ExpatSomchai

The comment was related to Ao Nang itself which is totally over comercialised. If people think Starbucks and Mac D represent Thailand then this is the place to go. Surrounding areas are still fine i.e. Klong Muang.

schoflyer

if you are looking for a nice resort like SPG property in the heart of BKK you should booking the SGS.

CrazyInteg

Perfect response.

I also haven't been there in years and would not return. I think when I was there I saw maybe 14 Thai people, and they were the workers at the restaurants.

scubadu

I'm not sure if this is the right thread to ask this, but similar to the OP, we are considering a jaunt over to Phuket (from HKG), probably the week of November 27th.

However, I'm a bit intimidated by the weather forecasts. When I look at Phuket weather forecasts (10 day) it basically appears to be raining everyday. I realize this would be the tail of the monsoon season, but is it literally raining all day everyday? Or like Hawaii, does it just rain for a couple hours a day?

We are really craving laying around the beach/ocean to decompress, but a little nervous that we'll be stuck inside watching it rain...

Regards

bwiadca

It rains for couple of hours and it stops. And of course it doesn't rain on the entire island. Most of the time it rains in the mountain area.
I was there month ago and in 3 days it rained once for about 1 hour.
By the airport where I was staying, it was overcast, but when we went to the southern part of the island it was completely sunny.

timster

When I was last there some years ago the main strip along the beach was indeed like that. Not unlike the beach strip in most Thai beach resorts actually. Just a little nicer I thought. And the feeder road had the little family-run Thai restaurants that I mostly used.

Some first time tourists to Thailand actually like that mix. Some familiar things. And some different. Especially with kids.

One difficulty was that the beach itself didn't amount to much. I don't know how it is post-tsunami. We mostly took long boats to Rai Lai and out to the little islands for not much money, or the baht bus further down the coast.

Like I said it's somewhere I have recommended to friends. So I'm not not sure if you have changed my opinion or not. Although one of my Scandinavian friends did remark "Too many Scandinavians".

CrazyInteg

The tsunami was in 2004.

VLtone

My wife and I are headed to Thailand next week. I'm sure that we aren't giving ourselves enough time in each location but we wanted to try and see as much as we could.

Nov 23, 24 in Bangkok
Nov 24 flying to Chiang Rai
Nov 25 bus from Chiang Rai to Chiang Mai
Nov 28 flying from Chiang Mai to Krabi
Dec 2 flying from Trang to Bangkok

Open to suggestions for the best possible trip within these constraints.

Dr. HFH

Your type of trip would not work for me. Don't forget, -- in addition to actual flight/bus time, there's also additional transit time of at least two hours associated with change of city. Travel from wherever you are to the airport, get to the airport in time to check-in and get through security, wait for bags on arrival (if checked), get from the airport to your hotel, check-in and put bags in room. Unless you already know that there's no possibility that you'll ever go to Thailand again, I would try to hit fewer places and increase the time in each.