Patong Beach - Phuket Island

Arrived home from work at about 5pm, I hadn’t packed any of my stuff as usual…About 6:30pm I finished packing and 7:30pm took a taxi to Airport…Journey began from Penang at 9:20pm….
Brandon and Jew picked me up at KL Central and arrived at Bran’s house almost 1:00am….after sometimes not being together...so many things to catch up with….few cans of Chang beer and ended up sleeping at about 4:00am…woke up at 5:00am when the booked taxi came to pick us up…

Arrived at the airport an hour before the scheduled flight to Phuket Island at 7:25am….we checked in then went to have our breakfast….immigration check then to the gate…we were late!!!! Discussion after discussion we had to buy a new flight ticket to Phuket Island at 12:45pm and it cost each of us about RM300!!!!

Arrived at Phuket Island about 01:00pm and we took a taxi at a cost THB600….I think we were lucky to met the guy who promoted island hopping trip (Phi Phi-Maya-Khai) and he drove us to this travel agency (believe to be his accomplish) but it wasn’t a waste….the travel agency offered a good price…THB1200 on express boat or THB 1900 on speed boat...we took the THB1200 thinking it’s cheaper and of course it would be nicer to have other people along the trip…buffet lunch is inclusive on the boat, a van will pick and drop you off at the hotel…we then continued the journey to Patong Beach (the most famous beach in Phuket Island) that took about an hour…traffic congestion was not as bad as my trip to Pattaya then and we were amazed with their vehicles…Toyota, Isuzu and Mazda…..these are the only car manufacturer seen around….most common taxis are Toyota Vios….and their cars seems to be well taken care of…however we did see one Proton Satri Neo in Patong later that night..haha…

Arrived at Patong Beach…wow!!! Patong town is situated on the other side of a hill…so the road is up hill then down hill....once we reached at the top of the hill, we could see Patong town…its almost bigger than Sandakan….and the view from the hill top is so amazing….we arrived at the hotel almost 3:00pm and the hotel receptionist told us they were fully booked….no worries...hehe.…we were upgraded (that’s what they call it) to another 3.5 star hotel…the hotel I booked (Patong Beach Lodge) wasn’t bad at all as it has a swimming pool, situated 500m from the beach and all other entertainment outlets with a cost THB650 per night….the hotel driver drove us to the other hotel and wow!! We didn’t expect the hotel to be so nice (Horizon Beach Resort & Spa)…the hotel is situated about 200m from the beach…we were greeted and treated very nicely….Thais are famous to be good in customer relationship....they really are (I’ve experienced it in Pattaya and now in Phuket)…the hotel has 2 swimming pools…we checked in then spent couple of minutes in our room before we started our touring….hehe..

We spent the first day mostly on touring and reviewing….had couple of beers, late lunch and dinner….I think we walked almost 8km touring Patong Beach town…it was funny that we never lepak at Patong beach at all during the trip there…along the beach, there are plenty of thing you could possibly get into….seafood, mini-bar, bistro pub and many more…local taxi “tuk-tuk” were everywhere…some even pimped with great lightning, sounds and seats as decoration for attraction…a “tuk-tuk” can accommodate about 4 people (seat facing each other)…it’s a small size pickup turned into a limousine pickup….however, there was one turn off thing that we notice in Patong town (only in Patong perhaps because it’s status to be the most happening and attractive place in Phuket)…I wasn’t expecting the cost of living was so expensive as I had in Pattaya….a decent meal could cost you about THB100 (RM10) and a small bottle of beer at THB70 in a decent restaurant but THB140 (or higher) in a pub…imagine a decent lunch/dinner (3 dishes) cost us about THB500 – THB700….it’s a great place for holiday though...hehe….the night life in Patong is not much different than Pattaya although I think Pattaya is way more crazy (Walking Street in Pattaya is full of a-go-go bars) FYI, a-go-go bar is where you could see bikini babes dancing on the stage, on the table and even on you…if you brave enough, you might be able to grab these hot asses for your own satisfaction…haha…at about 7:00pm (Bangkok time – 1 hour behind us) we went back to hotel and had our perasmian swimming pool…haha…spent about an hour there (swimming pool closed at 8:00pm) then went out again for single lads night out…yet we weren’t sure where to go…one of the happening pubs (Margarita) was full and the other bars opposites a-go-go bars were full…ada juga si Jew sempat terpegun melihat bikini babes bekangkang-kangkang, lady boys dancing on a table….haha…the Rock Hard A-Go-Go bar is a private pub on the 1st floor so I couldn’t see much what were going on there..haha…we ended up drinking couple bottles of beer at this one decent pub facing the Margarita….we went back to the hotel before midnight and had another go with the beers in the fridge before zzzzzzzzzzzz………

Khai Island

Second day…as planned, a van picked us up at the hotel at 7:40am…there were about 6 people in the van with us and the journey took about half an hour to the other side of the Island passing through the outskirt of Phuket City…from Asia Marina jetty, we began our island hopping journey to Khai Island…Khai island is a small size island just about 35 minutes off Phuket Island…We stopped at Khai Island for an hour but me and Jew decided not to swim/snorkeling here…instead we enjoyed bottle of beer each..haha…we then moved to the Phi Phi Island then Maya Island (according the tour guide; Phi Phi Island consists of 9 rock islands and Maya is one of them)….first, we stopped at this one snorkeling destination for 45 minutes…it was quite a view...imagine la kalau ada panah kan..mimang ada suda berapa ekor tu kerapu kana panah bawah balik panggang...haha...because we were 50m to the rock wall, the wave wasn’t helpful at all…you’ll have to be more careful or else you might end up somewhere melakat di batu pasal itu ombak…haha…the last swimming/snorkeling stop was in 5 minute journey and it was nearby the famous beach in the movie titled The Beach made famous by Leonardo DiCaprio in 2000….even just nearby the actual location of the filmed beach..it was an awesome experience (according to tour guide, Maya means glowing/shining during a full moon…so they say the sea at the Maya beach is glowing at night during a full moon) After spending 30 minutes there, we moved to main land Phi Phi Island village…here, the goods were cheaper as I would have expected to be in Thailand…hehe..so another beer please!!! The journey back from Phi Phi Island to Phuket Island took almost 2 hours…I even slept during the journey…penat beranang kali...Arrived at the Asia Marina, our van was there waiting….

Maya Island

At night..we went out for the last trying to get a picture or glimpse of the new Hard Rock Café Patong…unfortunately, it is not open for business yet…punya jauh perjalanan kami..haha…we had dinner then before going back to hotel…we stopped for beers at Margarita…really, the place was so happening…full of foreigners and the live band was not bad at all… the bassist were great and the crowds were cool…I think Jew took some video of them playing…

The final day…we woke up before 5:00am and checked out at 5:30am…the hotel taxi has already there waiting for us to go to Airport….our flight back to KL was at 8:15am and arrived at KL at 10:35pm (Malaysia time)….the journey from the hotel to airport was about half an hour without traffic congestion…it was a great days in Phuket Island and sure will visit again next time when ada duit lagi..haha…

Arrived at LCCT KL as expected…my next flight was at 3:25pm so I had about 3 hours waiting….thankfully LCCT has my favourite hot dog 1901 (since when ah?) I ate 3 Great New York Chicken+Ice lemon Tea (great is big so imagine how much I like Hot Dog 1901) After waiting for 3 hours I finally left LCCT KL to Penang and arrived home at about 4:30pm….after an hour and a half of rest, I then left home to go to work again (Junior colleagues could not be left without supervision) arrived at the office before 7:00pm and everyone was happy to see me….the Manager called me for a brief meeting in his room and apparently their probation period had been extended due to some misconduct at work….then discussed couple more things about their progress and performance…at about 10:00pm that night…I think my body was damn tired…I felt like if I were on a boat…thankfully I had plenty of things to do that night so it become easier to ignore…at 12:40am I arrived home, took a shower then straight to bed…..what a day…

That’s it….would I recommend Phuket Island for a holiday? Definitely and ensure to bring lots of money…haha….not much to shop as in classy stuff but so many things you could possibly buy on along the road…even lolok kayu pun ada…also, their english is better than I had experienced in Pattaya..haha…

Have a great weekend chaps!!