Memoirs of my first trips to China: Thailand on the weekend (Special Edition Post)

A few weeks ago we had a three-day weekend here in China. This was for the special Chinese holiday, Chinese Tomb Sweeping Day. Now, there’s a holiday. Unfortunately I find myself very allergic to the dust of the dead so I decided to make tracks for somewhere with less airborne allergens.

The only two people left from the US were myself and my friend, Long. Three day weekends doing come around often. We had to do something special. Seriously, they have to shut the whole county down while they rev their crypt-cleaner vacuums and go to town. We figured, the billion people here couldn’t be doing that often or the country would collapse. So we opted to make the best of it and go.

But to where? Well, where do we like the food and the climate, and where do they have one of the top rated dive sites in the world? Thailand.

Long and I used our frequent flyer miles to buy our flights. United was going to have us use 30,000 redemption miles to buy our ticket round trip from Hong Kong to Phuket. However, when we went to cash in our miles, they informed us that all the flights were booked. This wasn’t good news for us. It was starting to look like we were going to be grounded…or stuck in Thailand...We needed to be back for work on Monday, so that didn’t sound like a good idea. But we called a representative of the Star Aliance, the group of airlines that are partners with United in airline travels. We were able to manage a flight on Thai Air to Phuket. AND they were able to get us back by Monday, but only if we made a ridiculous connection…and then another. We would have to fly back from Phuket, connect in Bangkok, then fly to Singapore and connect to a United flight that went to Hong Kong. It was a lot of flights with dangerously close layovers. But with our fingers crossed we booked the flight there and the circuitous trip home. We were a little nervous, as we didn’t want to miss any of the flights but we were quickly comforted by the luxury of Thai Air. Not only is the economy seating significantly nicer than United’s offerings, they were flying us business class for the same 30,000 mile redemption. As we stored our small carry on bags, the Thai Air attendants brought us each a glass of champagne and we toasted to journey we were embarking. To life, to a good trip, and to making it back on time!

Flying in

Thai Airlines’ slogan is “as smooth as silk.” However, the landing was more like…hmm…I don’t know, about as smooth as a Boeing 747 dropping about 10 feet to the runway. The captain came on the loud speaker laughing. “After that beautiful landing, please enjoy your stay in Thailand.”

Luckily the trip was smoother than the landing.

We were surprised by a lack of official taxi cab as we left the airport. We had to barter with tons of gypsy cabs. Eventually we got stuffed into a van with about 8 other travelers from around the world. The driver took all of our addresses and sped off. First impressions of Thailand are two fold. One, the country is very green. The landscape has wonderful hills and valleys as we sped along in the van passing rich green jungle, forest, and hills. Secondly, everyone is trying to rip you off. Be ready to bargain. No, be ready to bargain hard. And be ultra aware. People were constantly telling us prices that had been significantly inflated because we were Americans. And, I’m a little used to that from spending time in china. But they would try giving you the wrong change back. And then smile and laugh when you caught them. “Oh, haha…you caught me…you’re so smart.” Keep your wits. They’re always nice and helpful but they're quick to try to trick you and take your money.

Cool Statue

We arrived at our hotel. We didn’t really know what we were getting. Especially after some of the Philippine’s hotels were such hole-in-the-wall places. We were delightfully surprised that our US dollars got us even farther here than they do in China. The Baumanburry hotel was very nice. Probably nicer than we needed, but it was a pleasant change from the previous Philippine hostels.

View from our room

Our Thai hostess was beautiful, but not very good at getting us the room we had reserved. It took them three tries to get us to the right room. The first one had one bed. I wasn’t ready to make that type of commitment with Long yet. The second two looked almost identical…but the third was the “correct one.” Apparently we had reserved the deluxe room and the difference was a flat screen TV on the wall. Whatever. We weren’t there to watch TV.

We changed into our beachwear and headed toward the beach. This beach was similar to Boracay in the Philippines. It was bars, shops and restaurants one side that followed the water on the other side. The beach wasn’t quite as nice as Boracay though. What I loved about Borracay was all the shops were right on the sand. There was a street in between the beach and the shops in Thailand.

We walked around from dive shop to dive shop in attempt to get one additional dive in before the end of that day. But to no avail. No place could help us out on such short notice, so late in the day. It was about 4:00. The game of “musical rooms” we played earlier had cost us some time and all the dive boats had taken off for their last run of the day.

No worries. We moseyed around and found some authentic Thai food. And enjoyed the last of the warmth of the day. We walked the beach and settled into our little home for the next day and a half.

Saturday was the big day for us. We grabbed what we needed and head to the gate of the hotel. It was 6 in the morning. A small van screeched to a halt in front of the hotel marked with South Siam Divers. This was our van. We jumped in to the tune of really loud Thai techno and bumped off, very quickly. The driver picked up a van-full of people and drove the 2 hours to the boat dock. We shuffled to a speedboat and took a ride out to our reason for coming, The Similan Islands.

Cool rock structures

We did two great dives in the Similan Islands. I think I’ll let the pictures speak for them selves. It was great to be in the Similans because it’s a wildlife preserve and the government only opens it for a about 5 months per year. If you don’t go during the season you don’t go, period. It was an honor to be there.