The beginning of another adventure

It all started one evening way back in 2012. I was surfing the web, as Caretha had gone to bed, when I came across a "Daddy's Deals" email that had an offer I could not refuse: 7 nights in Phuket, Thailand for 2 people for only R2999, normal cost was R16000 odd. I signed up! The next morning I told Caretha, she was not that enthusiastic so I left the whole thing for nearly a year. Then the travel bug bit Caretha, I revived the Phuket story and the discussions started. How much was an air fare? How long should we go for? Should we include other places? How will we pay for everything?

Well it turned out that between us we had enough to go and some spending money! Now the planning started in earnest, I went out and bought a Thailand travel guide, lots of reading. I went to Flight Centre in Tyger Valley to get some ideas about what flight options we had. There were 3 options, i) Emirates with stop over in Dubai. ii) Singapore Airlines with a stop over in Singapore. iii)Cathy Pacific with a stop over in Hong Kong. For us to make the best of a stop over we decided we needed at least 2 to 3 days. Dubai was out as we would have to get a visa at +/- R1600 each, ouch! that is a lot extra to pay. Then we asked some friends who had been to both HK and Singapore, they all said HK is better unless you are into shopping!

Hong Kong won, off to buy another Travel Guide. Back to Flight Centre, we had ideas, I had some dates to work with. A basic itinerary was worked out with some costs. More discussions between Caretha and myself. We eventually decided on 3 weeks, now we realize we should have gone for 4 or 5 weeks as there is so much to do and see in both HK and Thailand.

Then in February this year we took the plunge, booked and paid for the flight tickets added the hotel in Hong Kong, confirmed the hotel in Phuket. Now all I had to do was sort out a hotel in Bangkok and Chiang Mai plus transport between. The original idea had been to fly back to Bangkok then take the overnight train up to Chiang Mai, this turned out to be more of a schlep so I then managed to get flights from Phuket to Chiang Mai and return to Bangkok, so the itinerary now is:

Care Town to Jo'burg to Hong Kong.
4 days and nights in HK.
Hong Kong to Bangkok
3 days and nights in Bangkok.
Bangkok to Phuket.
7 days and nights in Phuket
Phuket to Chiang Mai
4 days and nights in Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai to Bangkok to HK to Jo'burg to Cape Town (the real LONG HAUL flight)

Our departure from Cape Town is Friday 20th June and return to Cape Town on Thursday 10th July