OUR FIRST TRIP - PHUKET

The Chinese New Year holiday occurred the week after we arrived in Hong Kong. Everyone has a public holiday Monday - Wednesday, so the city literally shuts down as most people travel back home to spend time with their families or vacation nearby. My husband (we'll call him M) and I took this opportunity to take a short vacation to Phuket, Thailand. This was a very last minute trip. The trip was booked on Tuesday and we left on Friday morning.

There were a couple of hiccups along the way.
1) Our air shipment with all of our summer clothes was inadvertently sent to Dublin, Ireland and was not scheduled to arrive until we returned from Phuket. I tried to find a bathing suit and cover up in Hong Kong but had no luck. Clearly the resort wear season is not big here. This meant we had to make do with the winter clothes we packed for our Christmas holiday in New York and Chicago.

2) The US government issued a travel warning to Thailand due to the threat of terrorists targeting westerners in Bangkok. We thought about cancelling our trip and going somewhere else. But our friends reassured us that we were okay since we were flying straight to Phuket (versus traveling through Bangkok) and the warnings were for Bangkok (not Phuket). I guess we will be confronted with these types of warnings all of the time over here. Although we feel very safe in China - I guess it's the one place everyone is trying to befriend.

We left Hong Kong early Friday morning and were in sunny Phuket by noon. Our first stop was lunch followed by bathing suit shopping, which was a success! That evening we experienced our first Thai meal in Thailand. We enjoyed tom yum goong soup, a delicious banana salad and shrimp pad thai. On our walk back to our hotel room, we saw two banyan trees lit up with red lanterns for Chinese New Year!

Saturday morning started early. We were scheduled to take a day-long boat tour of Phang Nga Bay, which is famous for the limestone mountains. The day included sea kayaking, cave walking and a visit to James Bond Island. We also enjoyed lunch at a Muslim sea village built entirely on stilts above the water. Below are some of our favorite pictures.

Our view of the limestone mountains from the boat. They reminded us of the floating islands in Avatar.

The view from our kayak as we were exiting a cave

We had to get low to get through the caves

Stalactites

The sea village where we ate lunch

James Bond Island

Beautiful scenery

We hiked through a cave to a beautiful lagoon

The mud on my legs is from the quick sand in the lagoon

Last beach stop before we headed back to our hotel

We met some interesting people on our boat trip. One couple was from Dallas who were on a 6 week trip around the world... and they each were only carrying 1 carry-on! Talk about efficient packers! Another couple was from Mexico but had spent the last 10 years living in Chicago, Germany and Shanghai. They had also raised 2 children while living abroad. Boy did we have a lot of questions for them! We got their contact information and hope to visit them when we go to Shanghai.

That night we had dinner at a Siam Supper Club in Cherng Talay (an area of Phuket close to our hotel). The food was good, but we wished we had picked a more traditional Thai restaurant. I was exhausted from the day filled with activities and sun and nearly fell asleep in my entree.

Sunday was a relaxing beach day. We had a wonderful thai lunch right on the beach and had our first mangosteen! The most delicious fruit!

Mangosteens and pad thai!

My view for the day

That evening we enjoyed the ultimate highlight of our trip - The Phuket sunset! It was incredible.

For dinner we celebrated Chinese New Year at our hotel filled with Chinese food, dragons, drums, lai see and lanterns!

Watching our lantern fly away

We took another boat tour on Monday - this time to the Phi Phi islands. We spent most of the day snorkeling and swimming at different islands. We also had a delicious picnic lunch on the beach. While our pictures don't show it, there were a lot of tourists going to the same attractions. Tons of Chinese and Russians all around.

That evening we had dinner in the Patong area at a Thai restaurant. This area is known as the clubbing area of the island although we didn't partake in the fun. Too exhausted from the long day of activities.

Our last day was a half day. We quickly ate breakfast and headed to the beach (on our bikes) for a couple more hours of sunshine.

If you are planning to travel to Phuket, here are some little tidbits from our experience.

The things we loved...

• Phang Nga Bay - It's touristy, but the limestone mountains are worth it. We recommend Laguna Phuket Boat Tours
  
• Phuket sunsets
• Thai massages
• Banyan Tree Saffron restaurant - best Thai food we tried all weekend
• Mangosteens - Amazing fruit
• Our non-stop flight from HKG

The things we would have reconsidered...

• Our hotel choice: We stayed at the Banyan Tree Hotel, which was lovely and had easy access to the beach. Unfortunately, there were no views of the beach from the hotel rooms or dining areas.
• Siam Supper Club Restaurant: Rated #1 on tripadvisor. Good European restaurant with great atmosphere. However, we should have stuck to Thai food only. When in Rome...
• Baan Rim Pa Restaurant: Amazing views of the ocean, very mediocre Thai food.