Day 5 Patong Beach, Phuket (Thailand): elephant retirement park!

Posted on January 21, 2019 by Mel

We spent the afternoon at an ethical elephant sanctuary today – the Elephant Retirement Park about 40 mins drive from Patong Beach – and it was amazing. Most of our time was spent with Euro, the big male elephant, but we also hung out with an old grandma and some rescued babies. This baby was called Pinky and he was my favourite, even if he was a fruit thief ❤️❤️❤️

I did a lot of research on ethical animal sanctuaries before we came over and I am aware these guys (alongside all the other Thai elephant sanctuaries) walk a fine line with the photography opportunities….however it’s also how they get a lot of their funding which allows them to buy more elephants out of working conditions. Not ideal but certainly better than animals being left in the circus or on ride farms.

They have a no harmful contact and no chains policy here and the animals do seem genuinely happy, our elephant buddy knew when it was mud bath time and happily clomped in and rolled around like an idiot lol. They also explained the ones that display distress towards people due to their backgrounds don’t have to meet anyone – they stay up on the mountain doing their own thing.

During our half day we paid a bit extra to be in a small group for a VIP tour (Mel + larger groups = bitchy Mel) and it turned out we were totally on our own. Woohoo! We learnt how to cook our own lunch of pad Thai and tam som, ate it, took Euro for a jungle walk where he had a great time playing in the waterfall, gave him a mud bath, gave him a wash and then fed him and the grandmas rice balls since their teeth are bad.

They actually grabbed my phone off me (the guides, not the elephants) and took hundreds of photos. Literally hundreds. There will also be some put up on their Facebook page later on which they took with their better quality camera.

Something to be aware of is that we were standing or walking for the better part of 5hrs for this tour and I was in a fair bit of lower back pain by the time we got back to the hotel. Normally, a sit down for an hour fixes it but not tonight…..even a spa and painkillers didn’t help! As a result, we had dinner at the hotel restaurant (Kontok) which was more than double the price of street food but was very yummy. The two curries and two soft drinks cost $37 AUD which is great value compared to Australian costs but quite high for Thailand prices.

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Burasari Resort: Phuket (Hotel review)

Posted on January 20, 2019 by Mel

Well, here is a summary of the positives and negatives of this resort! Obviously this all comes from our point of view.

Link to their website: https://phuket.burasari.com

Cost: we are here in the high season and 6 nights cost us 46000 baht or $1985 AUD. That was for a mood suite though, there were cheaper rooms.

Positives

1. Free mini bar which is refreshed once a day is omnomnom

2. We stayed in a mood suite which comes complete with a 7 foot bed (quite hard though but I think that’s a Thai thing) and a personal spa bath on the deck. The rooms are really attractive and well put together, they also include a bag and beach towels you can take to the beach/pool with you which is super handy

3. Customer service after our asshat party next door neighbours woke us up every 20 mins from 3am was mostly positive. After the initial complaint was poorly handled (see below) we were very satisfied to have our room moved to a quieter part of the resort and to be offered a free massage each at the day spa (4200 baht value). Now to be fair, this offer came with the understanding I would remove my very VERY angry trip advisor review….but I thought that was fair.

4. Pool bar is nice but sadly only open 2 hrs a day which seems weird. Either way….it’s a nice bar and the 2 for 1 drink offers make it excellent value. The resort also has a restaurant with free breakfast and a second bar which served cocktails at resort prices – around $15 AUD.

5. Finally, the biggest positive is proximity. You are a 30 second walk from the beach and a 5-10 minute walk from Banglor Road. There are taxis galore and it’s easy to get anywhere. We ate dinner at a street food market every night and each meal was 50-100 baht, with all beers at 80 baht.

Negatives

1. They had a lot of trouble with the fact they thought I was someone else (same name) and never seemed to quite get past that despite repeated attempts to fix it. I gave up in the end.

2. The noise levels from some rooms are very high due to street noise. The downside to being in the centre I guess!? Having said that, the pool rooms also looked amazing but one morning there was a kid in the pool literally screaming for 2 hours. I was pretty glad not to have a pool room that day! I think I would again book a mood suite but request one away from the street

3. As previously stated we did have a problem with the room next door and the initial handling of it was not good. When I rang down to reception at 5;30am I was told to go knock on the door myself. When I told them I would not be doing that as they were very drunk males who had already told someone else to “fuck off” they implied it was my own problem then. After this, the matter was handled much more appropriately.

4. Not enough pool chairs (maybe 20 in total for a large-ish resort) and despite saying people can’t hold them, they don’t enforce this policy at all. Very frustrating.

Would we stay again?

Yes we would. Overall I give them 4/5 stars with the only deductions being for the initial suggestion. I *manage* the drunken asshats and the limited pool bar and pool chair issues. The food and service is generally good, the rooms are lovely and we went to the day spa twice and thoroughly enjoyed it both times despite the marked up cost. We were very happy and intend to return again at a later date.

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Day 4 Patong Beach, Phuket (Thailand): beachside relaxation

Posted on January 20, 2019 by Mel

Today was all about beachside relaxation. After our free breakfast at Burasari Resort, we walked the 30 seconds down to Patong Beach and nabbed a seat and umbrella. This cost 200 baht but as it was around 10:30am we got our pick of seats.

We enjoyed about 4 hours of reading, napping, frozen iced drinks, getting a henna tattoo, swimming in the ocean and people watching before the sun came across overhead and I started getting sunburnt. We then moved back to the hotel and enjoyed 2 for 1 happy hour at the swim up bar.

After lounging around the pool I made use of the daybed on the room balcony to have a nap while B watched movies. We then headed out to Banglor Road again, this time for some drinks and food. We started with the food market again and I had pad Thai while B had ribs. Excellent quality for 100 baht!

After dinner, we wandered the infamous road for awhile before settling in at the Kangaroo Bar for some good tunes and drinks. Beers were 80 baht and cocktails were 190 baht so all in all, the value wasn’t bad. We were considering going to a ping pong show but the guys doing the advertising are pretty damn creepy and the one guy who wasn’t (I’ve started calling him Bs mate as he remembers us every time we walk past haha) was off for the night! Maybe tomorrow….

cocktails: ummmm I had some trouble counting today! 1 x Singapore sling and 4 x pina coladas I think? Lol

Tomorrow: visiting the ethical animal sanctuary that is the Elephant Retirement Park!

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Day 3 Patong Beach, Phuket (Thailand): Banglor Road and street food

Posted on January 19, 2019 by Mel

We had some “overnight issues” in our room which basically translates to drunken asshats in the room next door partying from 3am onwards and the staff not doing anything about it. The hotel arranged for us to change rooms after I complained though which is definitely a positive!! Now our room has an even bigger spa and a day bed.

We started the day with our free breakfast (omelette station!) and then a few hours of relaxing poolside.

At 11am we headed over to Spa Burasari for a couples exfoliation, massage and facial treatment. Not the cheapest spa treatment ever but the cost was outweighed by the fact they understood me saying “gentle, gentle!” and the convenience of it being within the hotel. We were so impressed we are going back again on Tuesday.

After the massage we walked up to a recommended restaurant called Restaurant No. 6 and enjoyed a 300 Baht meal of two fruit ices, chicken and sweet corn and chicken pad Thai. Yummy and very reasonably priced.

We then walked back and did the room swap to the new room before enjoying the benefit of the free mini bar….again. Mmmm mini bar. We spent some time at the pool swim up bar and then I wallowed in the spa like a beached whale for an hour or so. Dinner was in Banglor Road again at the open food market, I tried to find a name but it doesn’t have one…so instead you can see the entry on the map below with a red coloured cross. Our blue location dot is higher up because we were sitting at the back of the markets eating pad Thai, fruit ices and a chicken satay stick!

Afterwards we walked back along the beach to the hotel and had some quiet time.

Cocktails: 1 strawberry dacquiri, 1 strawberry mojito

Tomorrow: possible beachside relaxation? Unsure….

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Day 1 & 2 Patong Beach, Phuket (Thailand)

Posted on January 18, 2019 by Mel

The travel time to get here was nuts! 23hrs from start to finish to get from Canberra to Phuket….at least we had Air Asia flat beds on the longer legs though. Oh, and I got to cuddle assistance dogs at the international check in area in Sydney!!

We finally arrived in Phuket at 10:30pm local time last night and it was a one hour drive to Patong Beach, we used a private car hire through the hotel for that which cost a bit more than a taxi but was easier after that long travelling and better for Bs motion sickness. We are staying at the Burasari Resort which seems to have the best of both worlds – a 30 second stroll to the beach and 10 min walk to the infamous Banglor Road! The resort itself is very quiet although there is a fair amount of “street noise” since we are so close to the main bars and beach. The hotel has a few pool areas but only about 20 pool lounges which were all taken by 10am. Some rooms have their own pool wade in areas from the balcony which is pretty awesome….I might consider that next time.

The room we are in is a “mood suite” and it is gorgeous, we get a free mini bar refilled each day as well as a private deck spa. I bought my own bubble bath along and may have used a little too much today….

After a day of relaxing in the spa and reading, we had some mid afternoon drinks at one of the hotel bars (Misty Bar) which was very quiet and had comfy lounges. I had a number of delicious pineapple mojitos complete with pineapple love hearts.

We then for a walk along the beach to watch the sunset and to explore Banglor Road for food and entertainment.

We wandered past quite a few bars full of very…boisterous….Australians and decided to just grab some food and then come back again another night. We had yummy chicken sticks at the local food market. Banglor Road is full of tourists, bar spruikers, locals selling wares and is possibly the first place in my life where I’ve had someone walk up to me and offer a “free fucking show” with an emphasis on the verb meaning of that middle word! Maybe another time….

Cocktail count: two delicious pineapple mojitos

Mini bar damage: destroyed (picture to follow with hotel review)

Tomorrow: sleep in, massage, cocktails, pool/spa and maybe a Muay Thai show

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Phuket time in a week!

Posted on January 9, 2019 by Mel

I am super excited!! This is my first trip to Thailand.

We are flying with Air Asia again after a very positive experience with them once before and have forked out the extra for flat beds. It’s like a business class seat without the business class cost! Unfortunately we have to do a few stop overs which is the downside to traveling from Canberra.

The goal is to do a whole lot of nothing while we are there, which means minimal tours. Boat tours to the islands are also off the table with Bs nasty travel sickness issues. So far I have only booked two things for us to do since the focus will be on relaxation. We are going to:

– spend a day at the Burasari Spa being pampered and spoilt http://spa.burasari.com

– spend a half day at the Elephant 🐘 Retirement Park which is an ethical animal sanctuary https://elephantretirementparkphuket.com

The rest of the time will be spent relaxing at the resort, relaxing on the beach and maybe exploring Patong a little bit. Oh, and enjoying my private balcony spa of course.

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Woohoo, Phuket booked for Jan 2019

Posted on September 10, 2018 by Mel

We are going to Phuket in Jan 2019 just before school goes back! Super excited to have a week of relaxation after the stress that will be family Christmas ❤️

We will be staying in a mood suite at the Burasari Resort which looks something like the pics below. Needless to say, having my own jacuzzi has me ridiculous levels of happy.

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Fiji Day 5 – home time tomorrow

Posted on July 12, 2018 by Mel

Today we enjoyed our included breakfast (I’m a bit obsessed with muesli and banana at the moment) and then opted to laze around on the deck in the illicit stolen beanbag and in bed for most of the day.

After lunch at Vulcani Restaurant at the resort….and some pina coladas…..we wandered up to the other end just to see what there was and then continued to laze around because that’s what the last day of holidays is for right?

we watched our final sunset from the private deck and then in the early evening ….with the cover of twilight…..we returned the stolen beanbag to the beach! We had dinner at Tavu Grill on the beach, paid the final bill and arranged an express checkout for early the next morning and packed our bags.

Alarms are set for 4:30am tomorrow (waaaaaah) to begin the journey home. At least we get a breakfast box to go at no charge in the morning. I am excited to see Bear and Jet but sad to leave the relaxation here to return to the go-go-go of real life. Not to mention the frozen nightmare that is Canberra winter – it was -9C at home two days ago! We will definitely be back though – vinaka Fiji 🙂

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Fiji Day 4 – lazing around

Posted on July 11, 2018 by Mel

Today consisted of doing this at the resort all day:

Dinner was Fijian BBQ at Sunset Point. We watched the sun go down, ate delicious BBQ and then sat near the open fire enjoying the night time beach vibe. On the way back to the room, a horse chased us….which was kind of exciting / terrifying.

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Fiji Day 3: adventures around the western side of the island!

Posted on July 10, 2018 by Mel

Today was a great adventuring day which started very early. We are our complimentary breakfast and then headed out on a half day trip with Valentine’s Tours (booked through Viator). The tour collection for us was at 8am and then we headed to the Sri Siva Subramaniya temple, which is the largest Hindu temple in Nadi. I had to wear a sarong (so did B) and we had to be barefoot, no head coverings and no photos were allowed inside.

After the temple, we went to a tourist store in Nadi (I bought all my Australian school students Fiji pencils) and then on to visit the local fruit and veg market. I loved the COLOURS that we could see there! It all looked so tasty.

From the market, we went to visit a local school where we dropped off some donations of books, pencils, writing paper etc and the kindy kids sung “twinkle twinkle little star” for us. It was a bit cute.

After the school visit it was off to a traditional village named Viseisei (the first official Fijian village, estimated to have been settled over 3500 years ago) where we had a tour and learnt about traditional village life. I found this bit a little uncomfortable…while I respect local customs and culture, it is quite an oppressive society for women to live in. B really enjoyed learning all the history stuff and checking out the chiefs house though.

After the village visit we trekked further out for the Garden of the Sleeping Giant which is basically a formerly private garden owned by a famous TV star (I think it was the guy who played Perry Mason?) and is now a popular tourist attraction with over 2000 orchid species present.

While the sheer range of flowers was cool, I’m not sure if I would have gone there on my own without a tour.

From the gardens we went to my FAVOURITE part of the day trip – the mud bath! Now, I had done a lot of reading for this beforehand so was able to prep B for it so there would be no surprises. If you decide to visit the Sabeto Mud Baths (which we highly recommend!) you need to be prepared that this is owned and operated by villagers. It is not a fancy day spa.

Basically – you follow these steps:

  1. Arrive, pay entry fee if not on a tour (around $20 FJD + another $5 FJD if you need to hire a towel)
  2. Put your bathers on. Even if you’re a bigger lass like me, you will want to go in a bikini or for guys shirtless.
  3. The mud has been collected from near the source pool and is in a bucket. You slather it on.
  4. You wash it off in the mud pool. This was the hardest part for me as I have sensory issues and the pool of the mud bath is sponge like and muddy. I had to mentally prep myself a fair bit beforehand to be able to step in!
  5. You go into the thermal springs and laze around. It’s glorious.
  6. There are 2 men’s showers and 2 women’s but both run cold water. You will want to rinse your bathers out in full (so much mud!!) so bring a change of clothing including undies

From the mud baths we returned to the resort for another quick shower and a change of clothes before taking part in a Sunset Dinner Cruise on Captain Cook Cruises.

The sunset was spectacular and the food, drinks and dancing were also good. Due to the fact our hotel was a fair way out than everyone else’s – we got a private transfer instead of the same bus! Score! Patrick the platypus had a great time on the cruise and drank way too many cocktails.

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