Thailand Trip 2010 Post Accounting

Yay! I finally finished my blog about the 4 days spent in Thailand. So now, my next task is to list the estimates I did and compare with the actual expenses. This is tricky coz I know I've not listed everything, like we buy 1 bottle of water, or ride a tuktuk or something. But hopefully this will list most of the items we bought and spent during the Thai holiday. This will be interesting as I want to see how well I did the pre budgeting...LOL I follow a travel blog justwandering.org and I find it very interesting that she posts her travel budget and stuff.

The pre-travel budget
This is an exciting part for me and most tedious as well. When I finally booked our ticket to Bangkok via Cebu Pacific, I can't stop myself from planning for the said trip. I sleep late and research about the places, hotels, tourist spots and stuff. And the more I read, the more I get excited. When I go home from work, I spend like 3-4 hours looking online for hotels to stay, this was my routine for like a month, until I was all sure that I've set everything. Surely, na-adik talaga ako sa pagresearch. But I'm having so much fun.

I enjoy looking through each hotel, reading reviews, looking at pictures, waaaaah kung san san ako napadpad. It's not easy, that's why I know I am the only one in the group who has the will to get to the budgeting and planning. Kaya wag silang aangal kung ayaw nila...haha! Or else I will let them plan on their own...and we'll see...
How I did it, I made an excel sheet (oh I love making spreadsheets!) and each sheet for Day 1 to Day 4. I also added a sheet for the hotels I've asked. This is because I have compared all their prices and see which one has the best to offer. We had to stay in 2 different hotels so it's an additional work for me di ba? And all I've transacted online.
Now we go to the real deal...

Thai Trip Day 4 - Safari World

In the morning before we left we had our last breakfast in Bangkok at Green House again. I had pancakes and they were very nice as you can see!

We have already checked out of the hotel and we instead just left our bags at their storage room. Their storage room rental costs 20 baht per bag but the kind lady only let us pay for the big luggages and smaller ones are free! That's quite nice of them and they constantly smile at us! They happy to see Filipinos looking like Thais!

Thai Trip Day 3 - Grand Palace

Woah so here we are on the third day of the Thai Trip!

In the morning we had a nice breakfast at Green House. We went there to also make use of their free wifi! hehe! We also had a few hours to spend some time swimming time at the pool on top of the hotel! Very refreshing!

After that, we wanted to try some spring rolls and street food so we then grabbed pad thai and roasted chicken along Rambuttri Road. The lunch was very very good! Stuffed as usual! We also found a temple just some walking distance from our hotel.

Thai Trip Day 2 - Koh Samet to Bangkok

-=Grrrrrr...I was almost finished with my Day 2 blog but after hitting Save Draft, a blocked site screen came up and my blog wasn't saved!!!
Okay, so this is testing my patience, but I will pursue with my objective to finish the blog this weekend. So here goes with me rewriting the Day 2 Thai Trip blog. I hope it looks better...=-

Thai Trip Day 1 - Ban Phe to Koh Samet

I forgot to mention in my previous blog, that while we were getting tickets at Ekkamai station, a lady overheard us and gladly she's a Filipina. Ate Ruth is an English teacher and also knows a tour guide around BKK. She gave us tips and her contact number so that the next day we go back to BKK we can reach her and she's happy to send a guide for us.

Okay so 3.5 hours in the bus, we took a snack, took pictures a lil and slept.
At around 8:30 we are in Ban Phe! We had to wait another hour for the ferry at 9:30. Got our tickets at the counter and took pics as well while waiting. We are exhausted and sleepy so we are all very much looking forward to take a rest when we reach our villa in Koh Samet.

This is my photo at a Samet island map next to the ticket counter.

Thai Trip Day 1 - From NAIA 3 to BKK

Finally, after hours and hours of waiting, my photos of the trip are finally uploaded in facebook. And my next to do task this weekend is writing this blog to document the fun and experience in Thailand! I'm not going out this weekend to complete these excercise so hopefully my weekend relaxation is worthwhile.

Okay, so we start of with our Day 1. Of course we all need to head to Terminal 3 of NAIA Airport. We are all excited of course. It's me, Kim, Icee and Sean getting ready.

I had a backpack full of my things and an extra hand bag as you can see. My Jansport backpack is so big I really look funny in it, but I don't care. At least I can carry my things comfortably rather then when I used to have duffle bag on either shoulders which gives me pain afterwards.

So we're flying with Cebu Pacific. We luckily got their 50% off promo on November 2009. I was so excited then that I didn't even realize there's more expenses than I thought. But what the heck it's the experience that made all worth it. And besides it wasn't too bad. You'll find out when I do our post travel accounting. Hehe!

So we checked in just in time. One thing you have to note is that liquids are not allowed in your handcarry. If you do, it should be no more than 100ml and should be in a clear plastic ziplock bag. I'm sure anyone would notice the signs before you enter the xray. So better put all the liquids in your check in luggage as I would usually do.

Thailand Holiday 2010

I've just been back from a week long trip to Thailand, specifically Koh Samet and Bangkok. And I'm sure everyone will agree that the very limited time spent is not enough to handle any enjoyable and fun trip like this. Just going around the place is too exhilirating! Taking pictures is always a must!

Okay, so this time I am blogging about my Thai Experience in 4 parts - Day 1 to Day 4, this is because I now want to make sure I keep everything in detail (hopefully!) as I am also now trying to set myself onto doing some real travel blogging excercise...haha!

I hope to detail out everything, from the funniest to the hatest experiences, to my expenses and budgeting and hopefully add a few tips to other future travellers. I hope my memory is still intact because I don't want to miss anything at all! hehe And like what I usually do I want to keep it all with photos because as they say 'A picture paints a thousand words'

This is just the start so I wish that this could be fun not only for anyone reading this but also for me. I know I am just beginning so yeah! Just give any feedback, comments or suggestions so I know that I'm still making sense and adding some value in the internet and travelling community hehe!

Right now all I can say is that I'm so glad to have this another chance to visit a different place and learn something from it. It is indeed a great learning experience, from the fact that it's quite a challenge to be able to converse, ask the directions, travel with different kinds of people, decide quickly etcetera etcetera.

I'm just as excited as planning my next getaway. I don't know when and where still, but I'm sure I would want to try something different this time. I'm enjoying the adventure and I hope it goes on! One day I thought, why don't I try to travel on my own! Woah! Just a thought!