Introduction - Island Hopping in Southeast Asia
My parents and I had talked about going on a trip together, especially now that the pandemic is over, and they are free to travel outside of China. I took a couple weeks off for Christmas and New Year and met up with them in Asia. I didn’t want the first trip to be all stressy, so I suggested Thailand, where I’d been to dozens of times. Specifically I chose Koh Samui for the first half of our time, where we could just relax and not do much, and Bangkok for the second half, cause Bangkok is always fun.
In Koh Samui we stayed at the Ritz-Carlton Koh Samui. My partner and I stayed here two years ago and loved it, so I’m taking my parents there for a second visit. Not much has changed at the Ritz, so I won’t be reviewing it again this time. You can check out my previous review here. In Bangkok the options were truly limitless - you can name any hotel brand in the world, and you’ll probably find it there. I settled on the Conrad. The pictures online seemed like a full renovation was recently done, and they even had Byredo toiletries in one of the pictures, lol.
To get to Asia, I booked a cash fare on Finnair from Toronto to Bangkok via London and Helsinki. Granted this was a rather convoluted routing, and I could’ve flown one stop on Lufthansa or Air France. But it wouldn’t have allowed me to review both the British Airways Club Suite, as well as the new Finnair AirLounge product.
My partner would join us for our trip in Bangkok, then my parents would return home, while my partner and I would continue with our vacation. After Bangkok, we went to Langkawi, a Malaysian archipelago in the Andaman Sea. We stayed at the beautiful Ritz-Carlton Langkawi, followed by a short stay at the Ritz-Carlton Kuala Lumpur. From KL, we hopped over to Bali and stayed at the Alila Villas Uluwatu, before wrapping up our trip with an one-night stay at the Hermitage Jakarta.
To make our way back to the US, we flew Qatar Airways. I haven’t flown with Qatar since the pandemic, and I’m happy to report that it is as good as ever. Within Asia, we flew Malaysia Airlines, Firefly and TransNusa, so expect to see those reviews too. So in whole, our itinerary looked like this:
Review - British Airways Business Class B777-200 Toronto Pearson to London Heathrow
Review - Finnair Business Class A350-900 London Heathrow to Helsinki
Review - Finnair Business Class A350-900 Helsinki to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi
Review - The Ritz-Carlton Langkawi
Review - Firefly Economy Class ATR72-500 Langkawi to Subang
Review - The Ritz-Carlton Kuala Lumpur
Review - Malaysia Airlines Economy Class B737-800 Kuala Lumpur to Denpasar
Review - TransNusa Economy Class A320 Denpasar to Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta
Review - The Hermitage, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel, Jakarta
Review - Qatar Airways Business Class A350-900 Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta to Doha
Review - Qatar Airways Business Class B777-300ER Doha to New York Kennedy
With that out of the way, follow me along to some of Asia’s best island destinations for a tropical Christmas break.