REUNITED WITH MY BRISBANE GALS IN PHUKET

WEATHER: Flippin Hot and 34C

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Seeing my gals again after 46 days

BUMMER OF THE DAY: HUMIDITY SUCKS

WORD OF THE DAY:  How HOT is it?

Today I leave my reclusive life at the Sugar Palm Hotel in Kata Beach to the Lap of Luxury at the Hilton Arcadia Phuket at Karon Beach.  If that wasn’t exciting enough I also get to see my gals again, Shelly, Sandy, Tess, Zoe, Hads and the boys for good measure Shane, Jase and Hunter AND if that wasn’t exciting enough I get to see them in PHUKET as they holiday here for the week and at the same time we will also attend the wedding of Trevor and Dayna on Tuesday.  To say I am a little excited is an UNDERSTATEMENT. 

The Elks had arrived in last night at 11pm, so I was just going to meet them and change hotels this morning in time for champagne.  What the cost of one night at the Hilton I could get 3 nights at the Sugar Palm so changing this morning made all the sense to me.  I had 95% packed last night, I just had a few things to tuck away and I was on my way.  I had only been to the reception desk once during my stay and that was to check-in and now I go back for a second time to check-out.  I wonder if I have been the easiest guest they have ever had? I had room service dinner for 3 nights I was there and it was a grand total of 45AUD.  I think my 2 weeks so far in Phuket have been my cheapest so far on my whole Odyssey, well maybe it would give my Intrepid Africa a good run for its money at least, some days we were lucky to even spend 10 bucks a day on that trip.  I hadn’t done a tuk tuk ride yet, so instead of getting a normal car transfer, I just walked straight out the front of the hotel to the main road and asked for a tuk tuk to the Hilton.  I checked the price the other day at the tuk tuk rank and he said 300BHT and when I checked with reception she said the same thing so when I asked for his price, he said 300BHT, so I said that’s fine and he said the price again!  Maybe he was expecting me to haggle, but it was a fair price I had checked 2 people so I was ready to rock and roll. 

It was only a 10 minute ride and being a Sunday morning at 8am there was not a lot of traffic on the roads.  That is one thing to be said is that things are open late in the morning and rock on till 9pm through to midnight here.  We got to the front gates to the Hilton Resort and after a man walking around the tuk tuk with a large mirror checking the underside of the vehicle for bombs we were allowed to pass through.  Talk about taking security seriously.  So we unloaded at what looked like reception under a massive, massive open plan thatched building.  I paid my tuk tuk man and went to the counter and said I would like to check-in and she said that I needed to wait for the shuttle to take me to reception.  This was just a loading zone as such, for guests, and the only way to the resort itself was via this shuttle.  What a pain in the arse.  So after a 10 minute wait the shuttle which is like a trolley car pulls up and with my 3 bags hoisted onto the back I hang on for the 3 minute ride to the resort and a very special welcome from 4 happy little people and Shelly and Frog as I tried to enlighten the trolley without hurting myself.  This is the bonus of a 5 star hotel; bell boy was all over my bag as I hugged and kissed everyone and made our way to the check-in counter where Sandy had come to welcome me as well.  It is SO GOOD to see people I know, my family and to get out and about again.

When I had booked my room from home I had booked the cheapest option into a deluxe garden view.  When I checked in the guys were in a King deluxe room in the main building and I was in a building about a 7 minute walk away, so I asked about upgrading and getting a room that was next to the Randall’s and Elkins who already had interconnecting rooms and I was able to get a room one away from them and I only had to pay an extra 33AUD per night.  In hindsight it was money well spent to just be able to go from their room to mine in 1 second instead of a life ride, a 7 minute walk and another lift ride to get back to my original room.  I left my bags in the capable hands of the porter to take to my room and we headed straight down to breakfast which I haven’t had in 13 days.  Gotta get back into the real world again.  I saw more people I knew including the Bride and Groom and it felt great to be here.  The breakfast was AMAZING and the bacon was ‘real’ bacon and I just stuck with the good old bacon and eggs on toast with a few sausages thrown in for good measure.  Tessie couldn’t believe I was actually here and wanted to hug me and sit next to me and tell me all her stories that I have missed out on so far.  They know exactly how many days I am here for and we intend to make the most of them.  Shelly and I were surprised how quick 7 weeks went when I was at home, how are 4 days going to last, but it is 4 days of holiday time, no work, no ice skating, no dancing-just pure 100% holiday time.

And not to waste any time, after breakfast we headed straight to the bar and ordered 3 cocktails and just sat back and relaxed as the kids danced on stage and even put out a hat in the hope that maybe some-one would throw some money in for their efforts.  IT was funny to watch that when people were coming they would get their happy faces on and some moves choreographed hoping to catch the people’s eyes.  The closest they got to cash was the 500BHT that Nana gave for them to spend while they were in Phuket.  It is a shame that they really don’t know how much it is, but they will certainly work out the value of the dollar when we head to the markets after our cocktail.  As I hadn’t been out much I am not 100% sure if every day has been this hot, but man today it was so HUMID, if it was like this every day I think I would have stayed in my hotel room anyway!  Everyone was just a ball of sweat, it was terrible, but the cocktails helped a little……. Well we do need to keep up our fluids right so we have decided to photo document our drinks for the day.  We are now officially on a mission.

I was lucky my room was ready, so after breakfast and our first alcohol beverage for the day at 10am we decided to take a walk to the markets and let the kids have a look around to see if they could find something to spend their money on.  The markets were beachside to the resort, so we had to walk across the grounds on a path to the main road and then the markets would have been just a further 10 minutes on.  The kids were really struggling with the heat, but once we got to the market they perked up for a little bit.  They are indoor markets in a big shed and you know what a shed and hot blazing sun equals?  It was seriously so hot at the markets that we were all just drenched in sweat, Tess was feeling it the most, so I offered to give her a piggy back to let her rest, which she then wanted to upgrade to the shoulders as she doesn’t have to hang on when she is up there, so I obliged and before we knew it she had fallen asleep on my shoulders using my head as her pillow!  It was hilarious.  We spent around 45 minutes in there, making sure that the kids kept drinking a mountain of water.  I am really over the shopping, it is all the same stuff from when I was here last time and whatever I buy here I will send home with Shelly, which isn’t fair, but I did need an overnight bag from the Philippines as my internal flights only let you have a 10kg baggage restriction, so I got a 6AUD bag that will suffice for that section of the trip and then I will just ditch it after I have finished before flying back to Singapore. 

We stopped at Subway for lunch and took the rolls back to the room to eat them in peace and in air-conditioning and we lured the kids back to the hotel with the promise of a cold drink and a splash in the pool all afternoon which perked their flushed little faces, also the adults and we were in to pool not long after lunch.  The Hilton has 3 main pools that I could see.  The pool attached to the main section of the hotel has a waterslide and also an amazing waterfall as well.  So we pulled up some sun chairs, ordered some more cocktails and let the afternoon slide us by.  It was that hot that even I got into the pool, where I stayed, even to eat lunch on the side and I even went down the waterslide after the pleading of Tessie to do so.  Sandy had prepared the kids for the trip explaining that things will be different in Phuket to the way things are in Australia and her motto to the kids were ‘They were broadening their horizons’.  So with this piece of information, I decided to go down the waterslide for Tessie and it was a ton of fun.  So much so that we decided to do an adult train down the slide consisting of myself, Jase, Shane and Shelly.  Well there is a reason why the signs at the top of the slide tell you if you are 14+ not to use the slide and if you're are 45kg or more to not use the slide.  Well with that aside, the four of us shot down the slide at lightning speed and after we all surfaced, I had banged my arm, Jase had hurt his back and Shane hit the shallow part of the pool quite hard.  Okay so maybe the signs are up for a reason!  The slide, the waterfall and fake cave kept the kids busy all afternoon till it was time for them to hop out as we had a Hen’s night to get ready for.  It wasn’t going to be a BIG one, it was just a few drinks at the bar in the hotel, which was fine with us as we had the kids as the boys also had the Buck’s night tonight as well and theirs looked like it was going to be bigger than Ben Hur.  The ladies were to meet at 4pm, the boys joined us for the happy hour between 6-7 pm and then they were on their way to Patong for a night of goodness knows what.  Shane had gone to the effort of making ping pong bat golden necklaces and for those of you who know what they were for, yes that is exactly what they were for and in the condition that they left in at 8.30pm it was going to be a BIG night for them.  It was a good turn out and there must have been 25 of them!  Look out Patong.

The girls were a little more low key and pretty much everyone had cleared out at 9.30pm.  We hadn’t eaten dinner yet and the kiddies were hungry so we walked back beachside and stopped at the first restaurant we saw called Mama’s and it was amazing food for a great price and with cocktail number 13 in our hands we had had a productive day in keeping up our fluids. I had also done okay after breaking my routine for the last 11 days and I must say I was shattered.  There was enough energy in the tank for a Bailey’s nightcap in Shelly’s room and it was wonderful to walk 6m to my room at 12.30am, again definitely worth paying that extra money.  Even if 4 nights at the Hilton would get me 14 nights at The Sugar Palm Resort.  Well this was the splurgy part of my trip and you can’t put a price on seeing my gals again. 

WOO HOO-We’re going to have a cracker few days….