Phuket Day#1

Since I'm free now, I shall update what we did in Phuket, Thailand. Honestly, I was reluctant to visit Phuket due to its over -commercialized image. Initially I planned to visit Koh Lipe but it's too expensive and most of the hotels were fully booked. Then, I looked into Krabi and Koh Samui, tedious to reach. So, I looked into Phuket and it's sooooooo cheap..... So, Phuket it is!!

We booked the first flight to Phuket and we reached there at 730am local time. We were soooo sleepy. So after clearing customs, we booked mini-van to travel to our hotel. Don't be fooled to book taxi.. It's a rip off!! Mini-van costs 180 baht per pax. We waited approx 30mins to gather everyone. 

Airport-Patong journey took about 45-60 mins ride going through hill roads and the driver dropped us off at a travel agency to get us to book tours. All of us in the van rejected the offer and we were on our way again. I manage to book cheap hotel for RM130 for 3 nights! Check how chic the hotel is.... It's strategic and cheap to the core... 

Tune Hotel, Patong

Staying at top floor

Room is clean but it's kinda small. It's okay for us since we are out most of the time. 

Clean, comfy, quiet

First day was quite tiring for us since we had to wake up at 4am and travel to KLIA2 at 5am. I tried to keep 1st day's activity as minimum as possible so we won't burn out for the next day. So, upon touchdown we rest awhile and took a walk to Patong beach which is only 10 mins walk away. 

Street outside our hotel

As we were reaching the beach, we stumbled upon sidewalk stall selling local Thai food and I insisted to have Phad Thai. We were kinda hungry and we would like to have something to eat to prevent gastric. One bowl costs about 7 baht. 

Sooooo gooood

At Patong beach, we were greeted with a lot of sun-toasted Caucasians and burning hot sand. Not much umbrella there since it's still very early. I love how my camera is able to capture real-time colours of the water.

I can't tell you how much I'm loving my camera and the beach.

Us!

There are a lot of annoying tour guides harrasing us to ride with them. One of them is John... A very old ah pek kept shoving pamphlet at our face... I was walking away but hubby kept talking to him. Hubby asked how much it will cost to take us to Big Buddha, John offered 800 baht but I slashed his price to 600 baht. I told him, "600 baht or no go". John agreed... Haha! Hubby was so impressed with my price slashing skills.. He looked at me like I'm someone he just knew.. Wtf... Anyway, John kept asking whether we wanna drop by Shooting Range, ATV, elephant ride, Tiger Kingdom, honey farm, etc... We turned down all of these suggested places because we need to standby for Fantasea at 7pm... We would need time to rest and bath... However, since it's gonna be a long journey and we felt kesian for him, we agreed to drop by Cashew Nut Factory for souvenir shopping. Win-win!

What we were happy about this place is there were free samples everywhere. We were really hungry and thirsty. We were so "boey paiseh" kept going back for cashew nut soda. 

Dried cuttlefish is the bomb here!

Cashew nut soda is sooooo good

We end up buying full cup for 200 baht since the SA glared at us when we kept asking for more....

After damaging our pockets from snack souvenirs, we continued our journey to Big Buddha... This place is seriously far! Took 1.5 hours to reach the summit. Luckily, it's free admission! Wtf.

Ladies are required to wear sarung as a sign of respect and it's free too.

Climb a flight of stairs and viola! The giant marble Buddha

Turn around and you'll see this magnificient view! Pretty awesome.

So after satisfied with the Buddha, we went back to our hotel for a bath and some Zzz. The weather is so damn hot and we were very tired. Slept all the way back.. I booked 2 tix to Fantasea and dinner buffet... It comes with free transportation too... I'm very impressed the way they handle queue... It's so freaking organized!! Entrance fee is 1750 baht per pax.

Fancy entrance with security check

The main attraction is the Palace of The Elephants. We had to hang around this place till 9pm.. So "mou-liu"

We walked around for an hour and went to the buffet hall for dinner...

Entrance to buffet hall

The food was alright. Normal la... I love the onion rice and fried chicken the most. I was having gastric and migraine so I wasn't really enjoying myself that much.

After dinner we went around the park again and wait patiently for entrance time to Fantasea show... The park organized open mini concert for us to kill time.. How convenient...

After the mini concert, we went to see White tigers! Meow!!

So after wandering around, we went back to  Palace of the Elephants at night and wait for cue to go in... 

Once inside, we weren't allowed to bring along our cameras or our smart phones. We had to move to a special counter to deposit all recording devices... We had the impression that the show must be really good till they had to confiscate our cameras. Well.... It actually sucks... The show is a total nonsense to me... The got magic show in between and every scene is not related to one another... The do have live elephants but we had them in Malaysia so it's not a big deal for us. We felt that we've been conned...

Here's the brochure pic

Once the show is over, everyone rushed out to collect their confiscated recording devices... The queue was long but it's surprisingly fast moving! It took me less than 5 mins to get my items back... Once outside, we were told to move to Lane 1- Patong for van back to our hotel... We were immediately boarded and we're off!! Super efficient. Once back in the hotel, both of us slept like a log... Dreamless too... That's how tired we were...

So that's all for Day #1... Super packed and tiring... Stay tuned for Day #2 and Day #3 entry.. Thanks for reading!