8 weeks in thailand next summer, june, july 2010?

Jonny13

hey

Going to thailand for a little over 8 weeks next summer and want to start saving now? How much spending money do you think i will need. Not living too luxorious but not slummin it altogether. Plannin on travellin a bit too.

Will it be sunny der?

Wat are the best cities/islands/towns?

What day trips things to do would you recommend?

Cheers

Frisbee

Was there for seven weeks across June, July and August this year.

Spent 1600 euro, 200 euro of that including my PADI scuba licence.

Visited Bangkok, Ko Samui, Ko Phangan twice, Ko Tao, Ko Phi Phi, Chaing Mai and also a stint in Laos and I'd recommend every one of them.

Was always fairly sunny while we were there, I'd say it only rained about 7 or eight times the entire time, and mostly just then for a few hours at a time.

discombobulate

Will just paste in this email I sent to a friend about my 8 weeks there. Was the best time of my life! Spent about 1500 in the 8 weeks including 400 or so on suit \ clothes on the way home.

We started in Bangkok. Best place to go stay is the Koh Sahn road. It’s a street full of places to stay so shouldn’t have any trouble finding a place. I probably wouldn’t even bother booking somewhere as you shouldn’t have any problems. In Bangkok itself theres not a whole lot to see. Theres things like the ping pong shows and stuff that u kind of have to go see just to say you’ve been. For taxis in Bangkok etc. always try get a metered taxi as it usually works out cheaper. Theres also the tuc tucs which are kind of scooter taxis. Their good craic but the drivers will try bring you to suit shops etc. If your looking to do a bit of shopping in Bangkok theres a huge shopping centre called MBK which is good. Just remember to bargain down everything everywhere in Thailand. Even rooms if your staying for more than a night or 2 can be bargained.

After Bangkok we got a train up to Chang Mai in the north (always get air con if your getting trains). We stayed a couple of nights and I think Spicy was the name of the good nightclub we found. We took a 3 day trek then throught the jungle up there which was fantastic and well worth doing. We had booked it all in Bangkok in the TAT (Tourist Authority of Thailand I think its for) office. The prices weren’t bad and we got our Visas for Laos, Nam and Cambodia there too. Probably would have been a little cheaper if we’d got everything separate but not worth the hassle. It also included a speed boat in Laos. Theres 2 options for getting into Laos from the north of Thailand. The first is the speed boat and 2nd slow boat. The speed boat took about 6 hours. Its tough going as its completely cramped and you get soaked but better than spending 2 days on a slow boat.

In Laos we were first in Luang Prabang in the north. There wasn’t much to do there and pubs closed at 11 so we went down to Vang Vieng in the middle of Laos. This is a crazy little chilled out village on a river. Well worth going to. The main thing to do there is go tubing (tractor tube) down the river stopping at bars and water jumps along the way for beer. Definitely worth a couple of days.

We then went sown to Vientianne the capital of Laos and got a bus straight up to Hanoi in the north of Thailand. The bus journey took 30 hours but theres planes aswell. Their just a bit more expensive. Hanoi is a bit of craic too. A few nightclubs and that around but the main thing to do is go up to Halong Bay and go out on a boat for a couple of nights. Caving, diving etc. Theres also jungle areas around there which I presume would be similar to Chang Mai.

After that we got a train down the coast to Nha Trang which is a town by the sea. We stayed here a while as we hadn’t seen a beach until we got there and it’s a good spot. Couple of nightclubs and good pubs. The sailing club is the main place I remember. Just don’t go skinny dipping at the back of it unless you want to be tazered! If your planning on doing some scuba diving this is the best and cheapest place to get the Padi license which you would then be able to use for diving in Australia as well. If your planning on doing this let me know and I can get the name of the place the lads did it as I didn’t do the license myself.

After that we went down to Ho Chi Minh city. Worth a couple of days to go see the tunnels from the wars and war museums in the city.

We then took a boat to Cambodias capital Pnomh Penh. The boat journey was quite interesting seeing a few things along the way. We had a couple of changeovers going from bus to boat and in between a couple of us had money taken from our bags which were on another part of the boat so keep the valuables with you. Pnomh Penh doesn’t have much to do. We only stayed a couple of nights. The things to see around there are The Killing Fields and if you want to go shoot a few guns etc you can. The main place to visit after that in Cambodia is Angkor Watts temples. We didn’t get a chance to get there as it was rainy season and we would have had to hang around a couple of days to do it.

We then got a taxi to Bangkok as no buses were running due to flooding.

From Bangkok we got a train and boat down to the island Koh Samui and stayed in Chaweng which is the main party part of the island. We mainly just hung around the beaches down there and then took a boat over to Ko Phang Nang to the full moon party. Its definitely worth looking up the times of full moon parties while your over there and timing it to get down a few days before as places to stay start to fill up more around them. For diving then theres Koh Tao which is a smaller island close to these 2 islands. These 3 islands are all the East islands of Thailand. We didn’t have time to get over to Koh Phi Phi and Phuket which are on the other side but would presume their more of the same.

The islands are good but are nearly turning into Spanish islands with the amount of Brits etc. on them so smaller places like Nha Trang in Vietnam are good but we still loved the Thai islands too.

After that we were back up to Bangkok and home. I’m sure theres lots of other places we missed along the way that would have been well worth the visit too.

For all travelling I’d recommend getting aircon night sleeper trains where your going if possible. Their pretty comfortable so you get a good sleep and usually save on a nights cost of staying somewhere too.

Hope that’s a bit of help to you anyway.

darrenh

These might help

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