While this day ended up being much more Singapore than Thailand, in sticking with our current trend of considering a travel day as the arrival country, this goes to Thailand.Our flight leaves at 4:40pm, so we planned to spend the first half of the day actually exploring the Changi airport in Singapore rather than walking around the city itself. The airport is super famous for having a ton of extravagant features and interesting things to do so we were excited to spend some time there. Our hotel check out time was scheduled for 12:00 noon, but we had planned to be out early so we could spend more time at the airport. Unfortunately, things do not always go as planned, and our packing actually took way longer than we had hoped. We worked as hard as we could, but finally at around 11:55 we realized that we were running out of time and didn’t want to be charged extra, so we threw some stuff together and closed our bags as much as possible, ready to head downstairs. We exit the room, and right as the door closes, David realized that we forgot to check a drawer in the room, and we weren’t quite sure if we had used it to store anything. Unfortunately, it was just 12:00 and the room key would not let us back in. We went downstairs, and the attendant was kind enough to grant our key permission to open the door again. David checked it out, and we thankfully did not leave anything, but it was a good lesson to pack early and triple check everything. We decided to order a taxi as it was pretty inexpensive and headed off to the airport.
We checked in, dropped our bags, and went through security, excited to explore the airport. We arrived at our terminal and decided to go grab some food first. We headed upstairs to the international food area and scoped out our options.
We ended up getting the chicken nasi lemak (a spicy Malaysian chicken dish with rice) and the hainese chicken. The nasi lemak wasn’t bad, but the hainese chicken was absolutely delicious. David hasn’t loved the hainese chicken we previously ate as much as Caitlyn, but he LOVED this one. We enjoyed our meal and laughed about how even the airport food in Singapore is delicious.
We looked into how to explore the other parts of the airport, when we realized it was a shuttle bus that came infrequently (anywhere between 10-28 minutes) to take you to the other parts of the airport, while terminals 1-3 were connected via a sky train that ran every 3 minutes (and which is what we were expecting). With only about 2 hours left before boarding at this point, we felt that it would be a little too risky and we wouldn’t get as much done as we would like. We instead opted to hang out and work on the blog. We found a Tiger beer bar and sat down, sharing a “jug” (small pitcher) of beer while working more on the blog.
We eventually walked to our gate and sat there waiting to board. Caitlyn had remembered that the hotel offered airport transportation services, so she sent them an email earlier that day asking about the possibility, as the bus from the airport only came one time an hour and we were arriving very late and we didn’t want to chance trying to ensure we could make it on the bus. They had sent us back a credit card authorization form, and David quickly filled it out before boarding, in hopes that they would receive it and confirm our shuttle before we got up in the air. In a short matter of minutes, they sent us a response that they were prepared to pick us up from the airport!
We boarded the plane and sat in our window and aisle seat as per our favorite trick. This time, however, a gentleman comes up to us and says his seat is the middle seat. David tells him that he is happy to take the middle seat if the man wants the aisle, which he agrees to. Oh well, it can’t work every time! We watched 1899 a bit more on the short flight and eventually landed in Phuket.
It was already very dark out, so we couldn’t really appreciate being in a new country, but even the vibes and decor at the airport could tell us that we were somewhere new. We got through the arrival process, finding our bags easily, and went to go find our driver at the arrivals area.
Along the way, we found an ATM and took out some Thai money for the few days we would be here. We walked out front and found a sign with David’s name on it, and the lady holding it told us to wait 10 minutes and they will call us.
In just around 10 minutes, they tell us the cab is ready, and we hop in. The cab driver seemed to take us down some VERY rural back roads which did sketch us out a little bit. We didn’t bother getting SIM cards here as we are only in Thailand for around 4 days for this segment of the trip (we will be back for more later!), but thankfully our American cards worked well enough to confirm that we were not being kidnapped, and were being driven towards our hotel. We arrived at the Nipa resort, very happy with our first impressions.
We splurged a little bit ($3 extra a day compared to the runner-up) and booked a hotel that had a pool, as Phuket seems to mostly be a beach town with few attractions we would be interested in, and we are not really beach people. We went to check in at the front desk and were informed by the attendant that she wanted to give us an upgrade to a room with a jacuzzi out our back door. We were more than happy to accept!
We left and went to go walk to our room, admiring the enormous pool with giant elephant statues spraying water out of their trunks into the pool.
We got to our room on the first floor and were stunned to see that this upgrade also came with a king sized bed (we’ve been sharing a double almost the entire time), a MASSIVE room, and a huge bathroom.
We went to check out this jacuzzi, and realized that it was literally a swim-up pool dedicated to a row of around 8 rooms with a divider area between each to give us more privacy. We could not believe our luck!
We were pretty tired and didn’t want to delay going out to grab some dinner, so we found a place about 15 minutes from our hotel and headed out. We decided that we didn’t want to explore much yet tonight as it was pretty late and we didn’t have a good lay of the land or the safety yet. It was a little intimidating, honestly, as this was our first true Southeast Asia country (Singapore is very westernized). Motorcycles and scooters sped by everywhere, infrequently stopping for pedestrians. It was definitely farther from our norm than anywhere else we have been, with a lot more damage on roads and sidewalks, and more trash along the roadside.
There were massage parlors everywhere with women wearing short skirts trying to beckon men in (these are the kind of massages you think they are), and every restaurant has someone out front aggressively trying to get you in to eat. We politely declined every request and eventually got to the Honeymoon Thai restaurant.
It was completely deserted aside from the employees, but we sat down and grabbed a menu. The employees were very kind and attentive, and we soon picked out the “golden bags” appetizer, the fish fillet in yellow curry sauce, and Penang mixed seafood curry.
David had seen chicken wings on the appetizers list and joked about getting them (okay joked but if Caitlyn said yes he would totally get them. Absolutely one of David’s top favorite foods). As if the Gods intervened, the server comes by not 3 minutes later with a plate of chicken wings and says “complimentary appetizer”.
Soon, the golden bags came. This is a light and crispy appetizer filled with curried vegetables and glass noodles. It came with a delicious dipping sauce and was absolutely delicious.
The main courses came out soon after. They were both so incredible, full of flavor and a bit of spice. We ate as much as we could but the portion sizes were immense so we weren’t able to finish it all, especially after 2 appetizers!
at the end of the meal, they even brought by some complimentary watermelon slices for dessert!
Done with our delicious meal, we walked back home, of course stopping by a 7-11 for some drinks to keep in our room. We jumped in bed and David decided to turn on the TV to see what Thai shows are like. David switched through a few channels and his heart sunk when he saw that there was a terrorist attack committed by Hamas on Israel. We had been tired, but seeing this news woke us up, and we ended up glued to our phones and the TV for a few more hours watching the atrocity unfold. Caitlyn stayed up as late as she could, and David ended up staying up until almost 2:00am catching up on the news, eventually passing out.
David’s thoughts of the day: I’ll be honest, this was definitely a little bit of a shock as compared to the last 3 countries we have gone to. We are extremely excited, but this is going to be a bit of a shock. Also, I am excited to have a bit more of a relaxed and restful time here to let my body recover a little bit and slow down for once.
Caitlyn’s thoughts of the day: this was the first time that I felt like I needed to be extra on my guard with my personal belongings safety. I would adjust my bag so it wasn’t on the same side as the road, as we had been warned that theft from motor bike can occur.
Steps walked: 12,347
Miles walked: 5.96
Bluming Travelers 