How it started ?

Thailand is the most heard word when it comes to International travelling for Indians for many reasons. I meant, Its close to India, not that expensive and nothing else. So obviously it was in my mind too to visit this nation sooner. One day when I was watching a travel vlogger video on YouTube, he shared there is an offer for Flight tickets from Chennai to Krabi & Phuket. I think it was around late night when I was watching this and suddenly had the urge to book it so that I will travel for sure. I have woken up my wife and she too agreed. Finally the tickets were booked 4 months in advance.

Flight Details

The offer was from Scoot airlines and I booked return tickets from Chennai to Krabi. Made a blunder here, will explain it later. My tickets had a layover of 6h and 4h on my onward and return journey respectively. I was ok with it since the price was relatively cheaper compared to the layover time. Total cost for two person came around 28k, which is 14k per person for up and down journey. My plan is to start on 12th April and return on 20th April so that I have 8 nights to cover the south of Thailand.

Hotel Details

Now that tickets are booked, I started going through many sites and videos to see how to schedule my itinerary and finalized 3 nights in Krabi, 1 night in Phi Phi and 3 night in Phuket. Then scouting for my stay started and finalizes the below 3 properties.

1. Krabi – Glow Ao Nang ( 3Night – 5,700)
2. Phi Phi – Phi Phi Inn ( 1Night – 2,600)
3. Phuket – Patong Princess ( 4Night – 4,800)
4. Krabi – Palm Driving range and resort. (1Night – 1,200)

I also realized that I should have booked the return flight ticket from Phuket rather than Krabi (the blunder mentioned earlier)since I have to travel to Krabi just for my return flight.

Twist at the end

3 weeks before my journey, Scoot Airlines sent an email that my flights are rescheduled and it delayed my start date to 13th April and pre-pone my return journey to early morning. This will screw up my entire plan. So I had to change the flights dates to 11th April and 21st April. The worst part is, my layover in Singapore is now 22h and 10h on my up and down journey respectively. So its time to figure out, how to kill the time during our layover. I also tried booking other flights but it was 20k more than what I booked, so I thought lets stick with it. I had to book another hotel in Krabi for my return journey.

How my credit cards helped.

I applied for HDFC Regalia Gold credit card since it comes with 6 International lounge access and 12 domestic lounge access and also free with my HDFC account. Got my card and Priority pass delivered on time which was very very helpful during my layover at Changi Airport, Singapore.

All Set, but how to do the sight seeing ?

I finalized my itinerary like below,

Day 1 – Reach Krabi hotel in the morning and rest for sometime. Start Kayaking at Ao Thalane in the afternoon.

Day 2 – 7 island Sunset tour in Krabi

Day 3 – Hot springs, Emerald pool and Tiger cave temple.

Day 4 – Krabi to Phi Phi via ferry + Sunset tour in Phi Phi ( Monkey beach, Phi Ley Lagoon, Maya Bay )

Day 5 – Phi Phi Island to Phuket by ferry and day at leisure.

Day 6 – River rafting, Elephant bathing in Phuket

Day 7 – Phuket City tour ( Karon view point, Big Buddha, Tiger Kingdom)

Day 8 – James Bond Island tour

Day 9 – Dolphin Show in Phuket and Return to Krabi town

Day 10 – Return back to Chennai from Krabi.

I calculated the cost for all the activities and transfers if I had to plan myself by using sites like Klook and also reached out to vendors via Travel Triangle to see if anyone is quoting near to my prices. Fortunately, I found a vendor Travtree Holidays who provided the tours and transfers close to my price. So to avoid the hassle of me planning these things individually, I booked them to take care of it. The total cost for the tours and transfers came around 68k for two people including all National Park fees

Total Budget for the trip

1. Flight – 28,000
2. Hotel – 14,300
3. Tours and Transfers – 68,000
4. Simcard (10Days/50GB) – 600
5. Thai massage for 2 days – 3,200
6. Food and Snacks – 26,000

So the total cost came around One Lakh and Forty thousand for 10 days.

Stay tuned for my next post on how each day was spend and my views on Thailand, etc.