A week goes quickly

Today we finished our last day at Absolute Bangla Suites. The week went quickly. Just as a recap, this was our fabulous deal of NZD99 for 2 pax for 7 nights in a 3.5 star hotel including daily breakfast and nightly 4 course dinner. Yep, all up – not per person and not per night. We paid up a year ago for travel now, and the “catch” was that we had to attend a 90 minute timeshare presentation, which we did. The timeshare didn’t interest us and they weren’t worried. I’ve never had such a cheap week. It would have cost more to stay at home!

Lesson: Never be too cynical but read the fine print.

I checked out at midday while Kim was at his follow-up at the hospital. We grabbed lunch upon his return and took a tuktuk to his new hotel Seaview Patong where he needed to stay for another 10 nights for his operation warranty.

The property had nice facilities but the room wasn’t as flash as what we had become accustomed to. It was still very nice though.

I fitted in my last massage before meeting up with Andrew and John for dinner. I had met Andrew in Vanuatu just over a year ago and he was here coincidentally.

My eight days in Phuket just flew by. Some memorable aspects:

• I went for ashtanga yoga most mornings and worked out at the gym most afternoons.
• We had many nice hotel meals included in the unbelievably cheap package.
• Kim finally tried durian. While he didn’t find it revolting, he didn’t finish one piece. He appreciated the texture though.
• Transport is pricey; more expensive than developed countries like Singapore. Minimum of THB200 to go anywhere.
• It was the wet season and we had several days of wet weather. With Kim’s post-op condition, we didn’t have any plans to go do much anyway. Being our third time, here we had no pressure to go do stuff.
• Our next door neighbour on one side was very “talented”. There were near-daily and long moans of ecstasy from a female voice. Evening, afternoons, 4am etc.

Other aspects:

• Patong and Phuket has changed a lot.  There are lots more high rise than previous visits.  The growth of tourism seems unstoppable, taking its toll with people’s lives (in particular those who are in the sex trade).
• Unbelievably, the beach umbrella / sun lounger business is no longer.  As a workaround, locals build lounger beds out of sand so that people can throw a beach towel on it and lie down!
• I was around on a day when alcohol sales were prohibited (day before voting on yet another new constitution).  I didn’t have the chance to see the impact on this on the gogo bars!