HK5 Thailand: Chapter 1 “Golden Budah & Wool Pashminas”
Thailand was an interesting trek for HKfamily5. A lot of people warned us a lot about certain areas, especially for the kids. Many raved how gorgeous the place was and how loving/nice the people were. I’m here to say that it all true. We flew from Osaka to Bangkok and spent two night in the big city. A lot of the travel video sites suggested to stay across the river if you had kids. Staying in the city center is noisy and intimidating too many. I found a high rise hotel along the river that had a perfect view of the city center.
Thailand on our second day was hot, and I mean hot! The forecast was in the 90’s but it felt more like 110’s in the sun. We opted to venture down into the city center, using a water taxi to travel across the river. Most of our travel was in a taxi because they had AC which is not the case in most businesses. We visit our first Wat. There are so many Wat’s in Bangkok alone. Figuring out which one to visit was tough. A lot of the Wat’s have heavy clothing restrictions and I knew with the heat, looser restrictions were better.
Everyone kept telling me we needed to go see the golden buddha in Bangkok and it turns out there, there are so many different golden buddha in the city. In the end I choose Wat Traimit because it allowed shorts for both men and women. Sadly for Paley, she got dinged. She was required to wear a black pashmina wrap around her waist to enter the Wat. By the time we interested the Wat and saw the golden buddha, poor Paley was crashing fast. The buddha was amazing but I was more worried about poor paley. We ended the outing after we left the Wat and headed back to the hotel. She almost passed out walking through the streets looking for water and a taxi to get back to the river.
The crazy part of our day in Bangkok was our choice for dinner. The night before we ate at the hotel restaurant on the roof with a gorgeous view but the food was terrible, So between the horrible good from the night before and being away from all the other hotels, our choices were limited. Next to our hotel was a hotel that had a Trader Vic’s restaurant. Yes, Trader Vic’s. I hadn’t eaten at a Trader Vic’s since my youth. We ate like kings that night and the service was amazing and attentive. The kids loved and sadly we were only one five tables there that evening. What was interesting was reading into the history of Trader Vic’s
Did you know…..
There have been over 60 Trader Vic restaurants across the planet.
The founder is credit with creating the Mai Tai cocktail
The following day, we hit travel road and back to Bangkok international airport. We flew this day down to Phuket where we hopped into taxi and headed east to the east coast of Phuket where we arrived to a personal yacht port. Glamorous, yes, but quiet as all hell. We were the only family at the dock and at one point the only people in the restaurant at the club. We boarded our hotel’s speed boat and were off for 2 hour ride out to Koh Phi Phi for 6 days on the beach.