Ahoy Thailand!

We had a crazy itinerary for Thailand. We were to first spend four days in Phuket, two days at Ko Phi Phi, back for another two days in Phuket and then one night in Bangkok. Phew!, cant believe I actually managed all of that! This time we took a flight from Siem Reap to Bangkok. Siem Reap airport was beautiful. A small and less busy airport compared to many, but aesthetically constructed and peppered with glimpses of south east asian architecture. We took the Bangkok Airways flight from Siem Reap to Bangkok and then an Air Asia flight from Bangkok to Phuket. The damage for the Bangkok Airways flight was 142 USD per person while for Air Asia we paid about 65 USD per person – now you know why we did the treacherous road journey from Bangkok to Siem Reap!


Both were really short flights and in no time we were flying over a beach to land in Phuket. Phuket airport is adjacent to a beach and is a famous airplane spotting destination for many airplane fanatics. I had one with me and airplane spotting was definitely on the cards during this trip. But for now, we needed to check in to our home in Phuket. We had a car waiting for us and we were whisked away to this beautiful city with wide roads, modern construction and lush green countryside. It was quite a drive from the airport to our guesthouse at Karon beach. We were staying at Pineapple Phuket. Pineapple Phuket was a far cry from the homely surroundings of Two Dragons at Siem Reap. It was not actually a bad place, but I would not essentially recommend it to anyone.

Our first spell of four days in Karon was not as good an experience for me as I fell sick the moment we reached there and with a horrible congestion in my chest, and difficulty finding vegetarian food, my holiday was turning into a nightmare of sorts. But things started looking up with our trip to Phang Nga Bay, James Bond Island and Monkey Island. It was the most touristy thing we did but it was completely worth it. We bought the trip from one of the many travel agents at Karon beach and after that we did not need to worry about anything. We had a minibus pick us up from our guesthouse, take us to the pier, there was food served on the boat and all we had to do was have a great time. We went through some really interesting caves in canoes during this trip. And hyped or not, the James Bond Island is definitely worth a visit. It is stunningly beautiful and I have never seen anything like this before.

We also visited an interesting museum of shells and were completely blown away by the arrangements of shells and the sheer variety on display. Again touristic but highly recommended.

Something else that livened things up for me was shopping at the town centre in Phuket. It is a shoppers paradise, particularly for ladies. It has great bargains on everything ranging from clothes to jewelery to bags – and oh what bags!. I bought quite some of them.

Although, food was sort of a problem for me at the Karon beach, we did manage to find some good places. We found this tiny yet charming café at Karon called Enjoy café. Enjoy offers condos as stay arrangements and has a cafe on the ground floor. We went there for breakfast one morning and fell in love with the place. The cafe is clean and the coffee and food fresh. I had viennese coffee for the first time and loved it. The crossiants were fresh and warm and since we were early it was just us. The lady serving us was extremely friendly and we sure had a good time there.

Another interesting place was a restaurant called Trattoria at the Kata beach. It is run by an Italian and hence most of the patronage is Italian there. The ambience is like any other cafe in Phuket and like any other place in Thailand the staff was friendly and the service fast.I had a vegetarian pizza there and it was easily the best pizza I have had ever. All the vegetables had been sauteed in olive oil and sprinkled with herbs. Everything was very fresh and delectable. My non-vegetarian friend also enjoyed his pizza as much as I did mine.

On one of these days, we hired a car and went to the Mai Khao beach and the airport beach – Nai Yang for airplane spotting. We clicked quite some pictures of planes of various colours, shapes and sizes and I was most excited on seeing a sea plane which I call the sea-duck based on the popular cartoon series tailspin which I used to watch as a kid. It brought back the child in me watching a sea-duck in real life.

The most beautiful place we visited in Thailand was Ko Phi Phi and to know about that you will have to wait for my next post!

Technorati Tags: Thailand, Phuket, Karon, Kata, Airplanespotting, JamesBondIsland, Travel