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Published: January 27th 2023
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After a very long wait and with flights having unsurprisingly gone up, I booked for Singapore, then straight onto Thailand, Laos and Malaysia. It hardly seemed real and I hoped I still had it in me! Luckily I still had a pro subscription to Tripit, such an easy way to collate all transport and accommodation. I really recommend it!
The most convenient flight was via Doha, which wouldn’t have been my first choice by a long way, but direct flights were few and very expensive, and other offers which looked good on the surface didn’t include bags. So I faced a bleary-eyed transfer halfway through and hoped that 1 1/2 hours would be enough time for my bag to make it onto the next plane. In the end it was 1hr20mins and my bag arrived. Had I had data or the free WiFi I’d have seen that Qatar sent me a text to say my bag had been loaded, which would have saved me the worry. The flight to Singapore was only about 1/5 full and nobody at all was within 4 rows of me. Amaaazing view of the Palms Resort in Dubai as we flew over.
If you
fly to Singapore you can now fill an arrival card in online and this makes going through super fast but you don’t get a stamp now. Sadness….. I had seen a review about a new taxi app called Tada (cheaper than Grab) and registered for it before I left. I remember before that finding out where to get your Grab was difficult but now it is very easy, you follow the signs for Ride Hailing and there was a board explaining how to tell the driver where you are. It’s better to select cash if you want a quick response. I didn’t really expect it to work but it did. Cost more than I was expecting, 23SGD to Joo Chiat, which is half way to the centre. It was cheaper on the way back.
Ibis Budget Joo Chiat Riad is a great choice for a quick overnight. I got upgraded to a room with a window and it was on the top floor at the back, so zero street noise. £61. In the morning it was raining a bit and I went out to forage for breakfast. The place on the corner had western food, very expensive and very
popular. Down the road a bit further was a noodle shop, noodles with pork, wonton soup and a tea was just 5SGD. The chilli nearly killed me, must get acclimatised! A friendly local lady with purple hair wanted to chat and asked me to sit while she had her breakfast. She is keen to meet up when I go back through in March. I walked around the neighbourhood with my umbrella taking pics of the beautifully restored Peranakan houses, pre War, and then got a Tada to the airport, 15SGD this time. Everyone was really surprised that a non-Singaporean knew about the app.
My flight with Scoot to Krabi left late but arrived more or less on time. It was a waste of money paying to sit at the front so I could hurtle out, we had to get on buses to the terminal. You do not have to fill a landing card in, just tell them where you are staying and the whole process was very quick. You get 45 days of visa exemption at the moment. I whizzed through to the baggage hall and got a 30 day SIM for 500TB and this time remembered to have
some charge in my travel phone. Changed some money 38.2 to the £, pretty terrible. My bag arrived and I showed the ladies selling transfers my 12Go ticket for a van to Koh Lanta, outside, they said. There was a van outside but he was full and said mine would come at 4. I sat clutching what I hoped was not a fictitious van ticket and after half an hour and asking other people I was at the wrong terminal, I needed Domestic, so grumpily and in a panic set off to the main road with all my bags. Luckily, a young guy felt sorry for me and put me and my huge bag on his scooter and we groaned round helmetless (I was heading along a ramp which would have taken me back to where I started but I couldn’t see that). He wouldn’t take any money, bless his mother for bringing him up to be so kind, especially as he could hardly turn his handlebars with my bag on the front! It was a RIDICULOUS way to travel but great fun for me!
After called the hotline numbers on my ticket (answerphones, not that hot!) and then
the company name on my ticket somebody called me back and said 10 minutes and it was. By far the eldest in the van, yay. And when the driver tried to drop some of us on the main road instead of down the lane I said no, too far. Successfully delivered to Lanta Arrow House, huge room full of mozzies, £20 a night in the backpacker area of hostels and right on the beach. The sockets are vertical so my charger The Aleena minimarket is still the place to go in the evening for cheap beer and pad Thai from the guy on the scooter kitchen in front. It was buzzing with backpackers and the communal tables are very social. I liked it. Not so much the pad Thai but it was OK and only 90BT.
Today was a beach day, my former sunbeds were no longer in front of the massage place so I walked down to Eco Resort Lanta and paid 100TB to use theirs and had breakfast there. Lots of shade under the trees. When I got back I bought a speedboat ticket from reception to go to Koh Mook on Monday, 900TB. It was the
same price in the agency up the road so I figured that’s the going rate. Includes a pick up from here.
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