I Heart Phuket!

We decided to kick 2010 off with a short trip to Phuket. Now, Phuket's never registered on my radar as a place-I'd-love-to-go though I've always been aware of its existence, nor have I ever been particularly taken with the idea of 'island holidays' - most notably because the islands round here aren't exactly the Maldives, and also because I'm not really into water sports, plus the sun gives me heat rash.

How wrong I was.

Yes, by virtue of its location - within Thailand - Phuket was already three strikes down because I've been conned almost every single time I go to Bangkok. And yes, Phuket isn't exactly the Maldives but it was oh-so-very charming in its own way.

Phuket and I, we fell in love over the course of a 3N/4D adventure.

Pre-Trip Prep

"are you sure we need all that stuff ?! we're only going to Phuket you know... a TOURIST destination, not trekking in the himalayas"

Putting together a first-aid kit, he's cute like that

Mikey the Saint Bernard - armed and ready to go

Day 1

We had to wake at the crack of dawn to catch a 9.25am flight from the Budget Terminal. Check-in was swift and we settled in at Maccas after for a nice, comforting (I always think of Maccas as comfort food) breakfast whilst discussing the silliness (or not) of their recent 12 zodiac Happy Meal giveaway, sans the boar. My brother-in-law said that if they were creative at all they would have nicknamed Cupid (the boar's replacement) 'Cupig' or 'Cutepig'. Quite funny, no ?

Anyway, a short flight later we landed in Phuket. Customs was an excrutiatingly long process, made only a little more bearable by the entertainment provided by a French dude who had some sort of tussle with the customs officers. I did what any Singaporean would do and stared quite undiscreetly while our line inched ever-so-slowly forward.

After exiting customs, we opted for the bus to take us to our hotel. Two reasons, we were on a budget of S$150 each, and we have had many (many many many) bad experiences with Thai taxi drivers.

The bus was a good choice, only 180BHT per person.

En-route

The hotel - we opted for Kata beach instead of Patong

After settling in, it was time to go for lunch. We went round the corner and chanced upon a quaint row of little restaurants, if you could call it that. There were four of them, and we picked one randomly - best choice ever ! The food was extremely affordable (about 400BHT gets you a really decent meal, tips optional) and absolutely delicious !

where we ate, I call it the 'blue signboard restaurant' because it doesn't have a name

Pineapple rice - with real (and very sweet) pineapples !

Chicken omelette

Deep fried morning glory served with sweet chilli and/or plum sauce

Connect 4 seems to be a really popular game there, it was available at all the little Thai eateries we went to. Here's boo strategising. Nice try, but they don't call me the Connect 4 queen for nothing.

We took a walk down to the beach after lunch just to take a look-see, before heading back to the hotel for a dip in the pool. He swam, I literally 'dipped' and then planted myself on one of the lounge chairs with a backdated copy of NW magazine.

For dinner, we walked to Kata centre and decided on an Italian joint. The place is really a European ghetto, I can count on one hand the number of Singaporeans/Malaysians/Hongkies we came across. Everywhere we went we were outnumbered.

So anyway, my point being, Italian might seem like an unusual choice for Phuket, but because of the vast amount of Europeans in Phuket, European/American fare is widely available, and actually very good ! Our pasta dinner was incredibly yummy. The pasta was freshly made, the garlic bread was made with freshly baked baguette, and most importantly, the parmasean they gave me to accompany my pasta was freshly grated ! Not of the powdered variety you get at most restaurants in Singapore. And our whole meal cost only 440BHT.

They even had a real wood-fire oven for the pizza, but I'm not really a pizza fan.

Day 1 ended with me filled and happy.

Day 2

Again, another early morning for our SNUBA session ! SNUBA is basically a cross between snorkelling and scuba diving. You get to dive up to a depth of 7m, whilst being hooked up via a pipe to an oxygen tank that floats on an inflatable platform. It's two people to a platform. I was a little nervous initially about the whole breathing underwater thing, but this was a really great baby step.

The SNUBA raft

By the time we got back to the hotel I had a full-blown heat rash but completely worth it.

For dinner, we decided on somewhere a little more upmarket. We picked Two Chefs after reading some good reviews.

He had steak.

I had salmon.

And that's how we ended Day 2.

Day 3

We decided that Day 3 would be a slow one, after the strenuous (for me anyway) activities of the past couple of days. We had a heavy hotel breakfast (I loveeee hotel breakfasts' !), skipped lunch and spent the day at the beach under a brolly, with coconuts, water and a trashy novel (me).

On the way back from the beach, we had a little tiff - the only blip in our otherwise perfect holiday. It wasn't major, but resulted in about 3 hours where we played 'stony silence interspersed with bits of cordial exchange'.

It wasn't fun.

But there was a bit I find really funny now in retrospect. When we got back to the room, naturally the rules of the game dictated that we should aim to put as much distance between the both of us as possible so I sat on the farthest end of the couch, while he sat on the bed.

Initially, he did the usual channel surfing while I flipped through yet another backdated issue of NW magazine and pretended to ignore him. I'm quite good at it, but he's better.

After about half an hour, American Idol came on. Both of us had been looking forward to catching the debut of the new season so I put down my magazine and watched from my corner in the couch.

He adjusted the air con temperature and it got increasingly cold. I put on a pullover and refused to budge from my corner in an attempt to maintain my pride. But after about 15minutes, I had to get into bed and under the covers. I did however make sure to perch myself as close to the edge of the bed as possible. I suspect he tried to freeze me into bed when he adjusted the temperature. I told you he's good at this.

When it ended, he asked me very cordially if I would like to get dinner. I agreed, and so off we went. Stony silence all the way. We picked another one of those little Thai eateries.

After placing our order, the waitress put the Connect 4 between us. He calmly took it, folded it up and put it away. I pouted inside, but still refused to be the first to make nice. I had hoped we would connect over Connect 4 (pun intended), but he was really letting his stubborn streak rage out in full force - I hate how he's so good at this game.

Finally, when the food came, I could take it no more. I am a Libra and peace-loving by nature, and I didn't want our last night to end that way. So I took down the imaginary barrier and forced myself into his territory, giving him no choice but to look at me adoringly and remember just how cute I was.

After dinner, we went for a long walk around Kata centre.

We had a banana and nutella pancake

And saw the cutest wee elephant. I paid 20BHT to feed him some sugarcane and made him do the same while I went all trigger happy. The elephant actually knew how to pose!

We ended the night watching Hangover - we got a pirated copy from one of the stalls at Kata centre. Only 60BHT.

Day 4

Our last day. We woke up to another huge breakfast in the hotel, followed by lunch at the blue signboard restaurant. The staff were really nice and gave us a packet of biscuits as a going-away gift.

After lunch, we lugged our luggage onto a Tuktuk and headed to Patong to spend some time before going to the airport. Just 3 hours there and we decided that Patong really wasn't our scene. Kata is really so much nicer. It's more laid back and you don't feel like every other stall vendor is trying to con you.

We'll definitely return to Phuket. And next time, we'll rent a motorbike to see more of the island ! Oh, and maybe try para-sailing too !