How did this happen. Well Gordon and Thes booked up already. I had to await my leave being signed off, and due to work commits could not go the same dates as them, BUT we managed to get all signed off, booked flights, confirmed with the hotel (more on that in a minute) and off we went three days after G&T left Singapore.
So VERY excited and early in the morning we gathered the gang together. Bags packed and ready to go. And literally 3 hours later, travel to airport/flight/arrivals/airport transfer, we're walking in to the hotel saying Hi to Gordon & Thes sat on their patio, ha ha.
http://www.royalembassyresortphuket.com/
I mean, just look at the place. Bit overcast on arrival, but did we bring the weather or what for the rest of the stay, it got up to 36 degrees one day - man that is hot, had sweat on sweat!
Just a wonderful experience and thank you so so much to Phil and Ari. You should be proud of what you have, it's exceptional.
It, as a location, is so close to all else on Phuket. We took day trips out in tuk tuk and private car, to go exploring, eating, shopping, beaching - more on that in a moment with photos to support the experience. It's a perfect location, a little sleepier than Kata/Patong/Karon etc. but all of those are 10-20 minutes away if you want the bustle, the big markets and the like.
First day in the pool, and hey why not. Landed, unpacked, ate, chilled, let's get in and get wet and have some fun - OK apart from the girls doing model pose on sun beds. "We don't want to catch the sun!!!" Er ladies you've already got quite a healthy tan.
First lunch on the trip - OhLaLa, and boy does the name do it justice. Owned by Swiss French and doing a menu of that food style and Thai authentic. What a place, a MUST for all that happen to swing thru Phuket - it is WORTH A TRIP.
The kids even befriended Phil and Ari's dog, Jasmine - very cute, although I am sure I saw something similar on one of the menus in the market in Patong.
Kamala Beach
We had a beautiful lunch, just beautiful lunch at OhLaLa (yep go to foodie blog), and decided to have a wee wander to the beach at Kamala. Small world kicked in with Ollie meeting a mate of his on the beach there, and me knowing his Mum and Dad, so chat chat chat. OK let's stop a while then. Kids playing the sand, us adults relaxing with bare feet in sand, and some local beverage to ease the pain of the heat.
Helicopters flying overhead from BBTV, camera focused on the shore line, so I assume we were televised in Thailand at some point that week - likely on CrimeWatch, but hey any publicity is good publicity right.
But even the helicopter "buzzing" us could not keep Amy awake - hold on a minute, that's NOT Amy (ha ha ha).
Fantasea
Back we went again to Fantasea, and experience this one. It's like Thai Disneyland, all focused on the creation of Siam, Kamala and the battling between tribes finally resolved by some elephant God or other. So loads of elephants, tigers, shops, food, stage shows and the like - a really really impressive glitzy affair - if you don't mind elephants doing handstands and the like.
Here we all are - prepped and ready to go go go. Phil bless him, drove us there and back to save us the bus fare, so nice of him. Plus on the right do I hear shouts of "Facebook, Facebook!!!!" Nice pic babe.
There's a lot of photos here and hey why not, you get to touch Tigers, ride and touch elephants. For goodness sake when you get to that in every day life. Not often, so please indulge me here, these are uber cool, I love them.
Here's us at the entrance. As you can see it all gets a little garish from now on. SOrt of Disney "It's a Small Small World, on Thai Steroids". But it really is great fun.
This is on arrival, the "fake" Thai temple, which is actually a facade to a HUGE stage where the show is held. Check out Amy, Sawadeekap Amy.
This is the restaurant where you have a buffet dinner all included. Get this, this place seats 3,000 people, yep THREE THOUSAND. And the food is actually bloody good. How they pull this off is beyond me, and not just once a week, this happens SEVEN days a week.
Yep we rode elephants, and after the ride was allowed to have one on one photos. I loved this, so lovely. Amy had a hissy and started crying because his nose was sniffing her, and Mary just kept screaming every time nose (trunk) came near, ha ha! What an experience. Really clever was that you get to feed them with sugar cane, and I also gave the "driver" a tip which you hand to the elephant, who grabs it in turn and hands upstairs to the guy sat on his head - incredible!
Then we go see the white tiger. Holy cow, about 2 foot away from this beautiful beautiful creature. I was just hoping the "cage" he was in is not it, and that behind the showy glass an backdrop, there is a large outdoor area for him to run around in - here's hoping. But still look at this, he even put on a show for me, staring intently, then rolling over with a big yawn and back to starring intently. WOW!
AND we got to hold and stroke and feed a baby tiger (again for me and Ollie), but still it's like the first time ever. You seriously DO NOT get to do this every day. Could not stop talking about this experience, kids were giddy re this one, Mary blown away. Say no more! Just look at the spaced out faces.
An that was that - the show is over and we depart home. What a night.
Artsy Fartsy
OK OK I admit, I went a tad crazy on tuk tuk travel day, trying to be artsy with my photos. We rented a tuk tuk and went temple hunting, buddha hunting, lunch on Small Viewpoint hunting, beach hunting and then dinner hunting - here we go!
OK artsy fartsy, BUT I tell you what I think they look pretty damn good. I'll give some explanations per photo below.
Truly a beautiful, beautiful place!
Wat Chalong
A century old Tahi Buddhist temple, on outskirts of Patong, located on a plain near to the sea. Shoes off, girls nakedness covered, speaking in hushed tones. It's personal here. People praying, offering incense, offering lilies, offering gold leaf to their deities. Shaking prayer and fortunes on to the floor as they pray to tell them what is going to happen in their life today, so respect is much called for although this is very touristy with buses, tuk tuks and coaches everywhere.
This is the inside of the main temple. A temple that you can climb up 3 flights of stairs to the very top and look around at the site and the surrounding scenery.
It was 36 degrees outside this day, but because of the marble architecture it was nice and cool within.
A very very impressive place, vibrant colors throughout as you'll see from the photo.
One passing comment to tourism Phuket - could we please have English translations to understand the meanings of the statues, artifacts etc. Pretty please.
I told you artsy. Here are two photos front the outside using one of the minaret type things on the top of the building. Again yes would love to know the significance of the rings, the shape etc but I can't tell you as they don't tell you either. Anyways, the one on the left has the other part of the temple in the foreground, and the one on the right (if you squint, close one eye, use a microscope) has the Big Buddha on the hill top in the foreground. Pretty cool snaps even if I say so myself - cough cough!
Here I just saw this cloud formation and thought - this has to be photo'd thought I, and look at this outcome, so so beautiful looking up the temple spire.
Dare I say normal shots of the temple - family time
I really really like this one on the right, not to say that the one of Mary is bad (very nice one babe), but I love the way the four are all sitting in different positions on the steps of the temple. Nice work gang!
Another favorite snap of mine is this of Mary in front of the temple. Laying on the floor to angle the camera up to get her + whole temple in. But I have to say, impressive. Looks real cool.
And some fun, family Buddhas in the temple (no offense Gordon - cough cough, he he!)
Now to the Big Buddha and artsy fartsy, perched high on the hill overlooking the beautiful coast line of Phuket. I have photo'd the many times before with DK, Paulie Coleman - so perhaps time to do something different this ti,e. So here are some artsy profile shots of the monks faces with the coats behind and the huge bell with the scriptures engraved with the terraced fields behind - I like these!!!
But of course you cannot come to here without some more traditional family snaps of the views around, on what happened to be a beautiful sunny day, truly a wonderful site. 
One of my favorite places in the world - Small Viewpoint Bar, Kata
How could it not be with a view like this, I mean come on. Beautiful sea breeze, reggae sounds wafting through the air. As you walk in and sit the Head Rasta bar man walks over; "hello again man I recognize you and your family, welcome back, nice to have you at Small Viewpoint!" Come on this is like Thai version of "Cheers". I love it!
Lunch overlooking this, oh my. You'll have to look at food blog to see the food experience, but suffice to say it did not let me down, just spanking and SO SO cheap! DK we're going back Son in September!
Can you tell??????
Although could the same be said for my Amy Boo?????
Part of the day trip was to go from Buddha, to Temple, to lunch at Small Viewpoint to chill out time on the beach. So way down South to another new place for us, Nai Harn Beach. What a gorgeous spot this was, quite busy, lots of Russian and other Eastern Europeans - lot's of different shapes and sizes, brothers and sisters called Su & Mo - get it??? - yes some VERY large people, wearing swimming costumes they probably should not wear. Almost like walking bean bags with heads, dear me, some sights and scared statements from us of "oh God please don't bend over .......................".
But great fun here. As you can imagine the kids went mad in the surf and then this fast flowing knee deep river thing that flowed from lagoon to sea. Boiling hot, beautiful views and some cold beverages from local joint across the river that yours truly traversed a few times to gain refreshment, as we sat and sweated and watched the kids fill their shorts, hair, arm pits with sand that we had to power shower out later. Great fun and a lovely chill out after running around doing touristy stuff.
Oh dear our last dinner before home on travel day
We were looking for a place called PopEye's, that came highly recommended. Could we find it no. We found one place that looked like a front room with a mini 7-11 out front. Nope can't be right. So I then remembered this place called Silk I had seen, pretty funky, but then our driver Mr Poo (yep you got it, Mr Poo - bless! His parents must love him so .......) suggested RockFish.
OK let's have a looks there please Mr Poo, off we hurtle, and land at this place - what the f***, check this out. Can you imagine just sitting here, breeze a blowing looking out at this as you eat, drink, chat, giggle and play. Not bad eh! Apart from Amy driving everyone crazy to start off with this as idyllic (have to say average on the food front for yours truly, but Ollie and Gordon got two "nail it" dishes), so all up OK. But the view made it all better, there there!!!!
The last two are gorgeous, love the cutsey one of Amy Boo, and actually the one bottom right is out of sequence as actually taken the next day when walking to the beach at Kamala, looking back at where we were sat in the pictures above - beautiful!
The last Supper, well actually not the last lunch as we had to leave at 1700 that day
PopEye's - yes we found it, about a mile from where we were looking last time. Gordy found it on travels to get a massage with Thes. SO glad he found this place, yes yes yes, traditional Thai and some dishes never experienced before - like fried minced chicken with Tamarin (yep already had a go at making this one - not quite there yet re the replica, but good first attempt to date - more of that to come on foodie)
The last swim of the holiday - Boo Hoo, Boo Hoo
A very sad time as we really did enjoy this trip. Stepping in to a boiling hot, luke warm like bath water, swimming pool, chatting, playing and laughing, but sad underneath that that was that, and in 3 hours we're gone back to Singapore - not that that is a bad thing, but that we were saying goodbye to Thailand. Still lovely photos (maybe not the one of yours truly catching some rays - and allowing gut to cast some much needed shadow for the kids to play under!)
Come on, you've seen the blog before - there has to be one or two of my Mary in her "FACEBOOK, FACEBOOK" pose, well here it is above ha ha!
Now who does Amy take after here, Mum or Dad - or both. Bless you hun, just like Mummy & Daddy, not one drink by two.
LOVE YOU THAILAND - SEE YOU AGAIN IN SEPTEMBER WITH DKHNY AND CLAIRE - CAN'T WAIT TO BE BACK!!!!! LOVE THE KENNETT'S
oooooooOOOOOOOooooooo
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