Thailand in 2 weeks

I finally made it to South East Asia! We had to squeeze as much as we could into 2 weeks (17 days), as we could only get that amount of time off work 🙁 But it’s totally doable to get a quick taste of the main areas!

Because of the short amount of time, we decided to only visit the Southern portion. When travelling from Canada to this side of the world, keep in mind that because of the time change it’ll take you about 2 days to get there! Because of this, we managed to get a few extra days off from work so that we would have enough time actually in Thailand 🙂

This was our itinerary for the 2 weeks:

Bangkok (3 nights)
Koh Samui (3 nights)
Koh Tao (3 nights)
Koh Phangan (2 nights)
Ao Nang (5 nights)

Day 1-3: Bangkok

We arrived in Bangkok after our long 23 hour day of travel at around 11am. BRUTAL. We headed straight to our AirBnb in the city (about a 45 min drive from the airport). The first day was basically allotted to getting over jet lag.. we chilled by the rooftop pool, went for a nice dinner, walked around the area a bit, and went to bed early!

The next morning we went straight to the Grand Palace! We got MAJORLY scammed (see my Bangkok post to avoid this). Basically..don’t believe anyone and just google what you need haha.

Because of our stupidity, we actually got to see places easily that were on my list! We went to a handful of different temples and saw a few of the different Buddha’s around the city for a really cheap price! Our tuk tuk driver was jokes and it was actually a really fun memory (despite it being a huge scam).

We eventually ended up back at the Grand Palace mid-afternoon and it was crazy busy (which it wouldn’t have been if we went in right away..grr). The Palace itself is beautiful and HUGE..there’s so much to explore within the grounds. We spent about 2 hours in here just walking around taking pictures 🙂

That night we went to a rooftop bar to see the gorgeous Bangkok Skyline! Some places are super pricy and have a fancy dress code so definitely do some research before you go! We chose one close to our Air Bnb called Vanilla Sky Bar. It was a little high end, but the boys could wear shorts which was a deal breaker 🙂 The drinks were pricy but ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS and the view was perfect.

The following day we took it easy in the morning and headed to Wat Arun Temple later in the day. I’d recommend coming here later because the sunset over the temple was absolutely gorgeous!

After the temple we took a water taxi (Chao Phraya River is just behind the temple) to the Khao San Road Area. Fortunately, it was a Sunday night and there was a FREE Muay Thai Fight – which included Thai Boxers facing boxers from around the world. Apparently these happen every Sunday night so check it out if you’re here! It was such a cool experience.. highly recommend coming to a Muay Thai fight here – the energy was insane!

After the fight we walked about 5-10 minute to Khao San Road. This roads crazy..we tried the classic scorpion and Dorion fruit…both disgusting – do not recommend haha. The road is insane at night and you lose your friends in two seconds.. so we decided to not stay long because it wasn’t really our scene. It’s definitely an experience you have to see while you’re here though!

Day 4-6: Koh Samui

Because we were short on time in Thailand, we opted to fly between the locations instead of taking a ferry (saved about 7-8 hours haha). We flew from Bangkok to Koh Samui early in the morning and checked into THE MOST BEAUTIFUL villa I’ve stayed in yet called Eranda Pool Villa. The staff here was over the top helpful it was like nothing else I’ve ever experienced before! They did everything for us.. upgraded us to the top villa, picked us up from the airport, drove us/picked us up for dinner, drove us to the beach, served us breakfast in our place every morning, bought our ferry tickets, you name it!

Because we booked such a beautiful place, we spent a lot of time by our pool just relaxing and enjoying the sun! We took a few trips down to the beach area for food – we only went to Chaweng Beach because it was the closer one to our accommodation! The vibes there were super chill and we went for dinner on the beach with the most gorgeous view.

The second day we booked a tour to Angthong Marine Park. Unfortunately the only way to get to this beautiful area is by booking a tour (boo). The tour was way too rushed and we didn’t get to do the main hike (which was why I wanted to come here in the first place) because the waves were too high for the speedboat to dock in the correct place. So when you’re booking a day to do this tour, try to plan it around the wind forecast!

The views that we did get were gorgeous.. we went snorkelling and kayaking on the most remote beaches. It was beautiful but rushed! I could have spent a full day at each place haha.

The next day we enjoyed our pool and didn’t leave our place the whole day. It was just so nice to be in the sun and not in the snow in Canada!

Day 7-9: Koh Tao

The next day we took a ferry to the little island of Koh Tao. It took about 2 hours to get there. Koh Tao was my favourite place- It was exactly what I pictured a Thai island to be like – super chill and beautiful beaches!

We stayed in a basic little AirBnb in the mountains, which was about a 15 minute walk to the main beach called Sairee Beach. Getting around the island was a bit of a pain with luggage..taxis were extremely expensive unfortunately. We spent so much money on taxis here it was ridiculous, but we were hesitant to rent scooters after hearing horror stories about people getting scammed. To each their own- we were only here for a few days so the extra money we spent on taxis wasn’t a huge issue for us.

The first day we headed straight to Sairee Beach. Our favourite bar was called Fizz Beach Bar – we had drinks here every night at sunset, it had the BEST vibes!

Each morning we went for delicious breakfast.. definitely try the smoothie bowls while you’re here they’re TO DIE FOR! (these made me so happy)

The next day we went to Nang Yuan which is a collection of little island about a 10 minute longtail boat right from Sairee Beach. The islands are best known for the picturesque viewpoint at the top of the one island. The hike up to it is only about 10 minutes…HOWEVER there was a 40 minute line up to get a picture at the top! CRAZY how social media has changed tourism these days. Of course we waited and it was so worth it!

After the hike we went down to the beach and snorkelled and chilled for a few hours. It was so beautiful!

The following day we took a taxi down to John Sewan Viewpoint (you don’t even want to know how much we spent on the taxi..you’ll vomit). The hike up to the viewpoint took about 20 minutes and was much more difficult than the one on Nang Yuan. However at the top there was NOBODY there which was much more enjoyable. We spent almost an hour at the top just taking in the gorgeous scenery!

At the bottom of the hike there’s a little beach with a lovely lunch spot overlooking the water. This was my favourite lunch spot we found all trip!

Day 10-12: Koh Phangan

We took a ferry here from Koh Tao which took about 1 hour. We came here just for the Full Moon Party. There wasn’t many options left near the party, so we had to book a lower budget resort within walking distance of Haad Rin Beach called Sun Beach Bungalows. We stayed in a simple little private cabin, which was fine for what we needed as we were only going to be here to sleep!

As soon as we got to our place, we walked down to the beach to buy some neon swag to wear to the event. There’s tonnnnns to choose from and we went way overboard haha.

Around 10pm once we were all dressed up we headed down to the beach and got all painted up at one of the booths and got our buckets of alcohol (the body painting is pretty expensive, but totally worth it).

The beach was INSANE. there was about 15 different stages set up all with different DJ’s and the beach was PACKED. We got buckets of alcohol right away and started dancing in the crowd. This was the most insane event I’ve ever been to and I loved every second of it! We left at around 3am and the party was still going strong!

The following day it rained the whole day so we just chilled at the hotel bar the whole day and recovered from the night before 🙂

Day 13-17: Ao Nang

Early the next morning, we took a ferry to Koh Samui to fly to Krabi! Be careful when booking your ferry tickets as there’s 2 ferry ports on Koh Samui….rookie mistake on our part, we chose the wrong one which was a 40 min taxi ride to the airport 🙁

We stayed at Andakiri Pool Villa in Ao Nang. They offered free shuttle service down to the main beach every 2 hours or 50baht a person other times. (We ended up spending a lot of money on getting down to the beach just because we didn’t want to wait for the next free shuttle). This villa was beautiful – we had our own private pool! The only downside of staying here was that it is situated on a very steep hill so it’s not really possible to walk to the main beach, and public taxis will not drive up to the top (they will just drop you off at the bottom of the driveway).

The first night we went down to the main beach and walked the main strip. There’s TONS of souvenir shops and restaurants, it was a really fun vibe walking around here at night!

The following morning we got up early and went straight to Railay Beach! We bought our tickets at the booth and took a 10 minute longtail boat to the remote picturesque beach. We spent the whole day here.. played volleyball in the water, went kayaking, had lunch, suntanned, took a million pictures.. It is such a beautiful beach, and even though there are a lot of people there it is widely spread out so you still felt like you had your own space! Be careful in the sun though, as there is not any shade to hide under (the boys got super sunburned and left the beach after a few hours because they couldn’t handle the heat!)

The next day we took it easy, chilled on Ao Nang Beach, played pool in a bar on the strip, and hung out in our pool villa!

The following day we booked a PRIVATE BOAT TOUR through Pha Nga Bay! HIGHLY RECOMMEND DOING THIS. It was only a bit more expensive than the 4 of us doing a normal day tour, and we had the whole boat to ourselves, brought our own food and alcohol, and could stop wherever and whenever we wanted! This was soooo much better because some of the stops it was literally just us at the beach, instead of the 50+ that would have been there if we did a normal tour!

We made stops at Hong Island, Hong Lagoon, Lao Lading Island, and Pakbia Island.

The next day we had made plans to go to Tiger Cave Temple…however it was 40 degrees and decided that hiking up those stairs would be pretty much a death sentence in that heat. Instead, we decided to see the elephants at Krabi Elephant Sanctuary. We chose the shortest/cheapest option where you feed and bathe the elephants – it was a lovely experience! Be mindful when booking a tour to see the elephants as there are a lot of places in Thailand that abuse the animals (aka don’t go somewhere that advertises elephant riding!)

The following morning we flew back to Canada! Boo 🙁

I was honestly SO impressed with Thailand and I can’t wait to go back and explore more of Southeast Asia! 🙂

Hope you enjoyed reading,

xx steens