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Published: July 28th 2009
July 6-12 The long awaited beach vacation!
Phuket, ah, the beautiful beaches of Phuket that I had heard so much about nearly 30 years ago in Germany. This was may dream to one day get to Phuket - and here we were! Albeit ALOT more built up and touristy than I expected. Luckily our hotel was in Karon Beach, and not the oh so touristy and infamous Patong Beach. Our hotel was nice, very family oriented. In fact, during our time there we met 2 Timaru families staying at the same hotel! Tan and Dia opted for the more luxurious Hilton which was around the corner. This was great because it gave us access to pools and amenities at both hotels. On Monday night when we arrived we made a quick stop at a local restaurant to meet Tan's cousin Mook and then on to check out our rooms and take a quick dip in the pool. Busy day planned for tomorrow!
Tuesday - up early, had a lovely breakfast buffet, were picked up by our new driver, Ca, and headed to the boat to spend the day sea kayaking, touring several islands, including James Bond Island of "The
Man with the Golden Gun" fame. The kids had a blast jumping off the side of the boat and swimming and kayaking, and exploring. The rest of us enjoyed it equally as much. After a long day in the sun, and a few sprinkles, we headed back to our hotel for showers, a swim, and a sunset on the beach. We drove around Karon and Kata beach looking for an Italian place to eat - ended up right across the street from our hotel. Avery was so tired that he fell asleep at the table before his food arrived...
Wednesday - beach day! Ugh, and more shopping... Gregg and I woke up early, had a leisurely morning, breakfast alone, got organized to have fittings for a suit for Gregg and Sydney still in search of finding someone to make the dress that her friend, Robin, designed for her. I wanted to take some laundry in for washing - I heard it was inexpensive, and thought it would be great to go home with some clean clothes! While Gregg, Syd and I spent time at various tailors, the boys took a Tuk Tuk (a small touristy passenger vehicle) to the
Hilton with swim with Dia. Sydney successfully found a tailor across the street from our hotel to make her dress, and Gregg chose a tailor closer to the Hilton. I opted to have a short dress made there as well. I picked a picture from a magazine at the shop.
We all met up at the beach, the kids swam in the waves, Gregg rented a jet ski and took all the kids out for an open water ride of wave jumping - I opted for a massage on the beach with the sounds of looming thunder, waves, beach and street noise, a nice breeze - very cool and relaxing.
Tan and Mook arranged for a fried chicken lunch with lots of sticky rice and Thai fruits. I met up with everyone by one the many pools at the Hilton where all the kids had engaged in a game of Water Polo with several Koreans and Australians. They were having such a great time that we waited until too late to pull them out for more sunscreen. Gregg flipped out about this so we sent him to have a massage on the beach and to chill - which he did😊
Dinner was at a lovely harborside restaurant of Mook's choosing - delicious seafood. We had planned to see Thai Boxing in Patong but it was a Buddhist holiday and not happening - just as well. We had a fun time cruising the streets of Patong on what we were told was a rather "tame" evening. There were still plenty of interesting sights to see! On the beach we bought a "lucky balloon" and sent it up in the air with a wish! Also purchased and lit a few fireworks. Another fun day... and another boat trip planned for Thursday!
Thursday - Boat trip to Phi Phi Islands... this was a very different trip than the one on Tuesday. This was a big speed boat that visited several islands, made snorkling stops, and docked at several touristy spots. At the first stop we felt like we were at Jones Beach on a hot summer day in NYC. It was packed with people and boats - really gross and we were worried what the rest of the day would be like...Fortunately it was much better. Snorkeling was terrific - lots and lots of colourful fish and several coral reefs to snorkel.
We stopped at Monkey Beach, but it was high tide so we were only able to take the boat up to the beach and see the monkeys in the trees. We, and the other tour boats there, were all throwing the monkeys heaps of bananas. It was fun to see. I heard a rumor that the local Thais actually import monkeys to the beach to entertain the tourists! The lunch stop, at Phi Phi Island, was badly hit my the tsunami in 2004. Although it has been completely cleaned up, we could see in our tsunami book what structures were new and which ones had survived. This is a flat beach area and those were the areas most badly damaged. Lunch was served to the masses of tourists under shelters. It was the standard Thai buffet lunch. By this point we had seen enough of this type of buffet food. The rest of the afternoon we spent on another island, Khai Nok, lounging on beach chairs sipping Pina Colodas and Mai Tais out of a coconut shell and a pineapple. We did have a lot of fun feeding the fish bread - It was amazing to snorkel amoungst thousands of
colorful fish fighting over tiny pieces of white bread. We were back at the harbor at 5pm and back to the hotel swimming pool by 6pm. This is when we met up with and talked to the McCleans from Timaru. Gregg, Syd and I all had fittings for our clothes that were being made. We were pretty exhausted so we opted to have dinner at the hotel. Dia joined us, Tan, Greg, and Mook went to Patong to watch Thai Boxing. As it turned out, they opted for night clubing instead!
Friday - Ugh, our last day and we don't want this trip to end! We had planned another beach day, but it turned into another busy day with lots of stuff to do. We first went to Kata Beach so that Graham could have a go at parasailing. Wow, not like the super safe parasailing that Gregg and I experienced in Florida! Gregg insisted on going in the boat with the non-English speaking driver. I was taking photos on the beach, asking Graham if he understood what was going to happen, and before I could get the words out of my mouth, the boat took off with Graham
being lifted up behind and with "monkey man" on his shoulders! Yikes! He had a great time and lived to tell the tale, but, wow, it was another one of those harrowing moments... After the parasailing, the kids went for a banana boat ride. The Rasti-Thais made us a "good deal". Gregg, meanwhile, spent his time buying a fake Rolex from a strolling vendor on the beach. He was able to talk the guy down to less than half the original price, and 2 weeks later, it is still working... Gregg and I put the kids in a Tuk Tuk and sent them back to the hotel to meet Tan. Mook has a house adjacent to hers for her 20 dogs and birds. The kids really wanted to go for a visit. Gregg and I walked back to Karon Beach and rented a motorbike for the rest of the day for only $8 US dollars! We had a blast! While the kids were playing with the dogs, Gregg and I took the motorbike to Patong Beach and rented a Hobie Cat. It was a super windy day - so windy that we had to have a captain go with us
as the last people to rent the boat capsized it. It was a really fun afternoon, we even stopped for a very expensive ice cream cone at Haagen Daz. Later we met up with the kids at Thai Boxing on Karon Beach. It got pretty old after awhile and the kids had gone to the beach. When we met them, the boys were in the water and Sydney was having a pedicure on the beach. They were happy. In the evening we went for our final clothing fittings, all but me whose dress wasn't ready yet... We had dinner at the hotel with Tan, Dia, Tina before meeting up with Pui and Ngag for our last big hurrah in Thailand was FantaSea - very flashy and Disneylike. It was a very colorful theme park with lots of shops, animals, and a big show. The show had Thai dancers, elephants, acrobats, explosions, sword fighting, magicians, clowns, lots of sound and lights. It was a great way to conclude our Thailand experience.
Saturday - the dreaded day of departure... We had planned to do some final shopping, and tour around on the motorbike, we really wanted another day on the beach,
a little more pool time and some sun. However, it seems like it was time to leave, as it rained and rained and rained. It was all we could do to get our bags packed, our clothing picked up from the tailor and tucked into the van with the rest of our luggage before heading off to the airport. All our flights and connections went smoothly and before we knew it, we were back to winter in New Zealand.
It was really a trip of a life time and we owe so much thanks to Tan, Dia, Pui, Ngag, Mook, and all of Tans friends and relatives that helped us out and made us feel so welcome.
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Stevie
non-member comment
I love Thailand!
Looks like you guys had a great time. Did I ever tell you that I plan to retire there?