Thailand for the first time

Planning the annual migration to warmer weather is always a challenging task, answering the age old questions, what do I want from this holiday?

I started with warmer weather, because as we all know, the weather in Melbourne has been horribly cold. Then it was shopping, because deep deep down we all love to shop. It must have culture, strong beliefs and an experience I can talk to my children about later in life.

Thailand seemed an obvious choice, but the little I knew about Thailand had to do with the un-necessary things I hear from my work mates. But what the heck, this is a holiday that had shopping, sandy white beaches, amazing food and did I mention shopping.

Departing a cold and blistery Melbourne was not a hard thing to do that afternoon, and leaving the jackets in the car was more exciting than it sounds, but I knew we would be expecting an average of 32c each day.

I have heard and read a fair bit about the madness and congestion of Bangkok, and also the lack of ability to breath which I knew would be a challenge, but arriving in a warm and humid Bangkok at 9pm was the real shock. My head ached from the humidity, the body trembled from the noise and the mind went into overdrive from the pure energy of the amount of people.

After reaching a taxi with the bags in tow, I knew there would be no stopping until I reached the sandy beaches of Ko Ngai, which was still 2 days away.

Our first night was spent in a little hotel just moments from the airport but hours away from relaxation. The Floral Shire Resort was a small, old but cheap hotel in a back lane-way in what seemed to be the only hotel in the area. We settled quickly and headed out on foot to firstly find some food, and quench the thirst with a cold authentic Thailand beer.

A little close to the airport…..

We found this cute bar only moments walk from the resort and scoffed the first beer like I hadn’t tasted beer in years. It was cold, I mean cold, so I guess it could have been anything really, as long as it was cold! The food was good, I mean it wasn’t great, but it was all we needed on our first night in town.

Our little hotel Floralshire Resort….

After a restless night, we headed back to Suvarnabhumi Airport for an early flight to Trang, the most southern province in Thailand.

Bangkok is the largest city I have been to in my travels to date, and although I relish what I am about to explore, experience and discover, I am amazed by the little things; How does the traffic in Bangkok really work? I mean there are cars, trucks, cows, people and millions of motorbikes taking up each and every inch on the rough and bumpy roads. Surely if this was here in Melbourne, the fatality rates would be through the roof.  Well done Bangkok I am totally amazed right now!