Arrival in Phuket

Singapore Changi

After a comfortable Silk Air flight from Singapore, we landed in Phuket at around 5pm. The airport was basic, and when we collected our luggage and ventured out looking for our private transfer, insanely busy.

Christian left me with the luggage and went off to find our Asian Trails transfer in the throng. He eventually found the guy, who was holding a sign with the wrong name on it. Hmmm. Anyway, we got in, and commenced the drive south to Patong Beach, and my first introduction to the insanity that is Thai roads.

It's nothing like European insanity. Everyone is quite calm and relatively sensible, but there are so many scooters that dart everywhere - mostly in the narrow, purpose-built left lane, but often crowded in U-turn slip roads, and crowded beside each other between cars - utes and trucks with impossible numbers of people sitting in the back, and complete disregard for the speed limit. I still wasn't used to the people sitting in the backs of vehicles by the end of that journey.

We took the inland road, which was smallish and winding, and ended in a huge series of winding, steep hills just before Patong beach. In Patong proper, it was busy and a bit grubby, with a large shopping/hotel/market block. We went through it and out the other side to the Amari resort, which was up a bridge and out of earshot of Patong. We were dropped off by the driver, gave him a 50 baht tip, and our luggage was taken care of from here.

At the reception desk, we completed the formalities, and were presented with delicious cold cups of lemongrass tea, and extremely welcome ice-cold towels for our faces. I got them to change some money for us as we had mostly big notes.

The woman who booked us in then walked us to our room, which was quite a significant journey through the resort. On the way, she pointed out useful things (though I wasn't really taking them in at that point).

At our room (7127), our bags were magically waiting for us, having been taken via the road on one of the army of golf carts. The woman showed us the ropes, including our obligatory towel swans, petals, and pink cake, and after tipping both people, they left us to it.

Our room was on the ground floor of three storeys, and only a few from the far end. The view from the balcony was straight across the bay and obviously really beautiful even in the dark. The room itself was big and very comfortable, and most importantly at this point: cool.

We had a bit of a read of the literature, and I unpacked while Christian dealt with the technology (he still wasn't well at this point).

The Rim Talay restaurant had looked very nice, and so we decided to have the buffet that night, which happened to be Churrasco. We tidied ourselves up a bit, and ventured back out into the warmth. First thing for me was a cocktail ('vanilla in love'), though Christian declined. The buffet was pretty good, and after a plate of food, and one of fruit, I was very full.

We retired to our room, and I'm pretty sure we went to bed straight after a shower. It had been a tiring day, and I was happy to have negotiated all travel successfully and made it to our last stage of the holiday.