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| James Bond Island |
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| Touchdown Phuket |
It has been quite a long time since I went to any long vacation. By "long vacation" I mean to say not opening the office laptop for more than 7 days consecutively 😁 As soon as the good news came when the customer themselves conveyed that there will be a lull in the operations due to Christmas & New Year holidays in the US, I started planning the vacation with different destinations categorising them on the ease of getting the visa. My 1st choice was Egypt but as I researched more on Egyptian visa, I gave it a pass & decided on Thailand because:
It is a well known fact that Indians have the option of Visa on Arrival in Thailand.
I chose to opt for eVoA or e-Visa on Arrival as I didn't want to waste my time waiting in the long queue, that too during the peak season, and miss my next connecting flight. Procedure to get eVoA for Thailand:-
- the ease of getting e-Visa on Arrival or eVoA
- hotels in Thailand were surprisingly affordable even in the peak season (December)
- the photos and reels of James Bond Island on Instagram tempted me
- Maya Bay has been re-opened by the government after quite a number of years as the beach was shut down to allow nature to heal. Due to overcrowding of tourists, Maya Bay was slowly losing its original beauty so the government took a strict decision & corrective action to close it down.
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| Maya Bay, Krabi, Thailand |
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| A li'l bit posing before kayaking |
I chose to opt for eVoA or e-Visa on Arrival as I didn't want to waste my time waiting in the long queue, that too during the peak season, and miss my next connecting flight. Procedure to get eVoA for Thailand:-
- head over to Thailand eVoA, click on "Apply Now".
- one has to create a profile so that one can upload all the documents viz
- ALL hotel bookings (therefore prior bookings need to be made)
- to & fro flight tickets
- the visa type is "regular eVoA"
- visa fees = 2500 THB per person
IMPORTANT : Carry a global Forex card like Niyo Global (not an advertisement but saying from personal experience) which gives the best international exchange rates or carry enough cash in THB from India. Please DO NOT withdraw cash from ATM's in Thailand as they charge 200 THB per transaction. If you have to withdraw cash there due to unavoidable circumstances, then kindly withdraw a large amount so that the conversion & exchange rates can be somewhat balanced. We were not aware of this & we suffered some heavy losses because of this. So a friendly reminder to my readers - AVOID withdrawing cash from Thai ATM's.
