Phuket, Thailand - Tips, Guide and Places of Interest

21 Sept 2008 - 24 Sept 2008

I went to Phuket, Thailand with my fiancée for a 4D3N vacation during the end of September, 2008. Overall, I've enjoyed the trip but personally I can't stand the hot weather. I took AirAsia for a budget flight to Phuket, it takes around 80 minutes to reach there from KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport).

Once we reached the airport, we've bound to a numbers of sales person approaching us for taxi and car rents. At last we have decided to rent a car for 4 days for 2400 Baht. The car is a Toyota Vios G which is the same as my own car! :) even the color also the same! We started to drive from the airport to our hotel, Poppa Palace at Patong.

This hotel is highly recommended because the room is comfortable, quiet, the staffs are really polite and friendly. The bad point is the location is not at the main road, you need to turn into soi (small road) to get to this hotel. I booked through Asia Rooms for 976THB per night included breakfast.

Once we get into room, wow... my fiancée was so excited to see the romantic decoration on the bed. That was the first time we saw such a great decoration in a hotel. Quickly, we took some photos of it.



After dropping the luggages, we drove to the Phuket Shooting Range. I chose Automatic Caliber 9mm, 10 bullets for 890THB. I was quite nervous at first to enter the shooting area because the sound of the shot is very loud and need to wear a earphone-like to dampen the loudness. The instructor taught me:
- How to release the magazine
- How to insert the 5 bullets into the magazine and load
- How to aim and shoot
The first shot was very nervous and at the same time can feel very excited to experience the 'kick' (momentum) after firing the shot. Here is the video of my shooting


Hahaha 6 out of 10 bullets on target :)


We drove further south to Promthep Cape to view the sunset and had our dinner there.


On the second day, we went to Phi Phi Island by cruise for 700THB per person including return transfer from/to hotel, snorkeling equipments and lunch. The distance to the island is quite far it took about more than 1 hour to reach there by big cruise. If using speed boat, it might be faster. Overall, the main attraction on the trip was the snorkeling at Tonsai Bay on the way to Phi Phi Don. The corals are very beautiful.


Passing by Phi Phi Ley


After returned to hotel, we went exploring the Patong area. It was an unlucky day, I've got ticket issued for illegal parking at a road side. DO NOT PARK at the right side of Rat-U-Thit 200 road!
300 Baht gone!


I know I've a bad mood after getting the ticket, but I didn't wanna spoil the vacation mood. We continued our journey to Baan Rim Pa for a romantic dinner. The food was a bit overpriced but it has a very nice interior design and also facing the beach. Very romantic!


Butterfly shaped pineapples :)


We headed down to the famous Bang-la Road. The street was closed at night for peoples to walk along the street to see the night life of Patong. Here you can see many bar girls dancing on top of the tables while customers watching from below. Some salesman trying to sell us Agogo show, banana show, watermelon show, whatever show but we did not go.



On the third day, in the morning we went to Phuket Aquarium. The ticket price is 100THB per person. Not much things to see, most of them are just fish, no crabs, no prawns, no seashells and others.


Giant Garoupa


Singray


We can't stand the heat anymore and we went to the Central Festival for some air-con shopping and had our lunch there. Again. the sunshine was very harsh and the heat was unbearable so we went to Jungceylon shopping centre to cool down ourselves.