Honeymoon in Phuket

Finally I've got my actuarial exam out of the way... This is a long overdue post.

Johanna & I finally received our wedding photos from our photographers myBest and LesChang. We've posted most of them in our wedding album.

The day after our wedding, Johanna & I rushed back to KL to fly to Phuket for our 4-day honeymoon the next day. It's our first time flying together. The journey was shorter than I imagined - a mere one hour and fifteen minute flight.

We checked in to our hotel - Patong Premiere Resort upon arrival at Patong Beach. The hotel has a Balinese setting. Our room, a honeymoon suite, was tastefully decorated, complete with a bottle of Thai wine produced in 1948!

We spent our first few hours walking along Patong Beach, checking out the shops and looking for a restaurant. Finally settled down in Savoey, an air-conditioned Thai restaurant. We ordered 2 raw oysters, some clams, tom yum seafood and a plate of Thai noodles. A sumptuous meal indeed. The price was great too.

We spent our evening in a theme part called FantaSea. The main attraction was the cultural show in the Palace of the Elephants, featuring Thai culture, myth, magic show etc. Among the casts were a herd of elephants, a flock of chickens, a flock of pigeons and a herd of goats!

The next morning Johanna & I went for an elephant ride. Not the most pleasurable thing to do as we wobbled from one side to the other throughout the journey up and down hill. Nevertheless it was worth experiencing once in a lifetime. We also managed to capture the antics of a small monkey at the elephant trekking lodge.

In the afternoon, we're provided with a free half day tour of Phuket by the hotel. Our driver, Peter, drove us along the west coast of Phuket island, passing through Karon Beach and Kata Beach before arriving at the Phromthep Cape viewpoint. The scenery throughout was breathtaking. The view of Andaman Sea was definitely more pleasurable compared to Langkawi.

We proceed to a Buddhist temple called Wat Chalong after that. This monastry is about 500 years old. I was amazed by the details in the Thai architecture. Johanna and I ended up taking a large volume of photos, until Peter told us we were behind schedule.

Next we arrived in Phuket Town. There was nothing much to see and the only activity was to shop for souveniors. We managed only to buy some t-shirts and key chains due to time constraint.

Our last destination before heading back to Patong Town was a jewellery shop - touted as the biggest in the world.

We arrived back in hotel just in time for dinner. This time we went the other way along Patong Beach and arrived at a restaurant called Lam Phat. Another great seafood meal ensued.

On the third day of our trip, we took a boat trip to Phanga Bay, which has 42 isle. But we only visited 4 of those. The activities included canoeing, caves and lagoons visits. We were very impressed with the shapes of the isle. One of them is merely a rock - the famous James Bond Island, made popular by The Man with the Golden Gun. Johanna and I managed to know one couple from Findland - Timo and Linda who were in Phuket for a long holiday. We ended up having dinner together that evening.

The last day of our trip was merely checking out and travelling to airport. This was the most enjoyable trip in my life - the most likely reason was because of Johanna. But Phuket deserved all the credit as well. The tourism there was so well managed that we had seamless travel and touring services. The whole island was also very clean. I hope Malaysia can learn a lot from Phuket.

We managed to take more than 1Gb worth of photos from the trip. We have selected 10% of these to be included in our honeymoon album.