Rachel's Travels (and Studies of Course!): Thailand Part I

I have finally managed to find the time to copy the photographs of my holiday from my camera on to my laptop, so I can now share my adventures with you! It was kind of a last minute decision to go, but I was in need of a holiday, and a friend of mine had some time off, so we decided to go together. We were torn between Hawaii and Thailand, but once we realised how cheap Thailand is, we opted for Phuket for 10 nights. We managed to bag ourselves a five-star hotel for next to nothing, the room was lovely, and the shower was HUGE - it was so big, it had an echo! My favourite bit though was when they came to 'turn down the bed' and left orchids on the duvet.

The hotel itself was also amazing, it had a very modern multi-gym, a health spa, and golf carts to run you around the complex (even though they weren't really needed). The restaurant served some lovely food, and the bar had an excellent choice of cocktails. The view from the pool area wasn't too bad either!

After exploring the hotel, we took to the streets to check out the local area. Fortunately we weren't in a very touristy area, so we got the authentic Thai experience. The immediate region was full of small roadside stalls, with local produce and cooking, and where very few people spoke English! It did make things a little difficult, but by pointing and using hand signals, we could usually sort something out. The roads were quite crazy - the vast majority of people owned scooters and would just weave in and out of the traffic to get to their destination as quickly as possible. I'm pretty sure that some of the scooters weren't even roadworthy, and some of them were used to carry what looked to be entire families around.

I think the best bit about staying in one of the quieter areas of Phuket was the food. Although some of the larger bars were dressed up to attract the tourists, the food was all cooked fresh in front of you, and pretty much everything was cooked in a wok. All of the meals were so full of flavour, and dirt cheap. At one place (where they spoke NO English at all!) I managed to get a green curry and chicken fried rice with cashew nuts for the equivalent of £2. It was touch and go what I would actually get in the end, but my iPhone translator seemed to do the trick.