Phuket - July 08

This is honeymoon part 1. Of the 4 weeks that I've been married, 3 weekends we were out somewhere else and not at home. So basically, I've had like my honeymoon in three mini-parts already. Very nice, although I'm getting sick of the packing, and especially, unpacking part about these small trips away.

Air & Land Transport
We flew by AirAsia, which was fairly comfortable. Plus, we get to depart from T1, instead of the Budget Terminal. What's the plus point? I guess it's that the duty-free shop & the departure lounge is more interesting at T1.

We arrived in the afternoon at Phuket INTERNATIONAL Airport, and first thing was to look for transport to the hotel. We had planned to take taxi throughout, or if not, maybe rent a scooter. We had no idea how big Phuket was, and thought that it was another Krabi.

The taxi guy somehow tried to recommend us to take up car rental. Btw, cab fare to hotel was about THB800 per trip. Not very cheap. Another THB 300 to 400 to get to Patong Beach. And it was likely that we would make at least one trip to either Patong Beach or Phuket Town each day. At first we were very resistant towards renting a car, but after thinking about the likely costs incurred from cab fares, we think, it might be worth it to rent a car instead.

So, we got a brand new Toyota Vios (Odometer: 500 km travelled) for THB 3200 for 4 days. I thought it was a good deal, except, just a few minutes into our travel we had wiped out about 80% of our cash on hand for this trip. On retrospect, that was abit scary. We didn't carry much SGP dollars, only about SGD200 in total that we could exchange.

It is fairly easy to drive around in Phuket. The road signs are quite clear, and there are english words, if not numbers to indicate the highways. The roads are well paved, yet not very complex. The place is quite huge though, so driving to get around from place to place is recommended.

Accomodation
We stayed at Twinpalms resort on Surin Beach. We had shortlisted three resorts to stay in. (1) SALA - my personal favourite ('cuz it's very posh & exclusive), but HS threw it out as it was too far from the main attraction of Patong Beach. It was probably a good decision. (2) The Access - It had a very interesting room service feature, and we would be able to get a private pool villa for roughly the same cost as a Deluxe room at the other two shortlisted hotel. (3) Twinpalms - middle of the two in terms of posh-ness, and did not seem to far away from main attractions. Poshness was a criterion, as I didn't want to suffer for our honeymoon. I mean, in case, for some reason we're not able to go to Italy, at least I won't regret having spent some posh-living days in Thailand. So, we went with Twinpalms.

We got a very nice honeymoon reception in our room. Long stemmed red roses, fine chocolates arranged in the shape of Twinpalms logo, Half-drawn bath strewn with frangipani and red rose petals, and a bottle of champagne.

We had the hotel free breakfast for the next few mornings. Overall it was satisfactory. Good/ Excellent points: (1) The bread/ cereal/ salad section was fabulous. They served French Butter! Free bottles of honey were available, and basically pretty premium stuff like smoked salmon, expensive cheeses of various types. Only not so great thing was the cheeses were melting in the heat..not very sightly. (2) We were allowed to order latte, cappucino, other than the standard coffee/tea being served, at no extra costs. (3) Sparkling white wine (not sure if champagne) was available throughout for us to drink on its own or mixed with juices. Very classy. Not so great stuff: (1) Not much variation in the food served from day to day. (2) Egg station did not provide the yummy Maggie soya sauce for eggs.

We also borrowed a DVD (Babel) to watch on Day 1, but didn't manage to watch it, 'cuz we were too busy shopping. DVDs and books were available for loan at their in-house Library. The IT room with two computer terminals were also free for us to surf and use at anytime (24hrs). We also managed to squeeze in some exercise at their gym on one of the days, 'cuz felt so guilty that we just kept eating and eating. Only pity is that we didn't manage to use their pool.

Another great thing about Twinpalms is their spa. We were given a complimentary 15 min head/ neck/ shoudler massage called the Jet Lag massage. We also tried their Surin massage and Foot massage. It's not really cheap ... but we were given a 35% discount. The massages lasted about 50 to 55 mins. I tried the Ultimate Foot Care Massage as it promised to do something about bloating, and insomnia. It was okay. I think I prefer those chinese-style foot reflexology, where you feel that there is more effect. Although my calves were very well-massaged that day, it was abit of a waste, 'cuz we spent the next 3 hours or so in the evening shopping at Patong Beach...that is alot of walking, and the effect of the massage all gone.

Activities

Original plan was to try the following at Phuket. (1) Lots of massages. (2) Eat one lobster meal. (3) Go whitewater rafting. (4) Take on the ATV adventure.

In the end, we fulfilled items (1) and (2). Chicken out on (3), and didn't have money/ time for (4). We did manage to throw in one 10-min Go Kart adventure, and explored someparts of Phuket, and did alot of shopping.

Other stuff

I kanna fined! We were fined THB300 for driving without a license. Specifically, it was I who got fined. HS had the sense to bring his license. From now on, I'll travel with my license.

We spent down to our very last cent and had no money to pay the THB30 for carpark out of Jung Ceylon. A little bit lack of sense on our part. But the carpark cashier was very kind to let us pass without paying a cent.

We realised the Twinpalms logo looks very much like our surnames inverted. Cool huh?! Discovered while staring at the breakfast plates.