A week in Thailand

It's nice to have friends who travel! Mike was on his way back from a year in Australia and invited me to meet up with him in Thailand for a little fun in the sun before he went back to the deep freeze of Alberta. Well, we had a lot of fun, but the sun eluded us for most of the trip. We spent one day, two nights in Bangkok getting our bearings and choosing our destination for the week. We both started out with high hopes of Vietnam, but realized very quickly that our time was limiting our choices and we decided to choose an island and plant ourselves for the remainder of the week. We chose Phuket, down in the southern part of Thailand -assuming it would be our best bet for sunshine. But it was not to be!!

The info desk at the airport on Phuket Island recommended a brand new hotel (only 20 days old) for about $30 a night. We took him up on it and arrived at The Sugar Palm Resort and Spa -a hotel so new that they were still putting on the finishing touches while we were there. The location was fantastic -100m from the beach and within walking distance of restaurants, shopping and hangout spots.

If I haven't mentioned it yet - we had a lot of rain! It was raining when we got off the plane and it continued to rain for the next 4 days. I don't even think we went down to check out the beach until the second or third day -what was the point!?!

We did find some cool restaurants to sit in and have a beer. Mike chatted up the guys trying to sell him handmade suits and we both made horrible attempts and 'haggling' with the merchants.
We decided half way through the week that I should learn to scuba dive! So I signed up for a couple of days worth of lessons and that was a great way to get my mind off of the weather. I managed to do a couple of beach dives and one boat dive before my time in Phuket was up. Here's a link to the company I went with: Diving Phuket Scuba Club.




Mike and I did a day tour while staying on the island of Phuket in Thailand. We took a boat to the 'James Bond Island' where part of "The Man with a Golden Gun" was filmed.


















and we rode some elephants (no, not on the island)














Souvenir stand on James Bond Island















The boat.













The view.
















The rock.

















The beach on the island.
















The Tuk-tuk













The walk up to our hotel.














Our hotel entrance


















The restaurant near our hotel.













The beach, 100m from our hotel.














Mike on the beach (note the overcast sky and lack of PEOPLE!!!)













In our hotel room -comfy!!!












Contemplating the shrimp cocktail.