores every where and even if the streets are narrow you will have to be on a look out as people transport merchandise in there on both motorcycles and carriages. In some cases it was unbelievable to see how much you are able to pile up on one little scooter. As always it was warm but when you can get a bottle of water for 10 Baht it is not a problem keeping hydrated…and for another 10 you get a Redbull to keep up the Energy. Some of the stores had a funny combination of stuff for sale…one had cotton buds, car wax, toys etc.

After a stroll in the area I went back to the river and took a regular express boat to the Grand Palace stop where I got of but I walked along the river banks. There are still some old soi’s (side streets) going down towards the river. I went into one and it was like peeking into someone’s living room as I could see people sleeping on the floors in some houses, kids playing or watching TV, a dog barking like mad at one of the doors etc. The alley was really dark and it seemed like it gets flooded if the level on the river rises and hence the houses was elevated about 1 ½ meters.

There are stray dogs and stray cats all over the place but they don’t seem to be aggressive. So even if I sometimes have been a bit nervous from stepping over dogs that are sleeping in the middle of the pavement, I have never experienced being attacked. Along the way around the University there were lots of fake stuff for sale…and it was funny to see a police patrol sitting with their feet up in their car right next to these people selling fake stuff. I assume that even Thailand has laws about selling fake stuff and that the police is supposed to enforce this.

We had lunch at a small place about 10 minutes from Khao San Road. It was a place run by some Indians I think so there speciality was roti with various dips. We had a full meal for 4 guys for about 350 baht. I was glad we had a Thai guy with us so that he could take care of the ordering of food as it didn’t seem like they spoke much English. But the funniest part was going to the bathroom. I had to step over parts of the stuff that were coming in for dish washing and manoeuvre myself into the small toilet. When I closed the door it felt like there was a 100 degrees in there and I assume that this was because the kitchen ovens were right next to the toilet walls so it was radiating heat :d . It was of course a standard squatting toilet but for a guy that does not really matter that much.

We did make a short stop on Khao San Road. This is not my favorite place in Bangkok and we just had a beer here and people would come up to us all the time asking if we wanted to buy various stuff. After you have said no ten times to the same thing, it starts getting a bit annoying. But I have gotten pretty relaxed when people come up to me and say “Hello my friend” and have a special offer. I just smile back and sometime I play along for a while and it is always fun to pull their legs when they ask you where you are from. I sometimes say “East Timor” or Namibia just to give them a hard time :d

To get back to the hotel we took a river bus from around the Golden mount area to Nana. If you don’t walk around Bangkok you will not notice that there are still quite a few canals but they are quite well hidden. But for 12 baht we took the boat but again I guess it helps to have local knowledge or to be with someone that speaks the language :d I now think I have taken most varieties of public transportation in Bangkok ranging from subway, skytrain, bus, Chao Praya main river express boat, taxi, motorcycle taxi, the side river “bus” etc.

Bangkok is still one of my favorite cities and I’m sorry that my English is not better as I don’t think that I am able to really capture the atmosphere of Bangkok in words. But for me it is still an adventure to walk the streets of Bangkok as it is so different from back home in Norway. The food stalls that you can find everywhere (and that has great food by the way), the heat, the exhaust and roars of buses that are driving past you, the combination of smells from food, incense, sewer, the tuk-tuk drivers that are trying to find out where you are going and trying to convince you to go on a tour.

I’m actually a bit sad and happy that I have been here a number of times before. Sad as there will never be anything like a first time in Bangkok and getting an overdose of all senses compared to what I’m used to. But I’m also happy that I have been here before so I can avoid some of the problems that you can run into here.

I’m not sure that I have really given any useful information here but I’ll be happy to try to answer any questions. But I hope that I have managed to give some sort of description of the city. If you get a chance to go here, don’t hesitate. This is a city that deserves a few days so don’t plan for a 1 or 2 day stay…go for 4-5 days instead. Bangkok, what a city!

[Gjest Gjest]

en liten advarsel: sex turismen er ganske åpenlys og selv om det er kjæresten man har på armen så regn med at man (begge) kan bli litt plaget av innpåslitne og veldig direkte tilbud om man går utenfor hotellområdene ol. så ikkeno for sjenerte sjeler ;-)

men digger thailand for det....bare ikke de verste områdene på phuket :D

[Gjest Gjest]

Kata beach blir helt sikkert supert! Anbefaler at dere spiser å restauranten som ligger for enden av stranden, til venstre når du står med nesen mot stranden. Dersom man kommer før solnedgang, kan man få sitte slik at man ser ut over stranden etter hvert som det mørkner. Helt fantastisk, og utrolig romantisk. Maten er god, men det er omgivelsene som gjør plassen så flott. Tror det er et tysk par som driver restauranten, i tillegg har de noen rom som de leier ut. Plassen anbefales på det varmeste.

I tillegg er det greit å kjøpe båt turer til Phi Phi island fra området. Vi dro både på tur i en speedbåt, i tllegg til at vi kjøpte en tur med ferge og overnatting. Anbefaler fergeturen, da turen med speedbåt ble noe hektisk. På Phi Phi er det fint å leie longtailbåt med sjåfør ut til de nydeligste områder for snorkling og bading - der man får være helt for seg selv. Båten betaler man for ETTER turen, og helst bør du ha båtføreren til være sammen med dere under hele turen. (ikke send han tilbake, med avtale om å bli hentet senere. Hvis dere likevel velger å gjøre det, så IKKE betal noe før etterpå. Det er en noe annen kultur der, enn å andre steder Thailand.)

Når det gjelder skreddere, anbefaler jeg dere til å gjøre bestillinger tidlig under oppholdet, slik at dere har god til til prøving og tilpassing. Men styr gjerne unna lokale skreddere i Kata, Karon og Patong, og heller handle slike varer i byen.

Ha en riktig god tur.