Trip to LOS - Land of Smiles. Review on Phuket

We reached Bangkok after almost 20 hours of beginning our trip. The next time we will go Direct which is only seven hours from Kuwait. Stopovers although cheap - if you are travelling with a family is not a very good idea for long distance travel. We had booked ourselves for one night at the Asia Airport Hotel for our stay in Bangkok. It’s not a very impressive hotel but OK. We had a view from the 18th floor, which overlooked the toll booth on the freeway to Bangkok. The hotel swimming pool is ok but we didn’t use it. Infact there was nobody around the pool and it was raining. The hotel had complimentary shuttle service from the airport both ways which was one reason for booking there. The Hotel is a very short distance from the Airport. The highlight of the first day was a visit to the Local market which we happened to come by chance as we were looking around. It is just outside the Hotel if you take a walk around it. It was a wonderful experience. Local people cooking and selling different things. Very colorful experience too. Fruits, vegetables in different colors and shapes. Exotic as you may call it. Lots of vendors cooking lovely food, BBQ Chicken, pork, meatballs, fish balls, sausages, you name it. Dipped in spicy chilli sauce. Real Spicy. We bought some Pork BBQs and fruits for lunch. Had dinner at an open restaurant opposite the Hotel. Had an early night as we had a flight to catch the next day to Phuket. After a lovely breakfast at the hotel we took the complimentary shuttle to the airport for our flight to Phuket by Air Asia. Nice flight no hassles. Easy check in. Nice staff.

Landed at Phuket Airport after an hour. We were booked at the Allamanda Beach Resort for a week. Had a one bedroom suite for our selves. Fully equipped with Kitchen. Great facilities. Free transport within the Laguna Resort. We had electronic golf vehicles for transport from the lobby to our rooms. From the lobby there was also free shuttle bus service to any of the resorts within the complex. The other resorts within the Laguna complex were the Sheraton Laguna, Dusit Laguna, Banyan Tree and the Laguna Beach Resort apart from the Allamanda. They also had free ferry service within resorts and also to the beach. We had a wonderful time there. Eating at the resort was expensive but there were some good restaurants on the beach. We ate at the Lotus Seafood restaurant and also at the Rim Andaman. Good food. Lotus had live seafood which you can select and they will cook it the way you like.

We met a guy called Nop at one of the shops we visited on Bang Tao beach. We learnt that he was the owner. He also did tours in his own car. We got good deals form him to take us around Phuket island. We did the Phang Nga Bay tour in which he hired us a private longtail boat. We were the only people on the boat. No other tourists in our boat. We could spend as long as we wanted. Phang Nga Bay is very beautiful. The sea was a bit rough on that day so we couldn’t really spend more time there. We visited James Bond island. Although everyone recommended that we skip the tour we wanted to do it since it was always a place to see. Once we had seen it we were disappointed, Nothing much to see or do except buy souvenirs. We also visited the Gypsy village which was built on stilts. Had lunch there which was very expensive - 5 star prices - compared to other places. We were told that since all the ingredients came from the mainland everything would be expensive. Tours by other agents usually include lunch but since we did our own trip, lunch was not included. However we bought a lot of jewelry from the Gypsy village including raw pearl necklaces and bracelets which were very cheap. NOP was an honest guy and from all the tours he took us we found that the prices elsewhere were always higher than what we had paid him. He also took us to many local village markets during our trips with him which was beautiful experience every time we did that. We had the most amazing Green Mango Salad I have ever eaten at one of the markets. We also had some lovely local made deserts which were made in small containers of palm leaves or banana leaves. Delicious. Even the Banana pancakes were great. We also visited Kata beach, Rawai beach, Cape Prompthep. Kata beach in my opinion is the best beach on Phuket with beautiful views. The water too is very clear. Rawai beach is also nice but it is famous for sea food. Lots of different types of fish and shell fish to eat. We tried lots of good shell fish with a chilli dip which was out of this world. Spicy but delicious. Cape Prompthep too had beautiful views. We also visited the Phuket orchid farm but there was not much to see, as it was not the right time for the orchids. But we did get to see some good orchids. But I hear that it is better when they are all in full bloom probably in early spring.

Visited Phuket Zoo, which is boring and overpriced for us tourists. The shows too were not that good and below our expectations. The aquarium in the zoo was OK. Infact everywhere you go the tourists are charged whereas the locals get in free. Whichever tourist places we visited we had to pay. After paying up we found our Guide NOP a local Thai who had become our friend walk in behind us – for free. Anyway some of the places were not very expensive but some were pretty high priced.

Phuket is very beautiful and there is so much to do. Infact you need a lot of time and have to rush with all the tours and list of things to do. We had so much to see and do that some may not believe that although we spent 20 days in Phuket we didn’t visit the Fantasea nor did we go to Dino Park and lots of other things could not be done. But it was the best holiday we have had. Infact we plan to go again next year and do the things we could not do this time.