Thailand - Where to go/What to do

Diddlydoubt

Any recommendations of where to stay in Bangkok for the first 2 nights? Somewhere close to Khoa San Road ie. walking distance, comfortable hotel with a pool and decent value?

Likewise for Phi Phi/Ko Phangan and Ko Samui?

Lingua Franca

Diddlydoubt wrote: »

Any recommendations of where to stay in Bangkok for the first 2 nights? Somewhere close to Khoa San Road ie. walking distance, comfortable hotel with a pool and decent value?

Likewise for Phi Phi/Ko Phangan and Ko Samui?

I'm no help there, we stayed here: http://www.furamaxclusive.com/asoke/hoteloverview.php which is nowhere near Khao San road (but is close to the skytrain), didn't go to Phi Phi and stayed with a relative on Samui.

This is the place to hang out on Samui: http://www.ark-bar.com/ but it didn't look the nicest for staying in and gets a lot of through traffic going to the bar. The various hotels and resorts on either side of this looked great, though.

firemouth

Diddlydoubt wrote: »

Any recommendations of where to stay in Bangkok for the first 2 nights? Somewhere close to Khoa San Road ie. walking distance, comfortable hotel with a pool and decent value?

Likewise for Phi Phi/Ko Phangan and Ko Samui?

stayed here for a couple of days http://www.agoda.ie/asia/thailand/koh_phangan/santhiya_koh_phangan_resort_spa.html?asq=3NEBPFpsCOe6D8QBus6Pmw9FyrALvGJjSUdxcElOVMy2UJZeNbvJJGrRCNpMq8PYj
I know its a little pricey but agoda offer huge reductions and its an absolutely fab spot,if its a party atmosphere your looking for then this is not it but if its luxury,rest and relaxation then you wont find better.There is a little village nearby with cheap restaurants,bars and a couple of shops if you want to go for a wander or you can just stay on the resort,which is a little pricey but it is five star after all.The strawberry mojitos are the best ive ever had!!

Gatica

Diddlydoubt wrote: »

Any recommendations of where to stay in Bangkok for the first 2 nights? Somewhere close to Khoa San Road ie. walking distance, comfortable hotel with a pool and decent value?

We stayed in Rambuttri Village Inn, it's on Rambuttri Road, 1 block from Khao San Rd. It's about 18 Euro a night for 2, rooms are clean and comfortable, air con and a rooftop pool. There's no shelves in the room, just hanging space and a desk and stool. It was perfect for us just for 2 nights, cos that's how long we stayed as well. The staff is friendly and its really close to bars and restaurants.

Diddlydoubt

Gatica wrote: »

We stayed in Rambuttri Village Inn, it's on Rambuttri Road, 1 block from Khao San Rd. It's about 18 Euro a night for 2, rooms are clean and comfortable, air con and a rooftop pool. There's no shelves in the room, just hanging space and a desk and stool. It was perfect for us just for 2 nights, cos that's how long we stayed as well. The staff is friendly and its really close to bars and restaurants.

How long would it take you to walk the 1 block from this hotel to Khoa San Road? When you say its close to bars/restaurants, is it these main places on Khoa San Road you refer to?

Is that €18 per night in total or €18 each for the rooms?

Like the sound of the rooftop pool.

Gatica

well we paid 36 Euro for 2 night for 2 of us total. Breakfast was not included, but Thai breakfast is not for me anyway. Not sure what price is like for single room. When I say 1 block, I mean a very short stroll, like 5 mins away.

There's a Starbucks on the main road, which did me well, as in the mornings I like more familiar foods, like coffee and croissant.
You come out of the hotel/guesthouse, and turn left, and you right away have 2-4 stalls, and then couple of open-side restaurants where they sell reasonable food and drinks (pricier than local food, cheaper than tourist prices elsewhere). Check it out on google maps.
After the restaurants you come out on the main road, turn right, go about 100m, turn left, and you're on Khao San road.

Street view can give you a fairly good idea of the place.

Diddlydoubt

Gatica wrote: »

well we paid 36 Euro for 2 night for 2 of us total. Breakfast was not included, but Thai breakfast is not for me anyway. Not sure what price is like for single room. When I say 1 block, I mean a very short stroll, like 5 mins away.

There's a Starbucks on the main road, which did me well, as in the mornings I like more familiar foods, like coffee and croissant.
You come out of the hotel/guesthouse, and turn left, and you right away have 2-4 stalls, and then couple of open-side restaurants where they sell reasonable food and drinks (pricier than local food, cheaper than tourist prices elsewhere). Check it out on google maps.
After the restaurants you come out on the main road, turn right, go about 100m, turn left, and you're on Khao San road.

Street view can give you a fairly good idea of the place.

Cool, that looks good enough to me. On a tight enough budget so somewhere in close proximity to the main places in Bangkok will do fine with decent comfort and the rooftop pool sounds good too.

Not bothered on the breakfast myself so happy enough to go with just the room only.

It would be a double room I would be looking for anyway as my other half is going too. What type of room did you get? Much more in cost to get a better standard room?

Also did you book when you landed in Bangkok or before you left?

Gatica

booked through booking.com before leaving, which has a cancellation policy and you pay on check-in at the hotel plus a 1000B refundable deposit. However, I did see people arriving and just asking for a room though. They have a shortage of single rooms on arrival, but you don't care about that. I think they have plenty of doubles though.
Not sure if they do better rooms, we just got the standard one I think.

Diddlydoubt

Gatica wrote: »

booked through booking.com before leaving, which has a cancellation policy and you pay on check-in at the hotel plus a 1000B refundable deposit. However, I did see people arriving and just asking for a room though. They have a shortage of single rooms on arrival, but you don't care about that. I think they have plenty of doubles though.
Not sure if they do better rooms, we just got the standard one I think.

Great thanks for the info. Any restuarants/bars in Bangkok that youd recommend or stuff that you did?

DWhere else did you go after Bangkok?

Any recommendations for places to stay elsewhere?

Lingua Franca

Diddlydoubt wrote: »

Great thanks for the info. Any restuarants/bars in Bangkok that youd recommend or stuff that you did?

This is getting a bit bizarre. Bangkok is MASSIVE and packed to the rafters with restaurants and bars. Thailand is massive and filled with restaurants and bars. There's so very much to see and do and experience that micromanaging your holiday in advance right down to dinner and drinks is impossible and more than a bit daft. When you get there, you're gonna be kicking yourself (or at least blushing heavily) at asking for recommendations for bars and restaurants. I doubt anyone will remember the names or locations for many places, it's so bustling and busy. Everywhere is good, go and explore and enjoy yourself!

Gatica

We went to the bar/restaurant around the corner both times we were there. The drinks and food were nice enough and I liked the atmosphere. If you don't mind walking and eating there's lots of street vendors either at their stalls or moving around, really cheap food and pretty good for the most part. Regretted not exploring more of the fancier areas of Bangkok like Silom and Sukhumvit. Went to the Vertigo bar (rooftop bar on 59th floor) there, and was not that impressed. There's another one like it apparently, can't remember what it's called, so I'd check that out. It's really really overpriced and not that fancy, just pretentious and bordering on tacky. The one on the 52nd floor of same building was a bit nicer, looked better, better atmosphere and staff friendlier, same prices though.

That's good advice, just go and explore really... I thought there were many decent enough places to go eat and drink in the Khao San area. You won't be stuck. I'd skip the tripadvisor recommendations and just go with your gut feeling. We spent lots of time trying to track down recommended restaurants only to be disappointed. I much more enjoyed places that we popped into, especially the more "local" ones.
http://wikitravel.org/en/Bangkok has good info on getting around and background of the city.

A Primal Nut

Yep, as people said, better off just walking around and finding a place you like and going in. It would be silly to waste time going out of your way to go to a specific bar or restaurant.

Better craic in the small, local places anyway.

Gatica

LOL yep, it was. Not my idea though, so just went along with it. One place out of several turned out to be really nice.

Four of a kind

Thailand is just class. I travelled there last year for a few months. I kept a record in my blog if you wanted to have a look: www.nextstopwhoknows.com

Chiang mai has to be visited as well as the islands.

Diddlydoubt

Four of a kind wrote: »

Thailand is just class. I travelled there last year for a few months. I kept a record in my blog if you wanted to have a look: www.nextstopwhoknows.com

Chiang mai has to be visited as well as the islands.

cool blog man. looks like you have the life of reilly lol.

When you stayed on koh phangan what was the name of the place you stayed in(seen the pics but dont think you mentioned the name of the place)?

We are going to the full moon party on 26th January and I am trying to get some accomadation booked now for this before we go.

I think we will move from Ko Phi Phi on 25th to either Koh Phangan/Ko Samui.

Is it worth spending a few days in both places or could we just stay in one of the places and travel across via boat to the whichever one we dont stay on for a couple of days in order to see it?

Diddlydoubt

Would roughly 30,000 baht ie €800 be enough for about 15/16 days in Thailand?

The first 2 nights we are staying in Bangkok, we have received a present of a 2 night stay in a class hotel so we will not be paying for accomodation on 15/16 January.

Then plan on staying 2 more nights somewhere else in Bangkok before a night or 2 in Kanchanuburi. After that we plan to go to the Islands Phi Phi, Ko Samui and Ko Phangan before flying to Melbourne from Phuket on 31st January or 1st February.

It is me and my girlfriend going so we dont intend on mad all night drinking sessions etc apart from the full moon party. We intend on a balance of relatively comfortable accomodation and relaxing etc with some good food and drink thrown in for good measure.

At the moment besides our flights to Bangkok and our first 2 nights stay in a hotel in Bangkok we havent booked any other part of our trip or our flight on to Melbourne.

So I am trying to budget how much it would cost us while we are in thailand for say 16/17 days with the above itinerary and plan for spending our time there.

We will book our flight to OZ prior to going and probably 3 nights in Ko Phangan around the time of the full moon party so aside from that how much would we require for say paying for 13/14 nights accomodation while we are over there as well as our travel costs and daily expenses?