Pics of 5000km (non-mongering) road trip from the east to the south and around the gulf

[Valicat]

I wanted to find something positive to post so here are more details from my last trip away from home.   I am looking forward to my next trip whenever it will be.

We took a car road trip from April 7 to April 30, 2021.  Right after we left Covid started to flare up around the country and it made us come home a little bit earlier than we first planned.  It also made us miss everything in Chon Buri province that we wanted to visit, including Pattaya and some of the islands.   We tried to visit as many beaches as was reasonable.

I will be posting (too) many pictures (I did reduce their original size) over the coming few days from almost every day of the trip. 

I hope that you will find these pictures as beautiful as I do.

To start is the entire route that we took.

The first day out we drove to a mountainous area just east of Bangkok.  There are many hotels and resorts there.  We stayed at a very beautiful resort https://www.watermillresort.com/  The next day we went to Khao Yai National Park where we hiked to a waterfall that was mostly dry but still beautiful and we drove up to the highest point at 4000 feet but couldn't see anything because it was raining and very foggy.

 

 

After the national park we drove into Bangkok to spend the night.  The next day we went to the Ancient City https://www.muangboranmuseum.com/. It is a large museum type park with slightly reduced sized historical buildings and monuments from Thailand's history 

 

 

After the Ancient City we drove across south Bangkok and visited Don Hoi Lot.  Then we drove until the northernmost beach on the west side of the Gulf of Thailand.  There were only 2 beaches that we visited that had these break walls constructed.  They did a good job of keeping the sand in place. We spent the night at https://www.facebook.com/BlueskyresorthadchaosamranTH/ 

 

I will continue with more pictures and details tomorrow....

[Atlas]

Good stuff mate. 

I have done many miles in the last 12 months on my motorbike, a lot harder to stop and take pics I find. Being totally selfish the 'virus' has been great for me travelling, no crowds, empty roads and cheap hotels. 

Looking forward to some more pics. 

BTW, if you have not been up in the Chiang Mai region I highly recommend it. some very beautiful country up there. 

[Valicat]

46 minutes ago, Atlas said:

BTW, if you have not been up in the Chiang Mai region I highly recommend it. some very beautiful country up there. 

Thanks!

We are planning to take a month long or longer trip to northern Thailand early next year assuming things are better. 

I am ready to move again (I'm tired of watching the rice grow 555) and we will decide where to next after that trip.  I am leaning toward going back to a beach town but the trip to the north could change my mind.

[Atlas]

16 minutes ago, Valicat said:

Thanks!

We are planning to take a month long or longer trip to northern Thailand early next year assuming things are better. 

I am ready to move again (I'm tired of watching the rice grow 555) and we will decide where to next after that trip.  I am leaning toward going back to a beach town but the trip to the north could change my mind.

One major thing to consider is the air pollution up there, it is truly horrendous, mind you was not much better down this way in Patts last burning season.... 

[steveschumi]

Wooow! Amazing pictures. must be great so in the great outdoors. Thanks for sharing with us

 

[Valicat]

9 hours ago, Atlas said:

One major thing to consider is the air pollution up there, it is truly horrendous, mind you was not much better down this way in Patts last burning season.... 

Yes, we get a fair amount of pollution in Ubon as well but I don't think as bad as the north.  I remember this past spring when the TGF looked directly at the sun in the afternoon and said how pretty it was.  I said that was not a good thing because it was caused by the pollution in the air.  The only place that I have lived in Thailand that did not get the spring pollution was much further south in Krabi province.

[Valicat]

Continuation of original post...

Working our way down the coast, spent 1 night at Sea Breeze Guest House Bang Saiyoy, Cha-am, Phetchaburi and then 2 nights at https://www.agoda.com/.../prachuap-khiri-khan-th.html

We stayed in Prachuap Khiri Khan for 2 nights because we really liked it as a small town but next we moved to http://www.thebeachresidence.com/ which was pretty isolated.  We drove a little bit south looking for lunch and it was very desolate but we came upon an old building with some covered picnic tables right on the beach.  We had the best lunch of the whole trip right there.  Then we drove back north up to a lookout point and the view was incredible.

Here are a few pictures from The Beach Resort.  From here we drove across from the east side on the Gulf of Thailand to the west side on the Andaman Sea.

 

Spent 1 night at https://www.pakasai.com/ then 3 nights at Leelawadee Garden Resort in Ao Nang.  Drove south to the hot springs, drove north for lunch and a gorgeous view and a mangrove park.  

To be continued...

 

[Valicat]

3rd of 4 

Next we drove to Patong on the Island of Phuket.  Stayed 2 nights at the https://skyviewhotel.com/phuket/ This was the only 5 star resort we stayed at during the trip and it was amazing.   The included breakfast was a 5 course meal and worth more than what we paid for the night.  The head chef from Bangkok was at the resort training the staff and he came to talk to us both mornings and bring us fresh bread that he had just baked.  The resort only had 2 other rooms occupied on both nights we were there.  We would have liked to stay longer here and on this side of the peninsula but the new covid outbreak was really starting to become a concern.  3 days after we left here everyone (including residents) had to have a negative covid test just to get on the island.

We drove around the island of Phuket. Here are some pictures from the beach at Kata Noi. Some people say that this beach has the best sand in all of southeast Asia.  I do find that it is a little darker and softer sand than most beaches.  There are pictures from Promthep Cape which is at the southern tip of the island.  We also stopped at the Big Buddha on Phuket http://www.mingmongkolphuket.com/  It was a bit of a rainy day.

We drove back to the Gulf of Thailand to a very underdeveloped but beautiful beach.  We visited Wat Chedi Ai Khai, a temple famous for helping you win the lottery but we never play it.  TGF's father recently won 10k so I guess that counts 555.  We stayed at a small resort called Our Home.

 

1 post left to complete the set

[Valicat]

Last set of pictures

Took the ferry to Koh Samui.  We drove around the island and stayed at The Code https://www.samuicode.com/ for 1 night

We left Koh Samui and started our way back north to make our way across Bangkok on Saturday. We stopped at a wonderful resort https://www.villavarich.com/ on a little river that is owned by a young couple. We then drove back to the first beach we visited and spent the night at http://www.thefishermansresort.com/  We skipped all the beaches in Chon Buri province because the current covid wave was getting bad in that area. We drove past Rayong and spent 3 nights at https://grandbluethailand.com/

After 3 days at the GrandBlue we drove further south where Thailand is the thinnest because of the border with Cambodia.  It is very quiet there but there are also 2 very fancy resorts.  We stayed 2 nights at the Centara Chaan Talay Resort & Villas.  There are some islands on this side of the gulf that we would have liked to have visited but covid kept us away.

I tried hard to only give you the very best of the many pictures I took of this sunset.  This was our last night at the beach.

We started back and happened upon a gorgeous hotel in Buriram http://www.hotel-delamour.com/   There were only 2 rooms occupied in the hotel that night because of covid and we ate the complimentary breakfast all by ourselves in one of the restaurants the next morning.

It is nice to look back on this trip as I haven't traveled since.  I will be going to the US for November and December after which I am planning a 4-6 week trip to the north of Thailand for mid January and February followed by a 1-2 month trip to the east coast of the Gulf of Thailand a couple of months later.  During those trips I will decide which of those 2 areas I want to live next.

 

[jaynewcastle]

Thanks for the details report & pictures

[Rocketboy]

EXCELLENT!!!!!