Phuket 2014

Nanai Road, Patong is a home from home. This year we arrived much later than usual on 1 April but luckily for us the rains were late, so we had plenty of good, hot weather. In fact, there was a drought on, which is not so nice and all the hotels, restaurants and other businesses were having to have water trucked in. It is just another sign that Phuket and especially Patong have been over developed and the infrastructure just can't always cope. We still love it!
A Typical Day
11am Beach bed
1pm Lunch on the beach
2pm Back to beach bed
4pm Massage and maybe a bit of shopping
6pm Sunset drinks
7pm Dinner
830pm Drinks at Black Horse to watch the passing parade on Bangla Rd
10pm Rasta music at Koh Bamboo Bar
12pm Tums Bar for rock music
230am Macdonalds for Neil
3am Bed
Favourite Restaurants
Fuji for Japanese
Song Pee Nong, Savoy or Pan Yaah for Thai
Da No 1 or Banzaan Market for Seafood
Korean BBQ
Pak Lak for Thai BBQ
Favourite Sunset Spots
No Name on the rocks
Sole Mio Bar, previously Barefoot
Pan Yaah
Catch at Surin
Favourite massages
Cool Massage - Beach Road, 1 hour foot massage with free wi-fi for ZAR70
Good Na Massage - Nanai Road, best ever and opposite our guest house
Favourite Beaches
Laem Sing
Paradise
Racha Island
Favourite Favourites
Ka Jok See for a night to remember
Aussie Bar for rugby
There are always friends coming to Phuket. We saw the Pitchers, Pitts and Lorraine,Simon and Geoff, Sandra and Jurgen and Dave. Tommy and Mandy arrived in time for Song Kran. We spent 3 nights on Racha Island with them and went diving. They left Patong on Monday 21st and Megan, Percy, Matthew, Ashley, Kieran and Maya arrived. We showed them all our favourites and a lot more in the 4 days before we left for Bangkok. We still always talk about living in Thailand, but too much Patong may just be the end of you and anywhere else will just be too boring in comparison.

Sailing or Fasting...

Neil met up with Rob and Andries in Cebu to sail Small Cat Fun, Rob's catamaran from Cebu, Philippines to Singapore, via Palawan PH, Brunei, Kotakinabalu ML and Indonesia. It was a 20 day journey, with two long sea crossings of 5 or 6 days each. The weather was generally good with lots of wind, which made sailing a lot of fun. At one stage they had the spinnaker up for 36 hours. They swam with whale sharks and saw plenty of sea life like turtles and dolphins. They caught fish to eat and had the freshest sashimi ever. Rob's a good cook, so they even had fresh bread and pizza en route. The 3 hours on and  6 hours off routine was pretty tiring for everyone but the consensus was    " best sailing trip ever."
Gail decided on a trip to Orion, a health retreat on Koh Phangan , Thailand for 11 days of Yoga , massage, raw vegan food and 7 days of fasting. I had a relaxing time, met some great people and did without coffee or wine! Orion was a bit too hippy and hey-shoo-wah , so it was good to pop up to Utopia Resort every few days to visit David and Lisa, sipping on nothing but coconut water.

Boracay

This was our first trip to the Philippines. We met Tracey at Changi Airport to fly on Tigerair to Kalibo. This is the most direct route to Boracay, but still involves a 90 minute bus trip, a short ferry crossing and a mini bus drop off around Boracay. I wouldn't suggest this for a long weekend out of Singapore but I would definitely recommend Boracay as a great island destination. White beach is a long, beautiful beach with the whitest sand and bluest water I have ever seen! It's wonderfully clean and the water is a little cooler than in Thailand. The hotels and restaurants line the beach, with only a sandy footpath between them and the palm fringed beach.  Our hotel was called Alice in Wonderland! Sunsets are awesome. At night all the beach beds are replaced by tables for beachside dining with your feet in the sand. Philippino cuisine seemed rather limited but we did find good seafood as well as Thai, Indian, Greek, Spanish and Western. Nightlife is very low key compared to Patong but there are plenty of cover bands and outdoor bars. Beware too many heart breaking pop ballads though, and bad Karaoke.
Massages are cheap but not quite as good as in Thailand. Ditto happy hour cocktails. Most of the tourists are from Japan, Korea and China, trooping around in groups and creating amazing people-watching opportunities with their crazy fashions; taking selfies everywhere and rushing around ticking all the must-do boxes as quickly as possible. Then there's The Hobbit House, a bar that only employs dwarves as waiters! Creating job- opportunities (Neil's view)or just plain weird(Gail's view)?
Neil left on the 7th March for his sailing trip and Tracey and I stayed on an extra week. We enjoyed the beach, did a boat trip, enjoyed our evenings without any late nights and got picked up by a San Diego fireman. There is such a thing as a free lunch, at the Talipapa Seafood Market with lots of Margaritas thrown in!

Birthday Party Number 6

It was my plan to celebrate turning 50 on 5 different continents. I had celebrated  my 40th on 4 continents more or less by accident,  so it just seemed like a good thing to do. So we did Asia in March, North America in May, Europe in September and Africa in November 2013. Australia, the 5th continent was only reached in early 2014 but seeing as it was less than 365 days from the first party, I reckon that it counts. Thanks to Dawn and Kevin for hosting a wonderful pizza party with Kevs new garden pizza oven. It's was great to catch up with friends, especially Lesley whom I hadn't seen since we were 10!