I have been so lazy that even writing about my other March YOLO trips came too laborious for me. What happened in March was:
I went to Panay Island (Iloilo and Antique) from March 7-11, went straight home to Ilocos Norte, and went back to Manila on the 15th to catch my morning flight to Korea until the 21st, came back in the Philippines for 8 hours, and set off to Singapore on the night of 21st.
We reached Singapore at 11 PM and stayed in my Tita’s house near Bedok station. Roamed around Singapore in the morning until 4 in the afternoon and took the bus to Hat Yai, Thailand.
Yes, my family actually got worried because I was just in Korea the other day, and I sent them a message a day after without hearing from me because I only got a free internet connection in the outskirts of Malaysia, in a bus, to Thailand.
It was roughly a 13-hr bus ride, which I didn’t mind because it’s almost the same as going home to Ilocos, and it was a night trip. Here’s how I did it:
Tour around Singapore (Walking up early is a must)
7:00 AM Breakfast at Chinatown Complex
8:00 AM tour around Chinatown
9:00 00 AM – 4:00 PM – Sentosa Island (Merlion Park)–> Singapore Cable Car Skypass with Buffet –> Gardens by the Bay –> Marina Bay Sands –> Supertree Grove
How to get to the bus station from Singapore to Malaysia then Hat Yai, Thailand:
Ride the MRT and wherever you are, go to Lavender station then walk to Golden Mile Complex
We bought the bus ticket for 7:00 PM beforehand. I recommend you also take the night bus to have ample time to sleep.
You can buy the tickets for the bus ride to Hatyai Thailand at Easybook or you can also purchase a ticket at the bus station. Just be sure that you checked the availability of bus rides at Easybook, though.
Easybook is the largest land and sea transport booking website in Southeast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia).
NOTE: Always have a separate sling bag for your travel documents because your passport will be stamped five times in a day because of crossing borders. This is what we love, right?
Thailand is not just about Bangkok and Pattaya. Hat Yai is all the same beautiful but Hat Yai is hot yay.
Hat Yai is the largest city in Songkla Province. It is near the Malaysian border so geographically speaking, it is located in the southern part of Thailand.
Everything in there is relatively cheap, because admit it, Philippine Peso and Thailand Baht do not substantially differ.
We stayed in Red Planet Hat Yai, a 900-peso hotel located in downtown Hat Yai. You can ask the bus driver to drop you off in front of the hot because the road in front of the hotel is apparently where the public vehicles pass through. The room we stayed in was so spacious and those kinds of rooms will cost Php 2500 for 12 hours if in the Philippines.
We only stayed in Hat Yai for a day (yes, I was so exhausted, really) and here’s our itinerary:
8:00 AM – Check in Red Planet Hat Yai
10:00 AM Tour around Hatyai Thailand (Free. Walk around! This are near our hotel): Hatyai Municipal Park | Floating Market
12:00 PM – Lunch at D’Hatyai Restaurant (for only 175 Baht = Php 266 for two people)
1:00 PM – set off to Chang Puak Elephant Camp
Expenses: 200 Baht for private car (just ask the receptionist in the hotel); 500 Baht for Elephant ride (I didn’t do this. Only my cousin because I hate animal cruelty); but I bought a basket of bananas for 100 Baht so I fed the elephants instead.
4:00 PM – went to Sleeping Buddha (additional of 100 Baht because it was out of the way back to the Hotel)
6:00 PM – slept a little more | 8:30 PM – rode a tuktuk for 100 Baht to the bus station
9:00 PM – ate spicy chicken with (legit) Thai Milk Tea in the side street for 75 Baht for two people
9:30 PM – Bus ride from Hat Yai Bus Terminal to Phuket Bus Terminal 2 (Phuket Town)
We bought the bus ticket in Easybook beforehand. Travel duration: 8hrs and 50 minutes. Fare: THB 359 or USD 11 per person
In Phuket, Thailand
We arrived in Phuket a little too early that the taxi drivers ripped us off. We rode a taxi to our hotel for 100 baht and we could have just walked to our hotel. The taxi ride was merely 2-minute ride. *chuckles*
We stayed at Hop Inn hotel. I don’t recommend this hotel, though. Book near Patong beach instead. We paid Php 1, 300 for 6-7 hours stay. The staff is never helpful. a very mean lady (probably the manager on duty) knocked so loudly in our room, while we were waiting for our ride to an island-hopping package (at one in the afternnon), interrupting our sleep. She is VERY arrogant. We had no choice but to leave the property at 11:30 AM. Also, we were asking to borrow their phone so we could call the travel agency, but they said they DO NOT HAVE a phone. Imagine a hotel without a phone.
Tour packages in Phuket are expensive but you can book beforehand through online booking sites. We booked ours three hours before the island- hopping adventure and we were lucky that we still got a slot for a half-day tour.
Of course, Philippine islands will always be better.
We finished our adventure at around five in the afternoon and we had enough time to catch our 8 PM flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is better and more convenient (and a little cheaper) than going back by bus. AirAsia offers cheap flights from Phuket to Malaysia. I bought a two one-way tickets for roughly Php 3, 500.
I am writing another blog for my Kuala Lumpur and Southeast Asia 4-day adventure. I may publish it tomorrow, or any day, or never. I don’t know.
I never knew what homesickness is. Maybe because there were more times I have attended [summer] camps, contests, and conferences than I have been in my grandmother’s house put together. Don’t get me wrong, but I was so used to not having my parents around when growing up that finding solace comes too easy for me. Weird though, because I was always the friendliest person in class, being the consistent class President and all. I was always surrounded by friends, but I also had my share of cravings for alone time in the early part of my life.
In my three-week stay in Hawaii, I saw how hard yet rewarding life is in there. It taught me that life can be very exhausting yet fulfilling as long as you work hard. Finally at 19, I’ve convinced myself that I don’t have to stay 5, 445 miles away from my immediate family just to live in a group of islands that could easily pass off the same as my motherland.
I am working harder. Perhaps, I worked so hard that I landed a job that pretty much involved everything that I love doing – photography, writing, social media managing, volunteer work, and of course traveling.
It was in those community immersion that I have learned how to fight back tears and just smile for the sake of other people. I was aware that disaster sites can be very depressing but I wasn’t prepared for the people. Looking at the faces of actual children, women, and elders who suffered devastation maybe far more than anyone else in the world makes the despair and desolation look so much real.
Traveling to meet these people made me appreciate life even more because it is true that somewhere around the world, someone is wishing for the kind of life we live. That some people do not have the luxury to eat three times a day. That there are still children who need to wake up at three in the morning to get ready to go to school. These children would walk for three hours, and sometimes swim a river –having just purple yam or boiled potato as their food for the whole day– just to get to school.
Traveling taught me to never be afraid.
In traveling alone, I enjoy the luxury of seeing how the sun beautifully sets and rises; how blue symbolically equates to tranquility; and how the mountains inevitably brings lasting peace.
I always wander when I need to escape loneliness that it made me so obsessed with others’ culture. It has been my passion to connect with the locals, anywhere I go, to learn more about theirs and share mine. I’m certain traveling made me a better global citizen.
Neyziellewanders 