Travel

Phuket : The land of Exotic Beaches

In my previous post I showed you the peerless beauty of Phang Nga bay and the amazing island of Ko Panyee.

Apart from that I spent a couple of days in Phuket roaming around the place and I was very impressed with not just the natural beauty but also how good the infrastructure and cleanliness . the roads are very good and the beaches as you will see in the pictures below are immaculately maintained.

near the kata beach

After doing some research I decided to stay in the Holiday Inn Resort at Patong . I generally prefer staying in the middle of town , not far from the madding crowd. I stayed in a room close to the Busakorn wing of the hotel which is their exclusive wing for adults only and it has a separate entrance which is very convenient. Close to this exit are all sorts of shops, markets, massage parlors ( of course! ) and most conveniently a laundry shop which will take your clothes by the kg and wash, press, fold them and give it to you the next day for a very reasonable amount. The hotel itself was very comfortable and the food was great, no surprises there.

The first day we landed there, I was having lunch in this indian restaurant called ICC curry club in Patong and the food was amazing..I was talking to the waiter there who was also from the same region in India as I and he asked what I was doing that day and suggested we visit Phuket Fantasea. Now I am a bit weary of these “Packaged” shows but the waiter insisted it was very nice so i went to a nearby tour agent and booked the tickets there. Long story short, the experience was very nice.

Phuket Fantasea

the place looks fantastic at night, its arranged like a carnival with lots of food stalls, games, various animal rides and so on. There are also very decorated shops which sell high end products but I normally avoid such places and neither does my wallet allow such extravagant shopping..

 

of course, there is no photography allowed inside the show so I couldn’t take any pictures there.. but I will say this about the place, the logistics is incredibly well organized ,there were more than 1000 people watching the show, when it got over, we had got back our camera which we had to deposit in their lockers and were in the van and on the road in 15-20 minutes, huge parking spaces and guides everywhere.

The next day I hit the road and I decided to visit the Phuket tiger park. Now I am certainly no braveheart and somehow I managed to convince myself to pose with a tiger and I have to confess I was scared out of my wits even though the handler kept asking me to pull the tiger’s tail…lol..no thank you..

We then decided to hit the ATV ( all terrain vehicle ) Park . I had never ridden an ATV before and I was not sure I could handle the vehicle alone but decided to give it a try. It was raining a little bit and the muddy track looked a real jungle adventure but it was most enjoyable. There is a guide who keep following you on his ATV so that you don’t face any problems.

ATV Trail …I came across a few elephants..people were taking a joyride on them..

I then asked my van driver to show me some of the nice beaches , I had done some research and I asked him to take me to Karon, Kata, Kata Noi etc.

I did not have time to go out to the water on any of these beaches, neither did I spend too much time on any particula beach but I felt these beaches were the best I had seen anywhere , not that I have been to many exotic beach locations like Andamans, Seychelles, Bora Bora etc.

They were stunningly beautiful and exceptionally accessible. What I found amazing was that the beaches were so closed to the main road..

 

I also saw some places where people were enjoying beach volleyball.

While I am no expert on beach safety, in all these places the water seemed to be calm and there were lifeguards posted everywhere..

Gallery below shows some of the pictures I took that day, do let me know in the comments below if you like them

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