Thailand Travel Guide

Its very important to choose the right dive shop that cares about safety when planning your diving trip. When your visiting Phuket you will see that there are so many dive shops to choose from, there are over 100 - 200 shops spread all over Phuket island and its not easy to make a choice.

It does not matter if you choose the dive company in Thailand or somewhere else but you should always check out their safety and ask how long the dive shop has been in operation this will give a good picture about the reputation of the shop.

You can ask for example how many divers and instructors will be on the boat the less divers and more instructors the better will be the trip. Another very important thing is that you should feel comfortable with the staff and not forget to check the equipment before paying any money.

In my opinion is word-of-mouth the best indicator of the quality of any dive shop and can give you a lot of business.

Pranburi is located 28 kilometres south of Hua Hin city and belongs to the district of Prachuap Khiri Khan Province in the South of Thailand. The beaches itself are very peaceful and clean, I love this place. When I arrived with my car from Bangkok after a 4 hour drive I checked into the beach resort located on Sam Roi Yot beach. The Beach resort is a operated by a small family and offers bungalows for rent on a daily basis. Its located in front of the beach and the water is just 30 meters away from your bungalow.

Rooms cost around 30 Euros per night and are very clean and offer hot shower with local TV and a nice fridge full of drinks. The best thing is that you also have a porch with table and 2 chairs available if you like to sit outside in the evening hours. The beach resort is a pet friendly hotel so you can take your pets with you. I have posted some photos I took from my trip to give an idea how it looks like.

The beach resort is a recommended source for travelers that planning to visit Pranburi or Sam Roi Yot beach. There are no bars or entertainment areas exept a few hotels that offer drinks and foods to make your stay on this beach enjoyable. Its easy to find a bicycle or motorbike rent and explore the national park that is near by.

The best breakfast and dinner you can get on this beach is at Anchana resort and spa. Anchana resort and spa offers a fine restaurant with the name Pakarang. Specials they have is pizza freshly made from the oven and squid in sweet basil.

I hope that the information I have posted is useful and enjoy your stay in Pranburi…!

Nationals from 39 countries can stay in Thailand up to 30 days without applying for a visa before traveling to Thailand. I listed some of the countries below check if you belong to one of them:

• Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bahrain, Brunei, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Qatar, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States.

If you would like to stay longer as 30 day’s you can apply for a tourist visa at your home country. Documents that are required by the Thai embassy are your passport 2 photo’s visa application completely filled in and your air ticket. Normally the visa will be issued within 24 hours.

If you are a tourist staying in Thailand and would like to extend your visa contact the Immigration bureau at Soi Suan Plu next to Sathon road.

Foreign visitors may freely bring in unlimited foreign currencies. When you’re leaving Thailand you may freely take out as much foreign currency as you want and there is no limit.

Foreign visitors may bring in an unlimited amount of Thai currency, however when leaving the country you can take only 50,000.- Thai Baht out of Thailand this counts for both Thai residents and Foreign visitors per person. If you want to take out a bigger amount you can exchange Thai currency into Euro’s for example before leaving the country.

The basic currency that is being used in Thailand is Baht one Baht is divided into 100 Satang.

Coins: 25 and 50 Satang and 1, 2, 5, 10 Baht.
Bank notes: 20 (green), 50 (blue), 100 (red), 500 (purple), 1,000 (brown) Baht.

Major foreign currencies can be exchanged with any local bank or authorized money exchangers nationwide. Major credit cards like Visa and Mastercard are widely accepted in department stores and ATM machines can be found every where in the city.