Note: Be prepared, this is a lengthy entry.

Expenses
Accomodation, air tickets and airport transfers: S$400
Spending money for food, activities and shopping: S$260
Spa: S$180
Total: S$840
Time spent with good pals and the beautiful scenery (and no work of course!): Priceless!


Day 1 (27th March 2004)
8:30am Singapore time
We arrived at Changi Airport Terminal 1 and checked in for our flight TG406 which departs at 9:20am.

In the waiting lounge, we saw this group of 4 couples on the same flight, some of whom are in the same line as Sleepaholic, who was also recognised. Apparently, they have their company stamp all over their forehead.

9:20am
Takeoff. Sleepaholic and Workaholic saw a guy in the airplane they used to go clubbing with during their mambo days. Fat and balding, with his girlfriend in tow. The 2 gals ducked. That was hilarious.

10:05am Phuket time
We queued at the Customs for nearly an hour before we finally cleared it. They were unbelievably slow! I think because we are so used to the efficiency in Singapore, it gets more pronounced in other countries. Taxi to hotel on Patong Beach – THB550.

12:30pm
Checked into Burasari hotel located at Patong Beach. The entrance is so discreet that we would have missed it had we not been looking out for it. The décor is fabulous, with the dark wood furnitures etc. You must see the pictures to understand. The hotel is small, unlike Grand Tropicana or Holiday Inn nearby, but it’s precisely because of this that it has a more warm and friendly ambience, offering more personalised services.



1:00pm
We headed to a spa recommended by the hotel front desk executive, called Let’s Relax. I didn’t see it in any of the Phuket websites I visited while researching the place but it turned out to be a really modern yet comfortable looking spa in a 3-storey building by itself.

Here, the 3 of us enjoyed a 2-hr 45-min spa consisting of foot reflexology, whole body green tea scrub and lavender aromatherapy massage, price – THB 2,000. The scrub nearly took off the first layer of my skin! I snoozed a bit during the massage though.

4:15pm
We were so greasy because of the massage oil used on our bodies but we are not allowed to shower for 2 hours due to the open pores and such. So we had a quick change of clothing in our hotel room and freshen up a bit.

5:15pm
The tour guide of Phuket FantaSea, winner of Thailand Tourism Award 2000 - 2003 and a show that came highly recommended from Nic-aholic’s friend, came to pick us up. Price – including 2-way transfer, buffet dinner and show, THB 1,800.

6:00pm
Dinner at the Golden Kinnaree restaurant located inside Phuket Fantasea. This also came highly recommended by my cousin but I found it to be very ordinary. The range of dishes wasn’t as huge as he mentioned and the standard was only ok. The restaurant itself was huge though, lots of gold as implied by its name. We wondered whether anybody ever held their wedding dinners there and reckoned that you need to know literally thousands of people in order to fill up the place.

9:00pm
Show starts. We were seated on the 3rd level as we didn’t want to upgrade our seats and the ticketing lady claimed that the first 2 levels seats have already been filled up (Bullsh*t, I saw some rows of empty seats when the show started). Seated behind us were this group of loud China tourists, and a Thai family whose small girl didn’t cease talking to her mom throughout the show. The sets of the show were quite grand and included elephants on the stage. But maybe because we were so exhausted from the journey, we couldn’t really enjoy it properly. Workaholic slept halfway through the show and I was fighting to keep my eyes open. We dashed out the moment it ended in order to beat the crowd and was so anxious for the van to be filled up that the operator found it extremely amusing.

12:00am
After a much-needed/desired shower, we ventured out into the streets for some shopping and chilling out at the cafes/ bars we saw by the beach. Alas, most of the stalls and cafes were closing by the time we reached. That’s how we ended up in Macdonald’s, the only place to stay open till 3am. We sat there observing the passerbys. One recurring couple combination we noted was Caucasian man with Thai woman. Ahem.


Day 2 (28th March 2004)
9:00am
American breakfast at the French restaurant in the hotel, following which we rented a hotel van (with driver, price – THB250) from the hotel and went to our first stop, Go-Kart. Only one phrase to describe it – “cheap” thrill. Haha. It costs about THB 390 for 10min and we were the only ones racing.

Next stop, we dropped by the bungee-jump site to check it out as well since its nearby. Let’s just say it’s not very confidence-inducing and we decided to skip it. Save that for New Zealand.

Finally, Patong beach! We chosed a spot with jetski services in the vicinity, plopped our bags on the beach chairs (Price – THB 50 each!) and checked out the jetski prices. In the end, we settled for the bigger one which sits 3 people (Price – THB 1,000 for ½ hour). Each of us had a 5min training session and then we were off by ourselves. Sleepaholic went first, zooming off from the beach with the 2 of us hanging on for our dear lives. After a few exhilarating minutes, she attempted a turn and oops, we capsized, all 3 of us screaming. We had to wait for rescue in the sea, thank god for life vests. The rest of the session was not as exciting with me and Workaholic on the wheel because we were more paranoid about capsizing. Hehe.

After that, we plonked ourselves down on the beach chairs and tanned.

1:30pm
Urgent toilet break needed. So we walked about 1km further down the beach to the public toilet and grabbed a bite at the same time at the hawker centre. Along the way back, a sign advertising manicure/ pedicure caught our attention and we stopped to get our nails done. Mine is what Sleepaholic calls “Barbie” pink with white flowers; Workaholic’s dark red with white flowers, Sleepaholic’s dark pink with blue flowers. A lady came up and offered henna tatoos and we did that at the same time. Mine a flower on my left shoulder, Workaholic’s a butterfly on her left shoulder and Sleepaholic’s a stretch of flowers above her hip. Very sexy. It felt totally tai-tai-ish with so many people fussing over us. We were dreaming of days we can live like that even in Singapore.



5:00pm
Back at our beach chairs. We wanted to try parasailing but decided against it in view of our tight money situation. Packed our things and walked to find Thara Spa at Thara Patong Hotel, which I saw on a website. It turned out to be a quaintly decorated Thai style spa. After the hot sun, we opt for a 2-hrs 15-min Similan Package (Price: THB 2,090) of White Mud body wrap and Thai massage. The body wrap had us all wrapped in plastic sheets, feeling like mummies. This is the first time I tried Thai massage and it’s the only one that had us putting on clothes instead of taking it off. Nice enough, they manipulated our bodies into yoga-like positions. However, my masseur left a gigantic bruise on my left inner arm! I kept telling her to be softer but she was too busy chatting with Workaholic to pay attention. We were their first and only customers for the day. They seem very fascinated with Workaholic and Sleepaholic’s fair skin.

10:30pm
After another quick shower, we looked for a restaurant to have the supposedly “cheap” seafood dinner which everyone recommended as a 'must have' in Phuket. We chosed a restaurant featuring a live band and enjoyed a dinner of a tiger prawn, crayfish each, plus tom yum soup, fish, calamari, vegetables. So full we were bursting (Price – about THB 2,000). Shopping next but there wasn’t anything interesting or special to buy.


Day 3 (29th March 2004)
6:30am
Checked out and had breakfast.

7:30am
Fetched by the Paradise Cruise Company’s van and transported to the ferry terminal.

8:30am
90min ride on the ferry. We spent the time on the top deck sun tanning, sharing it with 2 middle-aged Caucasians, 2 rather cute Japanese guys and some families. When we reached Maya Bay, Phi Phi Ley, where The Beach, starring Leonardo Dicaprio was filmed, all of us jumped off the ferry for a bit of snorkelling. Not totally what I expected in that the corals were colourless, but fishes were every as beautiful as I imagined. We forgot to bring towels to dry ourselves and had to share Workaholic’s face towel. Consequently, we were wet and cold for the rest of the journey. Maybe because of that and too much sun, I felt sea-sick and nauseous while the 2 ladies were enjoying their Cornetto ice-cream. Thank god we didn’t have to stay too long in the ferry after that.

12:00pm
Reached Ton Sai Bay, Phi Phi Don and had a quick lunch before checking into the Phi Phi Island Cabana hotel. We had a sea-view room overlooking the fantastic, tropical beach with coconut trees and clear, blue-green water, which made up for the room not being as nice as the one in Burasari hotel.

1:30pm
We hit the pool with deck chairs overlooking the sea. While sunbathing there, we observed this Caucasian family of 5 which seems so ideal (They happened to be staying in the room opposite ours). Whole family was blond, good-looking, youngish parents with 2 adorable boys and a girl. The dad played “Monkey” in the sea with the boys while the mom lied in her red bikini beside her daughter building sand castles. Perfect.

3:00pm
Time for us to try out the sea ourselves. Water was quite warm but inviting all the same. Another target for gossip. A blond lady clad in white bikini who spent some time floating around on her back in the sea. She had a thin, pretty face but her body is large, with gigantic thighs. A thin, lanky dark-haired man joined her subsequently and they cuddled together, floating on their backs. Workaholic found them a very mismatched couple in terms of size.



The 3 of us tried to walk further into the sea and were amazed at the distance that we could cover on tiptoes. Tired out, we lay ourselves on the sand, on the water edge. Not far away was the couple. From their conversation (she was loud, we weren’t purposely eavesdropping), we deduced that they have only just met each other. From then, we were coming up with stories of how they must have picked each other up for a holiday romance and when the lady bared her breasts during the conversation, we thought it was a form of seduction. Conclusion when they upped and left? Hot and heavy sex. Ok, bitchy and gossipy bunch of gals we are but what to do, we are 3 singles on a holiday. Of course we bitch.

7:00pm
All cleaned and changed, we hunted for food to satisfy our growling stomachs. Settled on a small restaurant with dark wood furniture and red walls. I didn’t really notice until the 2 gals pointed it out when we were seated, it’s a restaurant cum cooking school, which means all the cooks are probably still learning. In the end, all 3 different dishes we ordered turned out quite similar, maybe because they all have the same ingrediants! Hehe, mistake. We made a bet as to where the Caucasian manager is from, winner gets a Cornetto ice-cream. Workaholic is good, she could even guess Ireland correctly!

We explored the whole stretch of shops after that, and in our search for a place for a drink, we covered a particular stretch at least 8 times? Gosh, my legs were dropping off but it’s amusing to reminiscise about it. Plenty of cheap seafood restaurants here. In the end, we all ordered Heineken at a 2nd level pub where we can people watch. Here, we mused about our lives and future. The 2 of them tried playing the “what-if scenarios” game with me but I suck at it. Haha, I have a lot of perhaps, maybes etc.

Who should turn up but the couple we saw by the beach? Fully dressed to kill, no less. Must have finished and be out looking for food like us, we think.


Day 4 (30th March 2004)
8:30am
Had a quick breakfast and embarked on our journey of sea, land and air home. If you had read my earlier entries, you would recall that I was concerned about the tight schedule of our travelling times. Suay (Unlucky) enough, the ferry was really delayed by half an hour. Not sure why, a lot of the other ferries kept stopping beside ours and moving off after a while. We thought that maybe our ferry ran out of fuel and they had to transfer some over.

Luckily, we arrived at the airport with a bit of time to spare and could even buy some Thai snacks from an airport store. Guess who appeared? The fat and balding friend Workaholic and Sleepaholic were trying to avoid on our trip here. Talk about coincidences! They are on the same flight back. Hehe. With that, we concluded our holiday and I’m now back in the daily grind of deadlines and stress.


Little tidbits
1. There are no air-conditioned places in Phi Phi (and somewhat true for Phuket as well) except for hotel rooms and 7-Eleven (which explains the perpetual crowd).
2. Hookers in Phuket are a lot more discreet. They don’t advertise themselves on the streets. Maybe because the government is cracking down vice.
3. There are only 3 kinds of fruits they serve in buffets there, watermelon, papaya and bananas. Sometimes, there’re pineapples.
4. There must be not much Singaporeans visiting Phuket, the locals kept guessing that we are from China. Either that, or they will guess the 2 gals are Japanese/ Korean and speak Thai to me.

Will add more things as and when I can remember them………


Resources
These are the websites I booked from:
Air tickets
Hotel room in Phuket
Phi Phi stayover

General info on:
Phuket - Phuket.com and Phuket-guide.com
Phi Phi - Island and hotels
Spas - Phuketspa.com and Phuket-spa.com
Maps

# posted by Shopaholic : 6:46 PM