Thailand with children
Going on vacation with two small children, I rummaged through the entire Internet in search of advice, but unfortunately I did not find anything sensible. Therefore, after returning from a trip, I decided to share my experience of relaxing with children. We have two boys - Andrey, 5 years old and Dima, 2.5 years old.
Phuket (3.04. 2011-16.04. 2011)
A week before the holiday, a cyclone hovered over Thailand and in the south of the country there were heavy rains, uncharacteristic for April. "Washed away" the island of Koh Samui, and according to weather forecasts, the element was heading towards the island of Phuket. I had terrible panic. Negotiations with the tour operator (Pegas Tourist) about changing the resort or departure date did not lead to anything. Despite official warnings tourism to refrain from traveling to Thailand, the tour operator offered nothing but a complete replacement of the tour package with a 100% penalty. Friends said: "Leave the children at home, and bring down wherever you want. " Panic smelled in the media and forums.
But soberly realizing that it was time for the cyclone to dissipate, we set off with the whole family: me, my husband and two children. Looking ahead, I’ll say that throughout our vacation the weather was wonderful, and it rained 2-3 times and then late in the evening.
When planning a vacation and looking all over the Internet, I thought about what places to visit in Phuket with small children? At a minimum, this is a water park, a zoo, an aquarium, a beach. And here is the maximum...
The first day. (03.04. 11)
Pegasus worked (met) honestly, despite the fact that the first meeting with his representative happened at the airport in Thailand (booking and paying for the tour via the Internet). At the exit from the airport, the Pegasus counter is clearly visible, behind which its employees quickly distribute arrivals to buses. Here at the airport, you can take a free SIM card, which is not expensive to talk with your homeland, as well as exchange currency (the exchange rate is unfavorable). Several buses were already waiting for us in the parking lot.
Local guides are surprised by the news from the media writing about the flood: “What flood? We had rain. "
Our Bamboo House Hotel is located on Karon Beach. We were greeted with iced drinks at the hotel. The hotel building is 4 floors, small, well-groomed. The territory is practically absent, it is clamped by the pool. We were settled on the first floor, in two adjacent double rooms (the tour operator did not find budget four-bed offers). The first floor is a big plus in a hotel without an elevator. The windows overlook the neighboring hotel Centara. There is a TV in the room, a Mac connected to the TV. Snow-white sheets and towels (towels were changed every day, bedding every other day or two), beach towels in a convenient bag (change at least every day, dirty towels in the bag were put out in the corridor, clean ones were taken away), shampoo, shower gel, hair conditioner , everything is as it should be, only there are no usual combs and dental accessories. There is a safe and a small chest of drawers in the closet.
Since we studied the excursion market in advance at home, we already knew the approximate prices and did not fall for her proposals, which we did not regret at all. So Pegasus offers a one-day excursion to Phi Phi for 3300 baht per adult. We, without much bargaining, gave 3.500 baht in a local tour shop for two adults and one child (for two-year-old Dima, all excursions were free).
After breakfast, we got acquainted with the surroundings: we went to shops, local shops and small streets, we reached the temple, not far from which there was a local school, with a small sports ground. There are countless shops and shops on the streets, and in them goods are much cheaper than in the market. By 12 noon, a terrible heat had risen, it was impossible to be outside, the children and I went to a cool room.
Roma further explored the local neighborhood, bought a tour on Phi Phi in a Thai tour company not far from the ring, vouchers for two adults, one child and Dima cost 3.500 baht for free. I reached the lake, the whole shore covered in garbage, next to the stink river. And we wanted to buy a hotel in this area on the Internet, it’s good that we didn’t take it. I bought a card reader at 7-11. In the evening I installed Picassa and uploaded the pictures to the Internet. I bought pork skewers in the makashnitsa, delicious (then we often bought something to eat).
The heat subsides by 16-00 hours, so after this time the streets begin to gradually come to life, merchants take to the streets, cafes open. By this time, sun loungers are already free on the beach, and they are not needed, because it is so nice to lie on the soft sand.
Rise at 6-00 am, breakfast and Hurray! ! ! We eat on P-P.
A minibus came to the hotel for us, which drove us to the pier in 40 minutes.
There, an English-speaking guide was waiting for us, although they promised a Russian (they explained everything clearly, even I, who did not know English at all by gestures, understood almost everything). Roma chose fins for himself (rental 100 baht). As soon as you get on the boat, you are provided with water, Pepsi, fruits.
The Phi Phi archipelago is located 40-45 km from Phuket, so in just 1 hour on a small speedboat (40 seats) we reached our first destination. Phi Phi Ley Island (the film "The Beach" was filmed here), a small beach with white sand soft as flour, high cliffs surround the heavenly lagoon from three sides, the azure sea here is calm and not deep. Near the shore there are many boats like ours, and on the shore there are a myriad of tourists. For safety, signs are installed throughout the island, indicating which direction to run in case of a tsunami.
We managed to walk a little along the beach and go not far into the interior of the island, since we were given only 40 minutes of free time.
Second stop, in the southern part of the island. An ideal place for snorkeling, coral reefs, caves, colorful fish swim around, the water is crystal clear, which is not clear how many meters deep you are (masks are given on the boat for free, but if you lose a fine of 1000 baht).
Third landing. Phi Phi Don, the only island in the archipelago where people live permanently, there are about 20 hotels, bars and restaurants (you can come for more than one day). We dined in a small restaurant on the shore of the bay, a buffet (Thai dishes and fruits). Consolidated time you can swim, snorkel.
Fourth stop. Monkey Island. We sailed on a boat to a rocky island where wild monkeys live. There are a lot of monkeys, mothers with children. Our children are delighted.
And finally, the island of Kai Nok, except for bars and beaches, there is nothing here, the most delicious Pinocolada and Mai Tai cocktails are prepared here. And we sunbathed, swam in the transparent blue water, snorkeling a couple of meters from the beach you can see tropical fish. We sailed from this island to Phuket in 30 minutes, upon arrival the guide put a jar where you can put a tip if you wish.
We decided to drive this day to Patong, and visit the shopping center Jung Ceylon / Jung Ceylon (350 baht taxi one way from Karon to Patong). We arrived very early, everything opens at 10-00.11-00 hours. But nothing, they turned on the navigator, determined where the sea was and went. On the way to the beach there are only bars, apparently at night it is especially “hot”. A normal clean beach and the water is clean, and there are not so many vacationers (it's probably picky only they say that Patong is dirty).
We returned to the store and, in order to pass the time, went to an ice cream parlor, hoping for the coolness of the air conditioner, it wasn’t there that the central air conditioner turns on at 11-00, just as the store opens. We ate ice cream, and here we are. Hooray! ! ! 11-00. Of course, first of all, toys, the department is not very large, and it seemed to me that most of the toys for girls were purchased by a transformer, let's say they cost a little blood, I thought it would be worse. We wandered all day long, playing in the vending machine hall: we raced cars, fired machine guns, played basketball and penball, ate at McDonald's, and made a lot of purchases. Total shopping from 9-30 to 18-30.
Water park, bought a ticket in the same place as on Ppi, only 3500 for everyone, the transfer is included in the price. We swam on the slides, to be sure, the children were delighted. There are various cafes on the territory of the water park, so you can hang out from morning to evening.
We decided to take a break from active recreation.
In the morning to the beach, during the heat everyone slept, in the evening again to the beach.
Sightseeing tour. I didn't like the tour, it was a waste of time. Pegasus guide Eugene sucks, didn’t tell anything, besides, her speech is not literate and generally stupid. At the latex factory of pure water, tourists are scammed for grandmas, we saw branded stores from the latex factory on both Karon and Katya, everything is several times cheaper, the jewelry factory is also expensive. The only thing I liked was the observation point, on the top of the mountain there is a cozy restaurant with a beautiful view of the island. On the way back, they asked us to drop us off at the Big C shopping center, from which we walked to the Central Festival. Made a few purchases, ate at KFC. We got to Karon by taxi for 500 baht. Upon arrival at the hotel, we remembered that today is Saturday, and on Saturdays and Tuesdays, on the territory of the temple, not far from our hotel, there is a fruit market, where we went.
There are a lot of exotic fruits, various tasty treats are prepared on macarons: meat, sausages, fish, seafood are fried, salads are prepared, cocktails are whipped from any fruit at will in a blender. They also sell clothes and souvenirs.
Our children get tired, only to the bed and pass out, it happened that they fell asleep at dinner even though we didn’t go to dinner late. And today the children are sleeping, and we went to the bar of our hotel to try the local cauldrons. Thais are very attentive and friendly, and now they ask: “children sleep? » . I drank Karon Sunset, and Roma was the hotel's signature cocktail.
Today we plan to visit the zoo. As usual in all excursions, the transfer is included in the ticket price. The zoo is so-so small, there are few animals, a lot of birds: parrots of various colors and sizes, peacocks and even chickens. Although if you have small children, they will love it. Also at certain times there are theatrical performances with animals.
I liked the show of elephants, they played football, basketball, the elephant walked on the barrels and painted, then the paintings were sold at auction. Crocodile show. I didn’t like the monkey show, two monkeys made faces and that’s it.
The zoo has a small aquarium, there are few fish in it, and with poor consecration, nothing is visible at all (apparently they save on everything). The orchid farm, if you can call it that, is nothing at all, two stunted flowers and that's it.
Today we are going to the Similan Islands for two days. We bought the tour for two days, because we decided that it would be difficult for children to endure the round trip in one day, and I wanted to fully enjoy the beauty of the islands. You will not regret if you go for 2 or 3 days. Just need to take a bungalow and better with air conditioning.
Translated "Similan" means "nine" - by the number of islands. The Similan Islands are one of the most beautiful places in the world.
The islands have some of the most beautiful coral reefs of the Andaman Sea, but unfortunately they say that it was destroyed by the tsunami, it didn’t seem so to me, not an expert on reefs. The best time to visit the islands is from January to April; from May to October, tourists are not transported due to rough seas. We just had time to visit the paradise islands, since April 16, the exit to the Similans and Phi Phi was closed.
At six in the morning a minibus picked us up, and since we did not have time to have breakfast, breakfast was prepared and packed for us. Each package contains: 1 bottle of orange juice, bagels, bread, butter, watermelon and pineapple.
And so from the beginning we drove for 2 hours by car, to the mainland in the province of Pang-na (the eldest got sick), then on a steedboat for 1.5 hours. The road is certainly tiring, but if you look at everything around, it’s not so boring (on land it is: plantations of pineapples, rubber trees and coconut palms, and on the sea it is: fishing boats and small islands).
Off the coast of one of the Similan Islands we made a stop for snorkeling. In crystal clear water, colorful fish swim between corals. After swimming, we sailed to one of the islands, this is the only inhabited island. Tourists live here in bungalows or tents, two types of bungalows overlooking the sea with air conditioning and in the forest without air conditioning. When buying a ticket, we bought a bungalow without an air conditioner, there were not enough places, although with air conditioning it is not much different from ours. The bungalow is so-so, plywood houses, mosquito nets instead of windows, cracks and holes all around, one large bed, a fan, there is a toilet with a shower. Electricity on the island is turned on at 19-00, but then the entire territory of the village is lit up with lights, lanterns hang even on trees. After lunch, those who wished to swim to snorkel, and we decided to explore the territory. There are huge trees on the island, on the branches of which flying foxes hang, a monitor lizard was seen on the path leading to the small beach.
The small beach is a very small picturesque bay with white as flour soft sand, the trees descend to the very water, so you can swim in the shade of the trees, there are almost no waves. We decided to look at the island from the observation deck, a steep climb uphill, a lot of mosquitoes, ate us. Andryushka and I gave up in front of the last huge rock that we had to climb (and we were all in shales and sometimes took off our shoes) in order to conquer this "Everest". But Roma with Dimon in his arms climbed to the top of the mountain, quickly took pictures with the camera and ran down, from the mosquitoes. Then we bought Thai mosquito cream in a souvenir shop and there were no more problems.
After dinner, Roma went to catch crabs, while the boys and I slept, the children fell from fatigue.
As soon as night fell, all living things crawled out of their holes, in general, what was not visible during the day crawled out, crawled out at night.
All night on the roof, behind the wall, under the ceiling, someone was eating, mice were squeaking, birds and various animals were screaming. Probably, a night in such a bungalow is not much better than a tent.
At last it dawned, the children woke up early. At 7-30 we were met with things on the beach, the rooms were handed over, things were left in the souvenir shop. Everyone was transferred by motorboat to a small boat, where breakfast was already smoking on the upper deck (toast, jam, they brought scrambled eggs and sausages, watermelon, pineapple, tea, coffee). After breakfast, the boat sailed along the island, the beauty is indescribable, we, the inhabitants of the tundra (ha-ha), saw this only in fairy tales. Multi-colored fish swam in the clear water, the azure sea, rocky shores with exotic plants, everything is so brightly colored and under the bright sun that it hurts the eyes. Off the coast of a neighboring island, snorkeling takes 2 hours, Roma and I take turns swimming.
When the group sailed away from the boat to watch corals and fish, the friendly crew of the ship sat down on the deck to wash dishes, the rest of the food from the plates was poured overboard, so a lot of beautiful fish sailed. Andryushka wanted to swim in a life jacket, the desire of a child is a law. They lowered him into the water and yelled very loudly, it took him 5 minutes. The entire crew of the ship laughed. We also dined on the ship, after which everyone was transported to the shore by boats, taking things, transferred to a speedboat, and sailed back. We stopped at one of the Similan Islands of extraordinary beauty, where you can climb the observation deck to the “sail” stone. Great view, blue sea and many small islands around, well, very beautiful. The children swam, the sea here is calm, there are almost no waves.
A minibus was already waiting for us at the port on the mainland. The driver drove us through Patong, there they were already celebrating Songkran in full.
Day eleven.
Songkran or Thai New Year.
After breakfast we went to the beach, everything is calm on the way, the shops are closed, we were a little upset that the holiday was yesterday and there will be no continuation today.
The road from the beach was no longer easy. BEGAN! ! ! Although they reached the hotel almost dry, they returned armed with water pistols to get wet to the skin. Compared to this holiday, our Ivan Kupala is resting, everyone from a little to a lot is poured with water. Thais drive cars with large tanks often filled with ice water (I even saw ice in them), and they pour water on all passers-by and oncoming cars, and they deliberately stop against each other to pour water on them. All cans, bowls, bottles, water guns and machine guns are used. Near cafes, shops there are tanks with water, which are immediately filled from the water supply, and everyone is poured with the same hoses.
Near our hotel there is a small fountain, we settled there, replenishing our combat supplies. From our hotel, they also pulled out a tank and a hose from the kitchen. Dima and I replenished the supply of water for everyone, for which we were generously poured with water from bowls or fired from water guns. They also threw people into the pool and jumped there themselves. Funny. Everything is accompanied by dancing and music. We drenched ourselves until the children were cold.
In the evening it began to rain, at the end of a fun holiday. I have never seen anything like it.
In the morning we got into a taxi for 1350 baht along the route: Big Buddha, aquarium, dino park.
At the highest point of the island of Phuket, there is a Big Buddha made of white marble, the highest Buddha on the island, its height is 45 meters. The complex is located in a picturesque place on top of Nag-kut mountain. A long staircase, hung with wind chimes, leads up to the statue.
Bells are installed along the perimeter of the site, the sound of which is designed to disperse evil spirits and other evil spirits. If you are not a big connoisseur of Buddhist shrines, come anyway, for the sake of viewing platforms, from where the southeastern part of the island opens up to your eyes, you can see the city, streets, mountains and bays with ships and yachts.
Aquarium. Many different small aquariums with marine life. One large one with a tunnel inside, there are several large fish. Well, we were not impressed by the Phuket Aquarium.
Dino park is cool. It's fun to play golf, we saw how foreigners played. The sites are stylized as a Jurassic Park, caves, a waterfall, dinosaurs hide among the trees, huge skeletons of prehistoric animals are scattered in the bushes, and real fish swim in the pond. The kids liked it, although at night it is more interesting there, the volcano erupts with glowing lava and all the figures of animals are highlighted.
It was not very hot to eat at the famous Dino Park restaurant.
We walked to Kata Noi beach, along almost the entire beach there is a road. On the beach itself, walking trees, under the shade, which are located by Thais and tourists. We ate at the Mama restaurant on Katya, we liked it very much, the service was fast and everything was delicious. We walked around the market, bought souvenirs, and will soon go home. From Kata to Karon we took a taxi for 200 baht.
Day thirteen
Somehow the vacation in the country of smiles, on a paradise island, quickly ended. Finally, we decided to try out the pool, as expected, one bleach. On the last day, we only swam and bought souvenirs for numerous friends and relatives.
The holiday was great, I really enjoyed it. Will we come back to Phuket? YES! We haven’t seen so much yet, we just didn’t have time to see a lot of places we wanted to visit. The plan is ready for the future.
During the entire trip, no one got sick, no one had stomach upsets, the children easily endured the trip.
They fed the children: rice, french fries, chicken, fish, pasta can be ordered without sauce, they drank juices. Breakfast at the hotel was sausages and eggs. We bought soup for them a couple of times, Dima ate it, but Andrei did not like it. Of the fruits, they only ate watermelon and nothing else. Dima loves broccoli with us, so when ordering dishes, I preferred it with this vegetable. Nobody was hungry.
On the way back, the Thais put all passengers with children in one cabin of the plane. It was some kind of zoo. There were many small children, like our Dima and less, the children yelled all the way one or the other, but all the adults were silent and did not resent the screams. Our trained children ate in the airplane, watched Smeshariki and went to sleep.