After your 1st visit to Bangkok you will either fall in love with it or you will hate it enough to ensure you never go there again. One thing you will not be is indifferent about the place. With its gleaming skyscrapers sitting next to historic temples this city is a mix of western development and eastern history. Vibrant, colourful, busy and totally mind blowing Bangkok will get under your skin, in a good or bad way!

Suvarnabhumi International Airport opened in 2006 taking over from Don Muang Airport that has now re-opened to handle some domestic flights only. The new airport, pronounced Su-Wan-Na-Poom, has not been a successful episode in Thailand with many problems coming to light less than 1 year after its opening. However airport officials have reported these as merely teething troubles that are being dealt with as they are discovered. Regardless of teeth troubles or not this will most likely be your first point of contact in Thailand.

Unless on a package tour you will find getting transport from the Airport to your hotel very easy. A Bangkok Taxi is the most convenient and cheapest (300-500Bht). Limo Services (900Bht) are also available, but this only works best if there are 3 or more of you with very little luggage, as the boat, or trunk, of these are usually take up with LPG tanks. Bus services are available but unless you are travelling alone a taxi would be a better choice. If you are travelling alone it may be best to seek out other travellers and ask to share a cab with them.

Hotels are in abundance in Bangkok with a price range like no other major city. The cheap end of town used to be Khaosan Road but this area has become a tourist trap now with many of the budget places increasing their prices but not their standards. Sukhumvit is now the area were you will find the majority of hotels within the middle range price bracket. The biggest advantage of these places in my opinion is that they can be booked in advance, so when you arrive in Bangkok you will have a destination to aim for instead of the tourist desks in the airport. These hotels will be a little more expensive but still in no way near the prices you would pay in the UK for a similar standard hotel.

MY HOTEL RECOMMENDATIONS

Now I haven’t been in every hotel in Bangkok but I have stayed in a few, and booked others for previous customers so the following list is not a complete overview of all the good hotels in Bangkok, just the ones I have liked. Over time I will create more posts reviewing hotels, if you have any you want to let me know about good or bad, then post it in the comments.

Belaire Princess – Soi 5 Sukhumvit – From 3200Bht (Approx. £55) per room
Majestic Grande – Soi 2 Suvhumvit – From 3200Bht (Approx. £55) per room
Baiyoke Sky – 222 Rajprarop Road – From 2600Bht (Aprrox.£44) per room
Suk 11 – Soi 11 Sukhumvit – From 480Bht (Aproxx. £8) per room

Travelling with young children is no easy task, especially in a built up capital city like Bangkok, with heat, traffic and humidity. I have listed a few fun things for kids to do, should you find yourself there for a couple of days. Most can be done in a half day but as shopping centres are never far away I’m sure you’ll spend a little longer.

Siam Ocean World – Covering an area of the size of two football pitches Siam Ocean World is in the the basement level of the Siam Paragon shopping mall. This place has mixed reviews with some saying that, although one of the largest aquariums in Southeast Asia there is not much underwater creatures on offer and that the water clarity is not great. Other love the fact that its in a shopping mall so can enjoy a full day in an air-conditioned building. As yet I have not spoke to anyone who as tried diving with the sharks, but having tried that myself in the UK I’m not expecting huge things from it.

2) Ice Skating – This is something that is most definitely on my list to do the next time I’m in Bangkok with the kids. I was surprised to find out that there are 3 ice rinks in the city. Sub Zero Ice Skating Club brings out some laser lights and D.J’s as the sun goes down to turn into a nightclub with a difference, maybe not one for the kids! Open Ice Skate is a smaller rink located on the fourth floor of Imperial Lad Prao. Like the name suggests, this rink is open for viewing so you will become a spectacle to many of the local Thais to watch. Imperial World Ice Skating is the only Olympic-size rink in Thailand complete with skating facilities like first aid, training room, changing room, and Pro Shop. This rink is located 15mins outside Bangkok, on the top floor of Imperial World Samrong.

3) Ten Pin Bowling – Many of the large shopping centres in Bangkok will have a bowling ally. The main ones to consider would be MBK, Central world and Siam Peragon. Having spent a lot of time in MBK, this is one thing I would miss out until my children get older and I could leave them there unsupervised. The place is FULL of teenage kids hanging out with their friends, playing hundreds of game machines and generally acting like …. Teenagers!

4) Water Parks – Always a hit with the kids, Bangkok has some large water parks to spend the day at. Leoland Water Park is a little out from Bangkok centre but worth a visit if near that area. It’s on the roof of the Central City Bangna shopping mall so you can combine a shopping day with a something to do with the kids. Fantasia Lagoon is on the roof top of yet another shopping mall. With huge water slides and whirlpools this water park is popular at weekends and bank holidays, but the daddy of the all must be Siam Park. This place is again on the roof top of a large shopping mall but this time it’s the the 400-metre Super Spiral water-slide and giant man-made sea pool with artificial surf that are the star of the show. Shopping won’t really be on the cards at this place which boast swimming pools, water-slides, whirlpools and a lake, as well as playgrounds, botanical gardens, an open zoo and an aviary. A note of warning though with all these attractions it does get very busy so try to go on a weekday as weekends and public holidays gets pretty busy.

5) Dusit Zoo – Dusit Zoo or “Khao Din” is regarded as the most popular zoo in Thailand. Built by King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) as his private garden adjacent to the royal palace was converted to a zoo in 1938. Today the zoo is run by the state Zoological Park Organization who control many of the other zoos around Thailand. Its distance from the city makes it a nice trip out of the heat and traffic and if you go there midweek you will find it even more quiet.

There are other things for children to do in Bangkok so if you think i’ve missed a good one then plaese leave a comment about.

Welcome to Thailand Scuba Tours!

After many years of travelling to Thailand as a tourist on budget trips, me and my wife decided to try living in Thailand for 6 months while she took a sabbatical for her job, I was the house dad then! Our daughter had just turned 3 when we arrived in Ao Nang, Krabi and i started to try and get work in the local Thailand scuba industry as a dive instructor. I had been working part time for a dive shop near Manchester in the UK as an instructor for abut 3years in the rain, snow frozen lakes and biting winds so felt I deserved a break somewhere tropical.

Things went really well for us for us in that 6 months but i will say staying in paradise is not all roses! Our plan was to come back to the UK sell up and move out to Thailand full time but just before we came back my wife found out she was pregnant with our second child, so that puts the brakes on our plans for moving out there full time. I did however go back out for another season but this time as a dive shop manager, this turned out to be a mistake for more reasons than one.

When i arrived back in the UK i decided then that we would wait till our son was 3 before we went back out to Thailand and that is what we have done! He will be 3 in October and we have plans to pick up where we left off a few years and tears ago.

Whether you are a backpack budget traveler looking for a cheap Thailand holiday or a family looking for a fun holiday we hope we can help you find it here or a least some information that will help you choose Thailand as your next holiday destination. Take your time to read some of the postings on this site as many of them will be full of information that you might find useful.

I hope you enjoy this blog and that contact me with anything you want to know or something i may have done or said wrong. I have lots of information i want to get across about living in Thailand but more importantly what Thailand is like as a holiday maker, the problem is I’m not a natural writer and sometimes i feel my style is too clinical. I hope writing in a blog and reading others will help me relax that style.

See you all soon

Brian

What I’m listening to right now ~ Ministry of Sound – Clubbers Guide 2007