Weather Of Redang Island

Train travel from Bangkok to Chiang Mai

Q: I am planning to take my family - my wife and two children aged 14 and 17 - to Thailand for two weeks in January. My tentative plan is to spend two nights in Bangkok, take the train to Chiang Mai and spend four nights there, return by train to Bangkok then fly to Krabi and stay six nights. Does the itinerary sound alright? Any suggestions will be welcome. Thank you, Tony

A: The itinerary sounds fine to me. It is actually depends on what you want to do and see. Two days in Bangkok means you have one day up front and one day at the end. You would probably need to make it three days to have more time in the city (as your kids may like it) with two days on your arrival or at the end.

Going to two places is a good idea, and this will give you a real taste of Thailand from north to south. You may also want to add a side trip to visit Lampang or Lanphun, the two small provinces near Chiang Mai for a day.

You could save time by flying from Chiang Mai to Phuket and then arranging a transfer from Phuket International Airport to your hotel in Krabi. Or you can fly to Krabi via Bangkok to save the journey time on that day.

If you travel from Chiang Mai to Bangkok by train, you probably find it too tiring to travel to the airport to catch a flight to Krabi on the same day. An alternative would be to book a flight on a low-cost airline from the old Don Mueang Airport where it's possible to get off the train opposite the airport and catch a flight almost straight away.

Q: I am going to Phuket this August for my friend's wedding. After the celebration, I have about five days to go diving, either in Phuket or in Malaysia. Which is the best for diving in August? Thanks, ST

A: As you will already be in Phuket, I'd advise remaining there. You can certainly dive in Phuket, although the water may not be as clear as in summer and the sea is rather rough and high.

However, you will find it less crowded and the price will be lower too. If you can come back during the high season, I would recommend you to take a five-day liveaboard to the Similan Islands as they offer the most wonderful diving sites in the area. You can't go diving there now as the area is closed between May to October each year.

Some people report good diving conditions in August, but you can decide once you are there and experience the weather yourself. If you are lucky, you might not see a drop of rain during your stay.

Thailand Bali and Other Beaches and Islands: Redang Island

Twin beaches and the southern Kalong beaches are as attractive and laid back as you will find, the main twin beach area of Pasir Panjang is packed with midrange resorts and has a holiday camp atmosphere with hundreds of middle class Singaporean /KL families and couples out to have a good time. It's still a beautiful beach but if you don't like lots of people in package holiday mode, go elsewhere. I took this from the top of the small headland which divides the north and south sections of Pasir Pangjang. This beach has white sand, clear water, some okay snorkelling close to the headland in front of the camera. The floating pier tends to be busy with boat traffic although quite a few of the resorts' snorkelling and dive boats simply nose in towards the beach. If you click to expand you can see this sheltered section is pretty popular with late-afternoon swimmers. A patch of fairly good coral starts about 30m off the sand this side. At the seaward end of the headland things are pretty bare but once around the other side there is a fairly big section of even better stuff. Unfortunately this does not extend all the way in to the far beach - the first 30m into the water has rubbishy broken and dead coral which is a pity because this was the area a lot of snorkel guides from the resorts on the south beach were taking their charges. - the most high-end of the resorts on the two sections of Pasir Panjang. But its email kiosk is no dearer than other places and way faster. Note most places have wireless these days, but I travel light - no notebook for me. Laguna has live music and a disco most nights. Big place - the accommodation units are very spread out so there may not be a noise penalty for most guests. Trip Advisor will tell you. does not lack length but apart from Telek Bakau is inferior to other Redang resort beaches. Sand has more broken coral, gets a bit skinny at high tide and the water deepens more slowly and tends not to be as crystal-clear. Nevertheless this would be classed as a pretty nice beach on most SE Asian holiday islands. Only one outfit was operating here in late June 2011 - is the next beach, separated from Kalang North in the previous shot by a substantial section of rocks which looked to me to be very very difficult to rock-hop (big trouble when you reach a 4m wide gutter with deep water) above which were steep rainforested slopes with no access track.

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