Whew! After a 9 hour flight we’ve finally reached Phuket. We’re met at the airport by the representatives from the Destination Asia group who will be taking us to the La Flora Resort at Patong Beach. She hands us these beautiful hand made floral bracelets and then bows her head as she greets us with “Sawasdee Ka”. This is a sign of respect for the person being greeted and it’s also something all travelers visiting Thailand should try and learn.
Jack, the night duty manager greets us in a super energetic way which does wonders for reviving our waning energy levels. Then it’s straight up to our room where we have more floral necklaces and bracelets awaiting us.
The room’s immaculate and the free minibar for the rest of our stay is a bonus.
Phuong and I are wondering whether there’s anything open at 11pm for us to go and grab a bite to eat and maybe a drink or 2. So after a quick shower to freshen up, we step outside.
Right around the corner from the hotel is Bangla Road. This is the main strip where you’ll find the bars, clubs, girls and of course the ladyboys. Unsurprisingly everything is open when we get there, so it’s not too long before we’re seated and having a sip of our first cocktails.
Phuong and I head back to our hotel in very high spirits. Good thing there’s 24 hour room service. Phuong orders “Pad See Ew” and I try out their “Pad Thai”, then it’s light’s out for the both of us.
The next day we take a stroll down Thaweewong Road which is where our hotel is. It’s jampacked full of markets, Tailors and tattoo parlors. I think Patong Beach has about 120 tattoo parlors altogether. We visited one called Smile Tattoo where we both got a piece done. Mine is made up of our monogram, wedding date and the latin phrase “Amor est vitae essentia”, all of which I’m sure you’ll recall during the designing and creative side of our wedding planning.
We try our hand at bargaining for a few shirts and floaty dresses. By our standards they’re ridiculously cheap, but I think by the sellers standard they probably got us good. I love the price of things over here. I mean look at cans of Coke, we got one for 12 Baht, which amounts to about 40 cents AUD and the cocktails go for about $2-$4 and boy, did I drink alot of those!
