Thailand...the land of fun...Part 1

We're back in Singapore after a busy but very fun trip to Phuket, Thailand.  I must say, it was a good choice for our first trip out of Singapore and my first experience acting as travel agent.  With all of my free time, I did all the planning and Andy just footed the bill.  I think this is the beginning of my role as personal travel planner for the Sokolik family.

Day One

On Christmas Eve, we woke up early to get to the airport for our 8:30 flight.  Since all flights out of Singapore are international, you have to get there 2 hours early instead of the standard 1 hour for US domestic flights.  After a 1.5 hour flight, we touched down in Phuket.  Phuket has many beaches and we decided to stay at Kata beach, which was supposed to be a little quieter (although I thought it was quite packed). We checked into our hotel - the Kata Palm Resort, which was about a 5 minute walk to the beach.

The beautiful hotel lobby

Our nice Thai style room

Then, we walked over to the beach and lunched at a casual restaurant on the beach.  We had front row seats to the beautiful scenery....and the masses of sunbathing lobsters on the beach.  It was definitely peak season in Phuket!

My Tom Yam soup with a view of the beach. It was so good and SO spicy!

Best Pad Thai. Ever.

Afterwards, we walked around town, checking out and bargaining for some tour options for the next few days.  We spent some time lounging by the hotel pool (which I failed to get pictures of).  Then we headed out to book our tours and then out to the beach to catch the sunset.  Unfortunately, we just missed the sun setting, but it was still beautiful and peaceful.  Twilight is my favorite time of the day not just because it's beautiful, but it's when I enjoy the outdoors without fear of the sun!  Fortunately for us, it's when the beach gets nice and quiet, too.

Even though we missed the sunset, still got some beautiful pics.

That night, we headed back to the hotel for the compulsory Christmas Eve Gala dinner.  When I was looking for hotels, I found that most of them had a money-making scheme where they require you to attend their Christmas/New Years Eve dinners if you are staying that night.  So, I was forced to spend an exorbitant amount of money on a mediocre dinner with cheesy entertainment.  It was definitely interesting...between the strange food displays and cheesy Christmas music...

Me enjoying my tasty healthy mango smoothie.

A lady doing some Thai fruit carving...it's alot of time to spend on something that's just going to rot away...

A Christmas watermelon!  (and other carved fruits)

We did get to see some traditional dancing and drum performances that were pretty interesting.  Here are the traditional dancers, sharing a stage with Santa and the snowman...

You may have wondered about the title of my post...Thailand, the land of fun.  It's from this song that the dancers danced to called "Welcome to Thailand".  It was just a really funny song.  To get a feel for what we got to watch check out this link, although I think these dancers were better than ours...

We ended up leaving the festivities early because we're getting old and lame and because we had an early start to look forward to the next day.

Day Two - Merry Christmas - we're in Thailand!

We woke up early to be picked up for the tour of Phang Nga Bay and James Bond Island where the Man With the Golden Gun was filmed.  It was a bit of a harrying ride, with sights such as this:

Yes, that's a pickup full of people in front of us, and they're passing around a baby.....Hmmm I don't think this would fly in the states.

Somehow we ended up booking a tour that was full of Russians.  They even had a Russian translator on board.  I unfortunately forgot to bring an extra battery on the trip and was down to one bar, so I took pictures sparingly on the first part of the trip.  Luckily, my battery lasted the whole day!

We stopped at Panyee Island, which was a Muslim Village on stilts.  There we did a little shopping (I, of course, bought some fabric).  Saw a woman with a monkey....but as "she" got nearer, realized it was a man - Thailand is famous for their lady boys.  Then had lunch at a restaurant by the water.

Panyee Village

Next, we headed out to James Bond Island

Unfortunately, since I was not the photographer, the top of the rock got cut off...

Then we got back on the boat and went to Hong Island for some canoeing around to look at the rock formations.

Inside one of the Hongs - which are basically like open air caves

Finally, we spend some time relaxing at Naka Island where we had the beach to ourselves for a little while before other boats arrived....So beautiful!  As I was floating in the crystal clear waters, I kept thinking to myself, "I can't believe it's Christmas and I'm swimming in the beautiful Thai ocean!"

We made it safely back to land.  Andy without one incident of sea sickness - which is quite an accomplishment.   This time we made an effort to get to the beach during the sunset.

Santa shaved his beard and decided to vacation in Thailand.

Some long tail boats floating in the sunset.

For dinner, we found a little restaurant called Thai Kitchen.  We had an amazing meal for a total of US $13 - so cheap!

Shrimp and Basil

Chicken Curry

Green Papaya Salad

And the best part? Harry Potter was eating at the table next to us!

Tired from our excursion we headed back to the hotel.  But not before seeing this:

That would be an Elvis impersonator...on Christmas....in Thailand.  Doesn't get much more bizarre than this...

I'll squeeze the rest of our trip into another post....this one is already way too long!