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Published: April 26th 2015
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Phuket airport Finally, the girls' trip materialized! My friends, Ruth and Wydah are April birthday babies and what better way to celebrate their birthdays and toast our long friendship (21 years with Wydah and 25 years with Ruth) than with this trip. This short trip was planned just 1 week in advance and we had an awesome weekend. I booked us a suite at The Bliss South Beach Hotel at Patong Beach and we were extremely pleased with our 90sqm room that had a double-sized Jacuzzi, separate living room and spacious balcony with the ocean view. The hotel staff were really nice and even decorated the bed with flower petals making up the words 'Happy Birthday'. What a sweet surprise for my friends! Moreover, being on the quieter end of the beach, we were not affected by the busy nightlife at Soi Bangla although we were just about 1km walk away from the action.
We started off with having lunch and drinks at the sea-front bar cum restaurant beside our hotel. They serve amazing mojitos by the way. Thereafter, we headed to Patong beach to chill until the sunset. Patong beach was less crowded than usual, and they have removed the deckchairs
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The Bliss South Beach Patong suite from the beach. You can rent beach mats (they look like blue yoga mats) or just lay your beach towels on the sand and soak in the scenery. Try ordering coconut juice as it really cools the body in the humidity. At sunset, suddenly there was some amazing fireworks at the beach. Maybe it's in conjunction with the upcoming Songkran festival. We chilled at our lovely swimming pool after sunset before heading out for dinner and party.
We walked to Dang's Restaurant which serves authentic Thai food at reasonable prices. The lemon and chilli steamed fish was mouth-watering. Before Dang's, we actually tried the banana nutella pancake at the street side stall and it was really delicious. The party scene at Patong is still very much centred on Soi Bangla. We went to Club Seduction, Club Illusion and Club Hollywood. I must say that Club Illusion deserves a special mention for its amazing 3D DJ effects and live dance performances that makes me feel like I'm at a concert. This club opened its doors in Dec 2014. Club Seduction had a guest DJ in town and it was extremely packed though the atmosphere was awesome. Club Hollywood was average
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Café near hotel in my opinion but I remember it being happening in my previous trip.
You know you had a good celebration when you wake up with a hangover! I hate hangovers but what can I expect when I mix tequila, rum, vodka and moscato! Anyway, after popping some pain-killers, the hangover went away. We were now headed to Racha Island which is 30 minutes away by speedboat. Basically, Racha is a nice small island with white sandy beach and blue water. We did some snorkelling at the reefs near Racha. Wydah tried snorkelling without a life vest for the first time. It was Ruth's first time snorkelling (with a life vest of course) and I'm glad she enjoyed the experience. It took me a while to coax her into overcoming her fear and giving it a try. I was pretty excited to be snorkelling at a new location and decided to jump off the speedboat from the front deck which I've never tried before. It was pretty fun actually. I guess the 3 of us had a firsts of our own in this trip. As there were a few of us snorkelling without life vests, the boat crew actually threw
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Awesome Mojitos life buoys into the water just in case we needed it. That was very thoughtful of them. In my opinion, Racha island is beautiful but Koh Lipe is still the best island that I've visited in Thailand. We had a lovely Tom Yam noodles lunch at The Racha restaurant and washed the spicyness down with lots of fresh coconut juice. I went to a nearby café to get 2 slices of cake for my friends (our mandatory cake-cutting for birthdays) while Ruth bought me a refreshing lime sorbet. It was a small celebration but certainly memorable. We chilled on Racha beach for a while playing with our beach ball before making our way back to the boat via the tetris-like jetty. Our return speedboat ride was bumpy and felt like a rollercoaster due to the sudden change in weather conditions but it was an exhilarating ride.
We arrived back at our hotel and soaked in our warm jacuzzi with chilled red wine. The jacuzzi was spacious enough for the 3 of us. Thereafter, we decided to head for massage nearby followed by Hard Rock Café for our dinner. It was pouring cats and dogs by then. Thank goodness we
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Selfie time! brought ponchos. That was perhaps the prelude to Songkran which was to be celebrated the day after. After dinner, the rain subsided and we decided to go for a walk along the coast and explore the southernmost end of Patong beach right up till the Amari Resort. It was nice to see the longtail boats docked near the shore and bask in the quietness of our last night in Phuket. We returned to our hotel and did some packing a we had to wake up really early the next day.
The Bliss serves breakfast from 6.30am, hence, we actually managed to have our breakfast before heading to the airport at 7am. Breakfast at The Bliss was a decent buffet selection. Our journey to the airport took about 45 minutes. That was a great time to reminisce on our trip. Overall, we had a fun-filled girls' trip and I'm glad we took time off our busy schedules and did this! Afterall, life is about memories that you create with your loved ones.
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