Phuket travel, Thailand in December (Part 1)

James Bond Island

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:

• 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.

Maya Bay, Krabi, Thailand

It is a well known fact that Indians have the option of Visa on Arrival in Thailand.

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.

Solo-trip amidst Coronavirus pandemic to Langkawi - Part 2

Sorry folks for being away a long long time. Was caught up in a lot of things simultaneously. As far as I remember, I had shared only my first day experience of solo-traveling to Langkawi. I had already started planning my second solo travel to Perhentian Islands in my head. But unfortunately too much has happened in the last 2 years, I returned to India, I was subject to prejudice & chauvinism in my previous organization which had taken a serious toll on my mental health. In this age of Gen Z, mental health is of highest magnitude for folks like us who are drowned in deadlines & project deliveries. Anyway, back to my Langkawi trip which I undertook when the whole world was in the middle of a pandemic & I am happy that I took the decision of solo-tripping.

You can read all about my 1st day at Langkawi & how to reach there here: Langkawi Part 1.

On the 2nd day I decided to travel to North, North East & Southern parts of the island. This is the reason I always opt for a self driven car - no dependencies on any third party/ies. My 1st halt was at at a wild beach adjoining the Pantai Pasir beach. I realized why the beach was called "wild" as it is completely secluded and isolated. I didn't see any traveler or tourist come to this beach & I had a wonderful me-time here. The only negative aspect of visiting this beach solo was nobody to take my photos so I had to rely on my selfie-taking skills.

Wild beach

This beach is also a classic small scale example of an estuarine system/depositional environment as one can see the picture on the right (terms which only Geologists can decipher 😛).

Solo-trip amidst Coronavirus pandemic to Langkawi - Part 1

Update: The prices mentioned in my blog are all of 2020. My viewers who are or will be visiting Langkawi AFTER 2020 - the prices are subject to change.

Tried to click a panorama of the jaw-dropping view from the Skybridge

Did the header catch your attention? Of course! That's what it was supposed to do. So we are now in the 9th month of 2020 - a year in which surely I consider myself "fortunate" enough to have witnessed & lived through (till now) the year of the millenium. After relocating to Malaysia with a new job, I was in my own utopian bubble, fantasizing all the beautiful places I would be traveling to slowly. But alas! The Covid-19 or Coronavirus pandemic transmitted all over the world in such an accelerated rate before even the countries could realize how pestilent it is. More than half of the year is almost gone but a successful vaccine is yet to be invented.