We just arrived home from 4 days in Phuket, Thailand, and we had a pretty good trip with the girls. We tried a new approach to family travel this time and brought along our helper, Delia, and that allowed us more freedom with our island activities. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it was a relaxing trip but it certainly helped to have an extra set of hands and a babysitter in the evenings.
This was our first flight with the girls since our marathon trip from Dallas to Singapore and obviously that experience stuck in their heads because we had some funny conversations before this trip. Megan: "Can I wear regular clothes on the plane, or do I have to wear pajamas again?" Elizabeth: "Are we going to have breakfast and lunch on the plane?" Elizabeth was very concerned about leaving her toys. She kept asking if we would be coming back to Singapore. I finally realized that she was worried she would leave and not see her stuff again, much like what happened when she left her bedroom in Southlake. That provided more proof that our move has affected her in a different way than her sisters.
We took off from Singapore early Tuesday morning and arrived in Phuket 1.5 hours later and we all enjoyed that length of flight! We had a nice view of Phuket and its surrounding islands before landing and it reminded me a little bit of Hawaii. It's amazing how different the landscape can look when going such a short distance from Singapore. I like all the trees we have here but it's nothing compared to Phuket. Dense tree-filled mountains fill the island and it provides stunning scenery.
We arrived early but had to endure standing in line to get through immigration for almost an hour. The stroller that we gate checked was waiting for us at baggage claim, on the other side of the immigration counter. Not convenient when traveling with little ones!
We stayed at the Marriott Mai Khao Beach Resort, which is one of their vacation club hotels. We got a good deal on a 2-bedroom villa for listening to their 60-minute time share sales pitch awhile back. I thought that we would be directly next to the JW Marriott Resort (which seems to be where ALL the Americans stay in Phuket) but we were actually located up the road a little ways and informed that we would not be allowed to use the JW kids club or their pool during our stay, an unpleasant surprise for us. Fortunately, the kids club was nice at our place and we discovered our pool was more sheltered from the strong winds during the visit.
After being shown to our first villa and discovering that work was being done on a nearby room (the jackhammer provided the first clue), we switched to a different villa and finally got unpacked. Shortly afterward, we lost power in our villa and were told that the entire island lost electricity and it should be restored within 3 hours. The way they spoke about it, it didn't sound like an unusual occurrence on the island. We spent the afternoon at the pool and after feeding the girls dinner, Brian and I ventured down to the JW Marriott to check out the place and we enjoyed a delicious seafood dinner at one of their restaurants.
Wednesday morning we wanted to play in the sand, so we packed up our gear and headed for the beach. We were disappointed to find that the JW Marriott beach wasn't much of a beach at all. It was a small, skinny stretch of sand and with the large waves and windy conditions, we were sand-blasted. Plan B -- use the forbidden resort pool instead. We spent the morning playing at their pool and thankfully, no one kicked us out.
Mid-afternoon, Brian and I took a "Intro to Thai Massage" class, which provided a few laughs as I attempted to massage Brian's aching muscles from his triathlon. OK -- maybe it was me laughing more than Brian :) It was a good class though and thank goodness they gave us a cheat sheet afterward for reference. It seems that Thai massage uses a firmer touch than other types and it was fun to learn about it. We likely had our activities in reverse order because after the class, Brian and I hopped on mountain bikes and went on a 2-hour guided ride to see a little more of the island. We biked through sand (that's not so easy!) and saw forests of rubber trees. It's amazing how dense the trees grow in certain areas. You can't even see a bit of light between them. We saw a Buddhist temple and learned a little about the destruction caused by the 2004 tsunami. Visiting an island affected by the disaster makes me want to read more about it again. We saw several signs indicating evacuation routes and a tsunami warning siren on the beach and I had to wonder if any of those were in place five years ago.
Wednesday evening we took Megan and Elizabeth out for pizza and ice cream. Emily stayed at home with Delia because 1) she can turn into a real terror at dinner time and 2) we are fairly certain that she is allergic to dairy and possibly soy as well so this way she wouldn't have to see what she was missing.
Megan insisted on participating in the kids club activities all day Thursday so we stayed around the hotel with the E girls that morning and then rented an SUV to check out a different beach. While Emily napped, Brian and I took Elizabeth to Patong Beach, about a 40-minute drive from the resort. After hopping in the Toyota Fortuner (Asian cousin to the 4Runner), we began to fear the travels might not go well since we wouldn't be able to read the street signs. Did you know that the Thai language uses a different alphabet? Add that to the things I've learned over here. Luckily, all the major signs were in Thai and English so we could at least figure out the main roads to Patong. I'm glad that we're already used to driving on the left side of the road or else we would have been doomed. Many roads in Phuket don't even have a center stripe, but overall, it was an easier expedition than I anticipated. We spent the afternoon playing at Patong Beach and it definitely met our beach requirements. The water wasn't crystal clear but the sand was perfect. I could watch Elizabeth play on the beach for hours as she is completely at home there and with her crazy blonde curls, she looked like a miniature surfer girl.
After cleaning up from the beach, we ordered room service for the girls and Brian and I drove back to Patong for some Thai food. We ate at Baan Rim Pa, on the north side of the beach and had a tasty meal of spring rolls, satay, fried fish, pineapple rice and Pad Thai (just because it seemed like we should have that). The restaurant offers a beautiful view of the beach and I wish we could have been there a couple hours earlier at sunset. After finishing our meal, we were joined by a small lizard who apparently wanted to eat some rice left on the table cloth. We can't seem to travel anywhere in this region without making a new lizard friend. After dinner, we walked the streets of Patong Beach, taking in the nightlife. We ended up getting Thai massages at a seedy little upstairs joint where we paid about $12 USD for both of us for 1-hour massages. They weren't the best massages ever but it was hard to complain at that price!
We never really made plans for Friday and, as a result, it felt a bit like a wasted day at the end of the trip. The weather was overcast with occasional rain sprinkles. We only rented the car until Noon so we didn't have time to make it back to a beach and the girls just wanted to play on the hotel water slide so that's where we spent our final day. I was disappointed that after being on an island for 4 days, we only spent half a day at the beach but hopefully we'll go back sometime to see more of Phuket. There are also some nice islands reachable by boat, the most famous being the Phi Phi islands, but with three small children, the idea of an 8-hour day tour by land and sea didn't seem practical.
And that brings to light the limitations of traveling with small kids. We simply cannot expect to do much sightseeing because at any given point, it's likely that one out of three girls will be in a bad mood and make our plans difficult to execute. At the end of our trip, it's likely that the girls' favorite part of Phuket would have been the water slide at our hotel. That being said, I'm glad we brought Delia with us because it at least gave us some flexibility with our plans and allowed Brian and me to take Elizabeth to the beach and for us to go out in the evenings and unwind. That was a positive change from our typical family trip.
Overall, I really liked Phuket. Our resort was nice, the food was good and the people we encountered may have been the friendliest we have met so far in the region and that's saying something. The warm hospitality of the people over here has been a nice surprise. Phuket is a fairly large island so it would be nice to rent a car for a few days next time to explore more of it. I also have to say that I prefer it over Bali. I suspect that if we return to Phuket, we'll look at staying somewhere further south on the island to be closer to a greater variety of beaches. Of course, we'll need to make sure the place has a slide at the pool :)
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