Mochjas Summer trip to Thailand and Hong Kong with 2 kids!

[benjie1305]

i am aware but wanted to go go to USM first and I wanted to try Singapore suites

Right. So it's not about the missing availability. Seems to be more about the flexibility. Either way, as long as you (and your wife) enjoyed yourself.

[mochjas]

Day 3: Saturday July 2nd 2016:

The kids woke me up at about 7 AM. I let my wife sleep in and took them out by the pool to eat their breakfast. We brought some cereal with us (the small to go portions). Unfortunately there was no kosher milk in Thailand (even chalav stam which I normally don’t eat but would have let my kids eat it since they had no choice). So they ate plain cereal. My wife eventually woke up a half hour later, we both prayed and were ready to go see what they had for us for breakfast. We made Kiddush first before leaving with grape juice that we brought with us.

Some guy who was filling in for the Chef was telling me in broken English that he had kosher breakfast when I gave him my meals before Shabbat to heat up for me. I asked him what he had? He told me greek salad, bread etc. I wasn’t too hopeful that it was actually kosher but I went to check it out in the restaurant. It didn’t seem kosher to me and I have no idea why he thought it was so I told him to take it back. They had lots of fruits by the actual breakfast so we had them make us a plate. The fruit consisted of mini-bananas, watermelon, papaya, dragon fruit and cantaloupe.


View from the breakfast restaurant

We finished breakfast and got dressed in our bathing suits and decided to go sit by the main pool. The main pool is also an infinity pool. On our way to the pool we bumped into a couple riding on a buggy who told us Shabbat shalom. Apparently they were jewish (they are from philly). The wife told ud that their next stop was Israel where she was going to study to be a Rabbi! I wished them the best of luck as they sped by us making the long walk down the hill to get to the pool.

We finally got there and were promptly seated (the pool was pretty empty) all seats by the pool are in the actual pool as you can see from the picture. So we had the kids next to us where they were able to play since the water was shallow and we were able to relax by the pool.

Main pool


Another view of the main pool

At about 12:30 we headed back to our room as our lunch was being served at 1 In the morning I took out our leftovers from the night before which the kids ate while waiting for the 2 new meals to come. The food was heated up pretty well when it came at exactly 1 o’clock as we requested.

We finished eating and went back to the pool. Service at the pool is great as they make sure to never leave you without ice water which tasted really good and refreshing! And every hour or so they served fruit sticks.


Ice cold water and fruit sticks

At about 4 the kids were getting tired of the pool so I took them to the kids club. They were able to do puzzles and play with toys for about an hour while my wife decided she still wanted to sit in the sun. At 5 my wife re-joined us and we went to the outdoor version of the kids club where they were able to play for another hour with some water balloons, and other various activities. Both times (indoor and outdoor) we had the activities to ourselves

At about 6 we went to the room. We fed the kids dinner (leftovers from all 4 meals that we had)  put them in PJs and they fell asleep at about 7. I prayed and at about 7:30 Shabbat was over. My wife went to the gym and I called for room service to pick up our 2 dairy meals (baked ziti & penne vodka) They were heated up so-so but we ate it and called it a night at about 9-9:30.

[mochjas]

Day 4: Sunday July 3rd 2016

Since we went to sleep early the night before we were again able to wake up relatively early. We had the same routine again; feeding the kids plain cereal, praying, and working out. By 9 AM we were ready to try the kosher breakfast again: Today the actual chef was there and he told us that he lives near chabad so he picked up the food last night.

We saw on the schedule that at 9 AM they had a sea shell necklace making class so we decided to take the kids to make them and told the chef to please have our breakfast ready by 9:30.

The kids had a great time making the necklaces which ended up taking longer than expected, and again we were the only ones there.

We finally arrived for our breakfast. It came in a chabad bag so I knew the food was kosher. But it wasn’t sealed and the food was heated up. So I decided not to eat it, but I let my kids eat it as they were starving. ( I hope that is OK) He brought us an omelet, some humus, some Israeli salad, bread, and matbucha. The kids liked the eggs.

I then called the chef over and told him that next time for the breakfast please have it sealed and he said OK and apologized for the misunderstanding.

The hotel had a free boat that would take you to snorkel (if you don’t snorkel you can wait on the boat while the others do) but my wife wasn’t interested in doing that today so we skipped it. We decided to go to the main pool. Again we were greeted nicely and seated quickly. Not too much longer after we were seated, we were served with 4 ice cold glasses of water. (The water kept getting refilled, really a nice touch)

I booked the hotels car to take us to chabad for lunch. A regular taxi would cost 1000 baht but I felt more comfortable using the hotels car for only a $12 differnce.

We were on our way at about 11:30. The ride was about an hour long. The plan was to eat lunch and buy food for dinner, the next days lunch, and the next days dinner. We would have the hotel store it for us and then heat and serve them when we were ready.

When we got there we saw they had a kosher pizza store so we decided to have lunch there.


Kosher Pizza Store Koh Samui

 The pizza was delicious as were the bourekas (they have potato, mushroom, and cheese) I would skip the fruit drinks though. We ended up getting lots of food and drinks and the bill was only 700 baht. They sold some snacks and a limited amount of groceries but we brought those from home and didn’t need any. Of course they had NO milk!

Next we went to the chabad to order the next 3 meals. Again the bill was really low as we got like 9 main meals with side dishes for like 75 dollars. While we were waiting for them to make and pack the food there was a nice play area where the kids were able to keep themselves busy. All chabads in Thailand have wifi so we were able to do some catching up online as well.


Chabad Koh Samui


Chabad meat Restaurant Koh Samui


Shul in Chabad KS


Beware NON-Kosher Israeli Restaurant near chabad

The food was ready and this time we had no choice but to take a taxi back to the hotel. The taxi driver wanted 1500 baht and I told him no way Im not giving you more than 1000 as I was told by many that that was the going rate. He then told me please do it for 1100 and I felt bad for some reason and said OK. The ride was very bumpy (as were in a regular car not an suv as before) and the guy drove like a maniac, but somehow we made it back to the hotel.

I stopped by the restaurant to drop the food off to the chef. Again I explained to him not to remove the seal, just heat and deliver the meals. I told him that for tonight we would like to eat by the pool at 7 PM. He said no problem and that he will see us later.

We decided to swim in our private pool so we went back to the room. We had a great time and my wife really loved the private pool. At about 5:30 I prayed Mincha and the kids were getting tired of the pool so we got them dressed and said well take them to the kids club to play a little until dinner at 7. We got to the kids club by 6:30 after seeing the beautiful sunset from our private pool.







Unfortunately the kids club was closed so we just hung out by the main pool waiting for dinner to be served.

At 7 the food cam and they sat us down. I had the Chicken Sichuan with wite rice which was pretty good. The kids had schnitzel with French fries which were both very good. My wife had the burger which she said was OK and fried rice which was very good. They also threw in a salad which ws pretty good as well. Unfortunately I don’t have good pictures of the food I guess we were too hungry to take pics.

We finished eating and left a huge mess (from the kids). I felt bad and left them a nice tip, I told them this was also for taking care of us at the pool today and I told them I am really sorry for the mess. They said no worries and have a good night and called us a buggy. Boy were we glad that we didn’t eat in the room!

We took the buggy back to the room and were thinking to ourselves, how did we walk all this on Shabbat several times? Anyway we showered the kids and they passed out as soon as they hit the pillow after a long relaxing day! I caught up on some work and soon after we passed out as well. Another time sleeping early, this trip was really relaxing!

[Luvtotravel]

really detailed, great! scary about non kosher israeli restaurant though. did u ask for certification or were you warned?

[AJK]

Great stuff so far. Sounds like you enjoyed.

[mochjas]

really detailed, great! scary about non kosher israeli restaurant though. did u ask for certification or were you warned?

well we saw the pizza store and knew that it was part of Chabad so we went there first. I figured that that was the Chabad meat restaurant across the street but I decided to ask in the pizza store where the Chabad meat was and she told me. So I asked her oh wow there are 3 kosher restaurants in Koh Samui and she told me no the one across the street is not kosher. (I actually saw another restaurant like that in CNX as well)

[mochjas]

Great stuff so far. Sounds like you enjoyed.

thanks we really did!

[mochjas]

Tried to add these pictures to an earlier post but I couldn't so Ill just add them here:


Silk Air plane from SIN to USM


Shuttle that took us from the plane to immigration


View of pool and beach from the lobby


View of the main pool from above


Another view of the main pool from above


View of the Oecan from the breakfast restaurant


Some fruits they had by breakfast

[sam28]

wow nice TR keep it coming .thanks for taking the time .

[Denverite]

wow nice TR keep it coming .thanks for taking the time .

+1 really interesting

[mochjas]

wow nice TR keep it coming .thanks for taking the time .

thanks I owe it to the forums

[mochjas]

+1 really interesting

thanks I appreciate it!

[mochjas]

Day 5 Monday July 4th 2016

Again we woke up relatively early since we slept early the night before. So we prayed, fed the kids their plain cereal, worked out and headed to the breakfast area. They quickly brought us our kosher breakfast which was the same as the day before and again it was NOT sealed. So again I didn’t eat from it but I let my kids eat from it. I actually was able to have some Israeli salad which was sealed and wasn’t heated up. We had them bring us some fruit as well and were good until lunch.


 Breakfast from chabad: eggs, roll, matbucha tehina, lemonade, and orange juice

We were thinking to go check out one of the good Koh samui beaches but decided it would be too much of a shlep so we decided to hang out by the main pool until lunch, we would then have lunch and head to the conrads beach. (I cant believe we were in Koh Samui for 3+ days already and still did not go to the beach!)

The kids had a great time in the pool as the staff provided them with water guns, and beach balls and before we knew it it was time for lunch. Since we were at the pool already we decided to let them bring our lunch to the pool. My wife had the grilled chicken salad. I had some type of thai chicken with a side of rice and a sunny side egg, and the kids had spaghetti with chicken. The food was pretty good and luckily came sealed after me being on top of them to make sure.


Salad part of the grilled chicken salad, spaghetti w chicken, and my thai chicken


Grilled chicken for the salad

We finished lunch and headed to the beach. While the beach looks really nice, it is very rocky. Not a great beach to sit in. We sat for a little bit and took some nice pictures and decided to spend the rest of our final day in koh samui in our private pool.







We had a great final swim in the pool, and decided to take the kids to do some activities in the kids club. They went and had a great time and before we knew it, it was time for dinner. Again we decided to have dinner by the pool as it was nice and convenient. I was given 4 drink coupons when I checked in. I finally remembered to bring one of them with me but I could only get a beer or well drinks. The only thing I knew for sure was kosher was absolute so I had some. Not bad for a free drink.

Anyway for dinner I had the beef kebab which was pretty bad, I would really stay away from chabad beef and stick with the chicken. My wife had the grilled chicken which was pretty good and the kids had fried rice with chicken, which was good as well.

We finished eating went back to the room showered the kids, put them to sleep. We caught up on some stuff, finished packing and not too much longer we knocked out as well, as we had to be up earlyish to catch a 10 AM flight to Chiang Mai. Overall USM was awesome and we had a great 4 days of relaxing after 24 hours of flying! Now it was time to do some activities! 

[mochjas]

Day 6: Tuesday July 5th 2016

We were told that for a domestic flight you need to be at the airport an hour before the flight and it takes one hour to get from the Conrad to the airport so we needed to leave at 8. We told the restaurant to have our breakfast ready by 7:30. We woke up at around 5:30 to work out, pray and shower. By 7:30 we were by the breakfast area, unfortunately the breakfast wasn’t ready so we told them to wrap it to go and we took some fruits as well and were on our way by 8 AM. For the taxi to the airport I again decided to use the hotel shuttle as it fit us comfortably and was a nice car with good air conditioning and only cost 400 baht more than a regular taxi. He was ready with our luggage and we were on our way. It was really sad to leave the Conrad, which was probably the best hotel I’ve ever stayed at, but we couldn’t stay forever. They truly do not know the meaning of the word “NO”

We got to the airport on time and were able to get boarding passes and check our luggage quickly. We took advantage of opening up a FF account for each one of us and that gave us 120 kg total of free luggage so we did not have to pay for any luggage! There is only 1 direct flight a day from USM to CNX and it was pretty empty. (for some reason they didn’t release to many award seats; disclaimer: I didn’t check close in though, since I gave up about a week before the flight as the prices started going up. I ended up with 1 award ticket booked through etihad for 10k (8k MR) and 3 revenue tickets for about $170 each)


View from bus on the way to the plane

The flight was smooth, (I didn’t bother ordering a KSML but they did have meal service) and an hour and a half later we landed in CNX.

CNX airport is much more modern compared to USM. Here is where I made my second blunder of the trip. I was still in USM mode and arranged to have the Le meridian pick me up in there big SUV due to us having a lot of luggage. They charged a whopping 1500 baht even though a taxi would cost between 250 to 350 baht. At least we rode comfortably but it was a 15 -20 min ride.

WE got to the Le meridian quickly and I was surprised to see that a category 3 hotel was so nice. Since I am a platinum SPG member they brought me up to the lounge to check in. They sat us down and brought us drinks. I had a reg room booked with cash & points (3500 + $55) for the first night. The second night was sold out of regular rooms so I had to book an executive suite for 14k points. They were nice enough to give me the executive suite for both nights. Of course I wasn’t happy with that as I saw that they have a presidential suite available for my stay online and I asked if it was possible to upgrade me to that, she said that they could but I would have to pay $150 extra per night. She let us look at it. It was HUGE! But at the end all we were doing in the room was showering and sleeping so we felt the executive room would be fine and decided to stick with it at no additional cost.


Living room


Refrigirator/ complimentary water that kept getting refilled at turndown and in the morning


Bedroom


Bathroom


Shower


Large Hot Tub/bath for kids

It was now about 1 and we were starving so we headed to chabad for lunch. I had shawarma with fried rice as my side which was pretty good. My wife had the schnitzel and the kids had scrambled eggs and French fries all the food was very good and very well priced again!





We went next door to the travel agency to help us plan activities. They suggested that we go to mae ping river cruise which was leaving at 3 and following that we would go to the museum near chabad.

The next day she planned for us to go to tiger kingdom and do all the shows in that area so that was a full day trip.

The following day we had a flight to catch at 6PM so we would do half day at the elephant camp (that was more than enough) and go back have lunch (late lunch/early dinner) and head to the airport to catch our flight to Hong Kong

I was very happy with this travel agency and they helped me immensely.

Anyway we headed back to the hotel and hung out in the room for a few minutes waiting for someone from mae ping river cruise to pick us up. They showed up on time and we drove about 10 minutes to the mae ping river. It was in the back of a collection of temples.


Random Temple

Basically we drove 45 minutes down this river to a house that had animals inside and they gave us fruit and drinks, let us see the animals and we drove 45 minutes back. It was a nice way to get our activities started. Oh and we had the entire boat to ourselves!


Car that took us there


One of the boats


Another boat we saw on the way


Our driver


Random sight on the way there


Where the boat took us




Fruit served


Random sight on the way back

We then went to the museum where we were able to take some really cool 3D pics. Again a nice way to kill an hour to 90 minutes.




Museum

 It was still too early to eat dinner so we went looking for a tailor. The chabad shaliach tried to take me to someone who he said was good about a 5 min motorcycle ride away, but he was away for the week so he told me to go next door to the travel agency. I took his advice and went to make some shirts. They originally wanted 1000 baht per shirt, I ended getting 5 shirts, 3 for me and 2 for my son for 3000 baht! (They came out really good, I hope they last though)

We were now ready to eat dinner so we went next door to chabad and ate. I have no clue what we ate but it was good, and we also ordered egg sandwiches for our trip the next day since we would be gone the whole day. That was going to be our lunch.

It was now about 7:00 and the kids were getting tired. We decided to go to the market next to the LM for a bit. We didn’t see much but we bought a few nothings nothing really worthwhile though. It seemed very small and I didn’t get what everyone was raving about.

We got back to the hotel, showered the kids and put them to sleep. Shortly after we passed out as well knowing that we had to be ready by 7:45 AM for our full day of activities!

[Denverite]

Great next installment!

[cholent]

Great next installment!

Agreed!

[Yehoshua]

What a nice TR. Glad the flights worked out. The biggest split we did was 1 J 1 F on EK 777 where the J seat was right behind the F.  Looks like it was a fun trip so far, though for me personally it would have been too much time in the pool (I'm not a pool person).

[mochjas]

What a nice TR. Glad the flights worked out. The biggest split we did was 1 J 1 F on EK 777 where the J seat was right behind the F.  Looks like it was a fun trip so far, though for me personally it would have been too much time in the pool (I'm not a pool person).

my wife and kids love the water. The 4 days weren't enough for them. I guess split cabin was more tough for you because you had a lap infant. For us it was 1 parent with a kid and they are older where they can sit by themselves especially with an iPad

[mochjas]

Agreed!

thanks guys!

[damaxer91]

Great TR!

Didn't realize that Chabad has a Pizza place in Koh Samui. That's great info