16th - 18th April - Phuket

'Wadee Kharb

We spent Good Friday night with Jack, Hitomi and Elle and ate at a great Asian Fusion place that is underneath their apartment building in Arncliffe. The food was incredible and the bucks that I earnt the night before rockin' out with No Principles paid for the tucker. We had a banquet for four that included lamb ribs in sticky sauce, olive rice, stir-fried brocollini w garlic, katsu chicken, calamari and various other delicacies.

The next morning we got to the International terminal (one stop from their place) and checked in with hours to spare. We had seen the chaos on the TV from the domestic terminal and thought we should get in early. Anyway, we got through and had a leisurely lunch before boarding the big bird at around 2pm. We had emergency aisle seats and plenty of legroom. It was strange having a mask on the entire 9 hours, but this is travel in the age of Covid-19. We both watched Matrix Revolutions (crap) and Dune (awesome) before we touched down in Phuket around 8pm local time or 11pm AEST.

We got our bags and were ushered through into the PCR testing area, where a swab collected brain matter and then we were through after downloading the app to check results.

A very expensive private taxi 1200 THB saw us checking in to the very elegant lobby of Burisari hotel, one street back from Patong Beach. Covid certificates, passports, apps, masks, temp checks and the like all very comprehensive.

We then retired to our big, clean air-conditioned room and crashed straight out.

The bed was a king, but lumpy as! We dragged our sore, tired, old bodies from the bed, had an amazing buffet breakfast in the restaurant for 500thb for the two of us (20 AUD.) We love Thai breakfast buffets and we made a pact to eat as much Thai food as we can on this trip before we resort back to Western staples. Our feast consisted of tropical fruit, rice, coffee, eggs etc... Delish. We strolled around the resort in the shade - it was almost 40 degrees at 10am - before we checked our negative Covid results (Yay!) and then jumped into one of the pools.

We remembered Burisari from years ago and we marvelled at the elegance of the place. Well, two years of no tourists have left the place a little run-down. It was still beautiful but needed some love to remove weeds, fix broken pot plants, paint wood etc... The two pools and the restaurant were great, but it was no longer 5 star in our humble opinion. Check out some pics below.

Our first stop after a swim, was of course a massage. We went down two shops towards the beach before we rocked in to Ooh La Laa massage. I had an oil and Jen had a Thai and Dee Dee and Pan were fantastic masseuses. Oh Buddha, how we have missed this! We felt that we were on holidays now baby - Thai fruit, swimming and massage!

I then went around to the Blue Dolphin Bar near the Sea Pearl were we stayed in 2015. The Sea Pearl was basically derelict now, which was very sad to sea - this once beautiful resort turned a ghost town. Anyway I spent a few hours watching the Nighty Nights go to sleep against Saints and cop a hiding... Happy Easter Sunday Bretto - your Knights are shite! Jen went and got a pedi and we tucked into bar snacks - spring rolls, satay chicken skewers, beef noodle soup etc, before heading back to the resort for a few more cocktails around the pool.

The combo of jet lag, heat, booze and the stress of the last few months had smashed us and we both crashed out from 5 - 7.30pm! We then had a low-key Pad Thai in the resort restaurant before we slept the night the night through.

Monday morning saw us leap out of bed like thai-gers, ready for our long tail boat beach excursion. We organised with local boatie Tony and his son to go to Kata Noi and Freedom Beach - two of the most beautiful beaches in the area - as researched by the queen of research herself - Jen Jen. The 30 minute ride to Kata Noi was beautiful and it felt amazing to have the Andaman sea spray in our faces once more. We grabbed beach chairs and drinking coconuts from the beach guy before we swam in the roped area that was turquoise and warm as a bath. Amazing!

Later on we checked out the restaurant on the hill for lunch. Research Queen had - of course - heard about this place and we walked up a beautiful hill-side path to Mum Tri Kitchen at the Villa Royale. Now let me get one thing straight... this joint was posh!!

We went for the Yellow-fin ceviche with mango, apple and chili salsa, crab and fish cakes with buffalo mozzarella and mango sauce and the grilled yellow tail cheek with green papaya salad. This was washed down with ice cold Singha soda water with lime. We finished with coffees and Jen had the passion fruit cheesecake with strawberry sorbet and I opted for the old dairy-free mango sorbet. It was sensational. A beautiful uncrowded hour in a pristine corner of the earth.

We swam at Freedom beach until about 3pm and then we were ready for home. Tony and son dropped us back at Patong before we showered and went looking for street food.

We has some rice and chicken plus a few bevvies at a food cart set up near Patong. We breifly met our new friends Steve and Bec from Maitland before we headed up to check out Bangla Road.

It had been 7 years since we had set foot on the hedonistic street and we wondered how Covid had changed it. Well let me tell you, Bangla is back, baby!!The street was heaving! Hundreds of people, so much (loud) doof music, lights, touts (ping-pong show buddy) bar girls etc.. The whole she-bang-a-bang. We hadn't had enough food yet so we found the Bangla Street food lot and had rice, ribs and more drinks. Jen had a banana and caramel pancake, that was top shelf.

Are we too old for Bangla Road? Well after a day in the sun and all of that loud doof, the answer my friends is YES. We hightailed it out of there before we even had one game of Connect Four in the Tiger Bar!! We had a chilled mini pub crawl on the way home and then to bed.

The next day we bid farewell to Patong and grabbed a private taxi to Krabi.

Patong is just bouncing back from Covid. I reckon in a year it will be back to full capacity. The water was a lot cleaner but there were many boarded up shops, resorts, pubs etc.. One of the spinners for me was the new booze times. You can only buy booze between 11am - 2pm and 5pm - 12pm in the 7 /11's and pubs. I think the resorts can get away with other times, but not the licensed premises. It is a Covid restriction, but I guess they will lift that soon.

Also, this was the first time that we've been here since King Bumibol died. His son is now king and his picture appears on all of the currency and in every public place... The times they are-a - changin'

S'later

Sedge