Bangkok - Ko Lanta - Bangkok - Osaka, November-December 2017

So... we are back from our holiday. Emotions? I´m not sure :) It´s very hard to write this blog post, because I really have mixed feelings at the moment. Main reason is that even though it was very very nice holiday - my expetations were so much higher.  

But here is our trip overview.

Flight there was pretty ok. Finnair is decent airline and the seats were quite comfy too, but in generally - I´m not "night flyer" type. In the morning, when we arrived in Bangkok, I was Zombie. Only thing I could think of was bed and that feeling is really depressing, because you have arrived to this amazing place, where you want start immediately exploring, but you can´t because you are a Zombie. I must say that my 9 year olds survived this trip better than I did. 

I´m not even sure why, but we decided to head to our hotel with train. Really-really bad decision :) We thought we will save some money with this.... but the truth is that we didn´t at all. There were four of us and we had to buy full tickets to girls as well - so that means that we paid for Airlink train 45 baht/pp + 15 baht/pp for BTS + our hotels was in Chinatown (and we got totally ripped of with the taxi outside of Siam). Plus the trains were so full and cold. 

So - we paid more than we should have paid, if we would have taken meter taxi from the airport terminal. I will keep that in mind for next time :)

About Chinatown and our first stop in Bangkok. 

I loved it!!! I have never been in this part of town and  it´s really hidden gem. Our hotel was Royal Bangkok@Chinatown and even though it was quite dated I still enjoyed the roof-top pool. The view from there was fantastic, photo on the right is a proof.
When the night arrived, the streets turned into busy-busy restaurants/markets. We ate in different little "restaurants" by the street and I was really suprised, that our stomach were ok throughout all the trip. Even though some of the restaurants in the daytime were quite impressive :) 

The best place in Chinatown was this little chinese restaurant, where they served really-really cheap meal. But is was so popular among the locals, that there were que almost every night. Restaurant was just opposite to our hotel. 

We stayed there for 2 nights and then headed to Don Mueng airport. Cost for meter taxi was 240 baht. 

As we arrived to Krabi airport quite late (20:15) we had to arrange private van to get to the island. Second rip off :) but it was our own stupidity, so no hard feeling. The cost of private van was 3000 baht and there was approx. 10 seats in the van. Trip lasted 2h and it is considered quite fast, because we had no traffic. 

In Ko Lanta we stayed in Lanta Intanin resort in Kling Nin beach area. Hotel was quite ok. We did have cocroach problems in our first room, but second room seems to be clean. 

I do have some complains regarding the area though. 

Cons for me were, that its quite remote and there is really nothing to do in there. So for the poeple, who are really looking for 24/7 peace and quiet, then I suppose it´s perfect. But we were with kids, so I really hoped, that there would be some attractions in there... and I didn´t like the food. I love genuine Thai food with full spices, but the food in this area was blend and expensive. So it seems, that its really very focused on tourism and I didn´t like this. 

Pro´s were nice long beach strip, clean water, little crabs in the sand (keeped kids occupied) and we sew monkeys sorting the garbage. 

The biggest reason, why our Ko Lanta failed, was - we had really-really crappy weather. We received two days full rain and on the third we decided to escape. As hotel was booked for 8 days, we lost money for those 5 unspent nights, but luckily I was able to change AirAsia tickets. We departed from Trang airport, which is approx 120km from Ko Lanta, but we didn´t have choice. Krabi flight were booked out because of the weather. The cost from our hotel to Trans aiport with shared van costed 425baht/pp and the journey took approx 4 hrs. 

Back in Bangkok we took airbnb... and again we had cockroaches - this time million little small ones prrrr, plus we were hoping to have pool but we didn´t read the ad properly. The pool was with additional charges. So we cancelled this airbnb next morning and received full refund.... 

We booked cheapest hotel near BTS, in Sukhumvit area. It turned out to be very nice. Had a small rooftop pool and breakfast. We spent 6 full days wondering around in Bangkok and even that doesn´t sound so much as a resort vacation - it was actually quite nice. We ate good food all over the streets - I can really recommend this small place near Prhom Phond BTS stop, called "Thai food very good and cheap", Suhkumvit 696/1. Both statements were very true :) For example - we had one day: fried rice with pork, shrimps, cashew nut chicken, Panang chicken, sprin grolls, 2 water. 2 beer and it costed us total 470 baht. The taste was amazing!!!

As cultural experience, we visited Grand Palace. Going there was something different :) We took water taxi from Saphan Taksin BTS stop. Like everywhere else - you have a choise in there. You can take expensive Tourist Boat (40 baht/pp) boat or you can do cheaper 15 baht/pp. We took the cheaper solution, this is the boat where local travel as well. Man, it was busy and noisy and hot, but we liked it. Grand Palace was nice, but it was way too hot that day and no breeze at all. Entrence fee was 500B and we had to buy new skirt and trousers for 100B. But overall - worth going experience.

As per kids wish, we visited Bangkok Sea Life as well. I booked the entrence in advance in order to get it cheaper (Late saver fee was 645B/for adults and 515B/for kids). We did have a little doubt, that maybe we will not be able to see everything with this 3-4 hours, but actually it´s quite small aquarium, so 1-1,5h is enough to see everything. It was fun, but compared to Loro Park, it was nothing :)

Our last day in Bangkok we did some shopping and relaxing. In general - Bangkok holds a special spot in my heart. I like the city buzz, happy people, good food and fresh fruits. It will not be my last time in there, but next time I want to explore Thailand with backpack and tuk-tuk and without any greater plan.

Next stop -> one full day in Osaka. 4,5h of flying from Bangkok, but about 20 °C  colder. And you can see it from people faces. They are so serious there and even the train says on PA, that please turn off your phone and dont speak loudly on the train. 

Our first impression, of course, was airport toilet. Kids were so scared in the beginning, they didn´t know which button to press :) I quite liked the heated seat in the toilet, though. 

Orienteering in metro and train was quite challeching as well - routs and directions 

were manely in hieroglyph. I didn't do my homework too well, so I had no clue how-where-when. But we somehow managed to reach to our hotel. 

Sleep was sweet and in the morning we walked to see Osaka Castle. It was very nice building and I hoped to see this kind of archidecture more in Osaka, but there was none. Osaka is more like industrial city, so not too much archidecture there. 

As it started to rain again and we were freezing we went to Osaka Aquarium. I´m glad we did, because this place was really awesome. Besides all the wonderful animals we saw hammer shark +  we got to touch small reef shark and rai. Kids were thrilled.
In total we spent 310€ in Osaka. That covers the transportation, food, entrance fees + we had some money to spend in the airport.

All in all - my kids were so brave little travelling buddies. We hardly heard any complains or arguing. BUT next time I will leave far destinations just for grownups and with kids we discover nearby places, where we can hire car.
We spend in total 4400€. I suppose ok, if you consider the distance and time.