Thailand beaches

Thailand, land of smiles! We had a week-long trip to a two of Thailand’s most iconic beach resort, Phuket and Phi Phi Island. As it was October, we were greeted with a proper tropical downpour, typical of this part of the Far East in early autumn. Luckily, it was still very warm and the rain lasted less than an hour. Blue skies did come back, mixed in with plenty of cloud cover for the rest of the trip. Somehow this made the precious sunrays even more enjoyable, strange how our brain can trick us….. We had booked a speedboat transfers to our Phi Phi Island hotel, Zeavola, but sadly the seas were too rough to use it so we took the local passenger ferry from main Phuket port to Phi Phi. In true Thai welcome we were collected from the ferry on a traditional longboat and had a really warm welcome at our hotel’s reception, just steps away from the most beautiful beach I’ve seen in a long time. The Zeavola hotel is small, eco-friendly resort with individual cottages (suites) dotted around the prime location on the northern tip of this famous island. This makes it a perfect getaway from the crowds, although there are couple of other hotels nearby, you are in a relaxed and easy going paradise. The garden suite had an outdoor living room with optional bamboo screens we could have down at night and a generous four posted bed in very private and cooled bedroom. This was the sort of barefoot, no news no shoes kind of place and we embraced the freedom it brings. Small selection of bars and couple of restaurants along the lantern lit sandy beach was all we needed to enjoy some great cocktails and most amazing Thai food ever. All too soon we were in our way to Phuket, again on the passenger ferry as the seas were still too choppy to brave the speedboat. Our Phuket resort, Kathathani, was at the quieter end of this party island, Kata beach. The hotel was larger and different in so many ways to the one we have just come from. It had much bigger grounds, rooms and public areas shining with marbled floors and modern fittings. A very clean and high end 4* hotel on a great beachfront location indeed. They had great beachfront bar and fab seafood restaurants, right on the edge of the beach which made the food and drink taste so much more enjoyable somehow! A small selection of local shops and bars was around a corner with much bigger and busier main resort only 5 minutes in Tuk Tuk. Shopping there was so much fun, we went back few times. Even though we had short time, we managed to do a half a day tour of main sights in Phuket, with a taxi driver being our guide which was very reasonable and very easy going. The big Buddha is a must and the temple complex of Wat Chalong was awe-inspiring. Our return was an exercise in how to make the shortest of airline connections, Bangkok style. The airlines have developed great transit procedures for any connecting flights that if you are delayed by an hour (like us) you are speeded through on your arrival in Bangkok and in the London bound departure lounge in no time at all.