We arrived in Phuket from Bangkok on Tuesday October 18, 2016 and took a taxi to our hotel.
Phuket holds a special place in my heart as I visited for over 2 weeks in 2010 and it was such a healing time for me in my life! You can see those posts HERE! I was so excited to show Hendrik the island and I was excited to stay in the Marriott again. When I booked our trip I specifically chose the JW Marriott Resort just so I could share some of my awesome memories of this place with Hendrik and hopefully make even more unforgettable memories.
It was a beautiful sunny day when we arrived and we were a bit early so our room wasn't ready yet. We headed down to the cafe to have lunch outside and then went ahead and booked our dinner reservations and snorkel adventure for the following days. Once our room was ready we headed up and I no more dumped my bags and I was changed and ready to go to the beach and enjoy the sun and relaxation. We were only able to lay out around an hour before the rain moved in. Instead of going to our room we decided to book 90 minute massages at the spa. We had our massages together and it was so nice! After the spa we took a small nap in our room before getting ready and heading to dinner.
Our first night we ate at the hibachi restaurant in the resort and we weren't impressed but that is also the difference between American and another country's hibachi style. When I came to the same resort before, this restaurant was strictly sushi and it was amazing. It was actually the first time I had ever had sushi and fell in love with it then. After dinner we headed back to our room to prepare for the next day of adventures.
Wednesday October 19, 2016 started off with a workout in a very crowded gym but we got it done and then headed to breakfast. I sort of had a mini breakdown at breakfast about work and stress in general and after that my whole outlook on our trip changed....for the better! I guess I was just trying to deal with everything internally and wasn't doing a great job and it finally bubbled to the surface and overflowed all over my omelet and watermelon juice. LOL After I felt relief and peace and was ready to conquer our day of adventures and activities.
We got a taxi to Kata Beach to try out the surfing and Thai kickboxing. The taxi ride is over an hour as it is on the opposite end of the island but worth the trip. We found the surf shop and they recommended that we come back in the afternoon once the tide was at a different level as the surfing right then wasn't that great. That was fine because the muay thai kickboxing gym that I wanted to train at was in the town nearby so we hopped a taxi to the Tiger Muay Thai gym and I did 2 hours of private training there. I am going to do a separate post on this all together so stay tuned! After my training I was done for so when we made it back to the surf shop only Hendrik went to surf. I watched from the beach and enjoyed the wind and waves. The water was SO rough from all the storms at the end of rainy season so it was really hard for Hendrik and he didn't catch many waves. The waves really never built up they just built and crashed down really quick resulting in a literally pounding LOL. He still enjoyed himself and after around an hour he hung up his board and came to hang out with me on my mat.
Once we had our fill of the beach it was close to 4 and we had a long ride back to the hotel. On our way back to the taxi stand we stopped into a local grocery store to grab some snacks for the ride back and to hold us over until dinner. We made it back to the hotel and showered and got ready for dinner at Lucina. We hung out in the swing beds and had a cocktail or two waiting on our dinner reservations. Dinner was really good and I put the carbs in my pizza to good use as I was really depleted from training in the Thai humidity and heat for 2 hours. We had an appetizer of bruschetta, I had pizza, and Hendrik had a steak for dinner.
After dinner we were drained from our sporting day and headed back to the room to relax and enjoy our bed.
On Thursday October 20, 2016 we were supposed to go on a snorkeling adventure which we were both really looking forward to but at 5:15 am when we were supposed to get up we decided that the rough water that we experienced the previous day wasn't something we wanted to fight and new the visibility wouldn't be all that great so we decided to stay at the hotel all day and relax. The decision to "stay in" so to speak was the best decision. We had the most perfect, sunny day that I utilized from the time we finished breakfast until around 1:30 that afternoon.
Seeing this was our last day in Thailand I soaked up all the sun... actually too much and when the rain rolled in that afternoon it was a welcome reprieve to baking myself. LOL Hendrik returned from wherever he had spent the most of his morning and we had lunch at the cafe before heading to the beach hut for hour long traditional Thai massages. The beach massages, to me, were WAY better than the spa massages we had gotten two days prior and substantially cheaper. After our massages we headed to the room to get ready for our travels the next day. We were so beat from all our hard work that day we didn't even leave the room for dinner.
Our time in Phuket was short and sweet and was equally relaxing and amazing with what we chose to experience. I'm glad Hendrik was able to experience Thailand and in particular Phuket as it is such a special place not only to me but in general. The people of Phuket are so courteous, polite, friendly, and all around helpful not to mention HAPPY!
Next stop and the last leg of our vacation... Bali :) Stay tune... but first a post to highlight my kickboxing adventures at TMT!
Check out our layover shenanigans in Dubai HERE
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