India and Thailand

We took our first international trip with Baby K this year to India and Thailand!

My sister in law and brother in law came with us, which made this long journey bearable. We flew on Emirates Airlines which worked out nicely as they came out to be the cheapest multi city itinerary. My husband chose bulk head seating for us since it gave us the bassinet. I recommend bulkhead as it gives the little ones an area to play, but try and get the middle two seats as the arm rest will go up. If you pick any of the other bulkhead seats the arm rests don’t go up and then it makes it hard if the kid wants to sleep on your lap. You cannot keep them in the bassinet during takeoff/landing and if the seat belt sign is on. Overall we had a great experience with the airline. Dubai airport provides complimentary strollers as they will check in yours from departure city. 

 We went to Gujarat to visit family and grandparents and pretty much kept it low key. Baby K adjusted to the time within 2-3 days and luckily did not get sick at all on this trip! I had her on malaria pills but otherwise did not do anything else different from our routine. It was hard to maintain breast pumping while on the trip, so just nursed. One thing I do suggest, if you are not into co sleeping with your little one, don’t let them get into the habit even on vacation. Baby K was 10 months and was well aware she got to snuggle with us, which made it tough transitioning her back to her crib when we got home. Luckily for us she is a great baby and did fine after a few days, phew! A few things to pack: bug spray, sunblock and all medications.

My sister and Keyur’s two cousins met the rest of us in Thailand to finish off our world tour! We arrived into Bangkok and took taxis to the hotel. One thing I would recommend is if you do stay at the Sheraton Royal Orchid and have a big group, just book the shuttle they provide which was 2250 thb. We ended up doing that on the way back to the airport. However to get a taxi big enough to take us to the hotel was a big pain. You have to get a ticket at a kiosk however they machines would never work, anyways after 30 minutes we were on our way to the hotel. We all funnily enough paid different amounts to get to the airport, ranging from 500-1100 thb. All the hotels we stayed at in Thailand had great concierge who helped us with restaurants, cabs and locations of places we wanted to visit. They guided us to the laying Buddha, but luckily my sister had already visited as she got in earlier so she was our personal guide was great!

We only spent one night in Bangkok and then were off to Chiang Mai. A friend suggested Na Arron restaurant to eat at but we didn’t end up having enough time. Here we stayed at Le Meridian which was 260 thb from the airport, another great hotel, smaller rooms but great service. Wifi wasn’t always that great in our room but my sisters room was fine.I do recommend getting the included breakfast but dinner wasn’t anything special. In this city is where we did the bulk of our tours, which I recommend all of them: http://www.alotofthai.com/ http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/ and http://www.travelhubchiangmai.com/budget-tours/Btour_suthep.html. We ended up paying for all of it in advance and I had great email contact with all places.

I felt that Thailand was overall safer and cleaner then even India. We took our car seat and used it almost all the time. We weren’t able to use it only a few times in India and Thailand. Chiang Mai was also a great place to get Thai Massages done and they were around the corner from our hotel. Thai Massages are offered everywhere and really cheap, $6-$10 for 1 hour of service, definitely a must while in Thailand. We ate at Whole Earth restaurant and Miguel’s Mexican place which I recommend. We also had dinner at Boutique della Pasta, an Italian restaurant, which also wasn’t too bad but nothing to rave about. We bought all of our souvenirs from Chiang Mai, the night market was literally outside our hotel doors and here we bought elephant pants and few other knick nacks. We bought Kanokwan brand curry paste from RimPing supermarket which was recommended by Yui (chef at the cooking class). Lastly we made a last minute decision to go to Bo Sang Umbrella Market, which we loved. Here we had photos on our phones of images the artists painted on paper umbrellas for us. We ended up buying quite a few and had them shipped home. We were there for ~2 hours but they painted the umbrellas in no time at all. I recommend going here if you want something created before your eyes for your home. It was 600 thb roundtrip from our hotel and the driver waited for us at the market, go before the tour buses show up. The market opens at 8:30am and closes around 5 pm.

From Chiang Mai we flew down to Phuket, where we were picked up by Naka Island Luxury Resort transportation. It was ~30 minutes to the marina and about 5-10 minute boat ride to this beautiful resort. We stayed there for 4 nights, and overall thought the service was spectacular in this quiet and clean resort. Upon arrival in our room we had a bottle warmer, bottle cleaner which I didn’t even ask for at our disposable along with a microwave in our sea view villa. The food at the two restaurants was okay but it did have a variety of options (Thai, Italian) to choose from. We opted not to go into Phuket because of the baby and time it would take to much time to do so. We ended up not going to Phi Phi Islands, we were planning to do a private excursion through the resort, due to weather. Overall we had a great time on Naka and recommend it for those who just want to relax.