THAILAND EXPERIENCE

If you've been reading my latest blog posts you'll know that i've spent the last couple of weeks travelling round Thailand with one of my best friends. This trip has been planned now since January and now I can't believe its actually over and back to normality. This post is just to bring you a little overview of my time and some of the pictures I took whilst there.

When we decided on Thailand since it was our first trip we wanted to do it with a trip company so we had someone to help us get around and give us advice on the best places to stay. Our trip was with a company called Thaintro and it couldn't recommend it more! If you're looking to explore Thailand but want somewhere to start for the first week then you should definitely try it out! Thaintro is a 7 day tour and we did the Phi Phi Island add on so the tour was 12 days in total but we were in Thailand for 19 days so had a bit of extra time to explore by ourselves.

Once we arrived in Bangkok we had a couple of free days before the tour started. On the first day we headed to the Floating Market and Tiger Temple and it was such an amazing experience. The Tiger Temple is run by Monks so girls have to cover their shoulders and knees (not the best in 35 degree heat), the tigers were amazing and we were informed that because of the heat they sleep majority of the day hence why you can get so close to them for pictures. 

The Thaintro tour started on the sunday and was a week long filled with some incredible memories. The first couple of days we were in Bangkok where we explored the temples, had nights out on the Khao San road and took a Thai cooking class (just don't ask me to cook you a meal now). We then got an overnight train down south, it was definitely an experience sleeping in a bed on a train. Once down south we headed to Khao Sok national park where we stayed on floating bungalows, this was the most incredible experience and the views were amazing. We had one night on Khao Sok and then headed over to Koh Phangan, Thaintro own their own hotel and its amazing with wooden bungalows with sea views and an infinity swimming pool. We were in Koh Phangan for 4 days where had my favourite part of the trip, the elephant experience, the whole of the trip was amazing but this was a part i'll never forget. Whilst in Koh Phangan we went on boat trips and snorkelling and lots of beach parties.

The week at Thaintro ended the Sunday which happened to be the night of the Half Moon so we had that as a big farewell night out as a group, although I don't advise it went you have to get picked up at 6.20 the next day to get to the Phi Phi Islands. The Phi Phi Islands add on is something Thaintro offer and 5 of us from our group headed there. The first day there we had a boat trip to Bamboo Island and Monkey Beach, although I ended up with heatstroke from the trip and so wasn't very well for the day. The following day we had an over night boat trip to Maya Bay (where the film The Beach was filmed), in the daytime its packed and your pictures are full of people but our boat trip are the only ones allowed to stay there so it was pretty special.

After the Phi Phi it was just the two of us again and we headed back to Koh Phangan for a few relaxing days and the Full Moon Party. The Full Moon Party was amazing and an experience i'll never forget, Koh Phangan transforms from this chilled out beach town to a party mecca with thousands of people. Also I can't forget the buckets where you get a 70cl bottle of alcohol topped up with a mixer for around £5 - trust me you only need a few of these. 

Now that I'm back home and thinking about all the amazing experiences I've had and all the amazing people of met I can't wait to get my passport and travel to some more places. However, after living out of a backpack for three week i'm so glad to be home to my bed, wardrobe and toilet where you can actually flush the paper.

You can also check out some more of my photos on my instagram - @samanthasbeautyloves

Have any of you been to Thailand? What are your experiences?

xo