1st September

Each day, we probably spend more than an hour at breakfast. Girls have their daily egg (ommelete or just egg white sunny side up) and heaps of bacon.

Zaria who doesn’t quite like using cutleries, having fun with her bacon here.

She told us, she’s turned into bacon vampire.

After breakfast, it was straight to the pool again.

I went out with my sis to have a massage done in town, and got Daddy and Annie to watch over the kids.

We have to pay 200Baht 1 way to go to town, but it was worth it, Massage was good and cheap, 400Baht for 2hrs. The Heavenly Spa in the hotel was charging 4 times that price!

T and I are not fussy people when it comes to food, so we just had some street food for lunch, and packed something back from the supermarket before we headed back to the hotel.

Girls were in the room and napping with Daddy keeping watch on them.

In the evening, T, Tasha and Annie were going to watch Fantasea. We didn’t follow because we thought the ticket was way too expensive. Instead, we spent the event strolling to the Gypsy Village via the beach.

Zaria who likes the beach, kept stopping and playing with sand. She was trying to dig a hole just like how a dog would have done, using her 2 bear hands.

We have to stop a couple of times to hurry her to come along.

I think the Westin stretch of beach is constantly being cleaned and combed, making it look sooo spotless. However, I think the water is probably very poluted. On our 1km walk to the gyspy village, we saw 2 Fugu-like fished washed ashore, probably poisoned by the sea water, struggling to get back to the sea. Beyond Westin, the beach was extremely dirty, with lots of rubbish, and among the human created dump, we found bodies of fishes, crabs and squids.

At the Gypsy Village, there were lots of fishing boats. You can see from this pix, the hotel is not that far from the village.

The people there depends on the sea for a living. We saw women digging up cockels at the shore, and men mending or making cages for fishing.

Children have simple toys. We saw girls having competetion on shell pickings, and the boys, have a make shift snooker match.

And to get back to the hotel, we took a bike taxi back. The whole family squeezed into the small area, and got taken back to the hotel for 50Baht.

That night, we just have a simple dinner at the hotel.

2nd September

After eating in the hotel for breakfast for more than 3 days, the food is getting a bit boring. The dishes remained the same, except 2 or 3 variation.

Girls although still eating, were getting a bit bored at times for the long wait to get to the pool (they finshed early, but have to wait for us to finish ours, since we took our time).

Zaria found games to keep herself occupied.

(and Zara obviously bored)

My sis went to town again for another round of pampering. We got Annie to help us watch over our girls at the pool, and we rented a bike to explore the island.

We wanted to go all the way south, but struggled a bit just to get out of Phuket town. Then there was also a sudden downpour, so we had to stop at Wat Chalong to wait for the rain to subside. I saw a big sign “Factory Outlet” just outside the temple, and thought I can shop while waiting. Guess what Factory Outlet was that? A latex mattress factory outlet! And even if I wanted to buy any mattresses, I cannot afford the price, the cheapest, a thin single mattress, was going for 18000baht!

We got to Cape Promtheap eventually, the southern tip of Phuket, with beautiful view, and super strong wind.

On our way back, we even have a little adventure. The tyre got punctured and we were lucky we were near a bike repair shop. Got it fixed (for 180baht) in 20mins and moved on.

It took us less time to get back to the hotel, but still we arrived at 3pm with our packed lunch. Girls and Annie were femished, they gobbled up the food very quickly and went back to swim.

I stayed with them while Daddy explored Siray Island.

In the evening, with Zaria constant begging, we took the girls out to the beach.

Zaria really had fun.

Zara kept asking us when we could go back to the pool.

Tasha didn’t mind either.

For dinner, it was back to Look Mai again, for some cheap(er) home cooked meal.

3rd September

Check out after breakfast. As it was raining, the girls spent time at the Kids’ Club.

When the rain stopped, the kids went back to the pool.

The hotel gave us a room to shower and change before we departed to the airport for our 6:30pm flight.

The girls knocked off in no time on our way to the airport.

Zara and Zaria really enjoyed the holidays. Zara said, “This is like the queen of all holidays.” I think having Tasha around made them enjoy themselves even more.

We planned and decided to go a week before the school holidays, just so the flight was half the price (of the school holiday’s rate). T too was going with Tasha, and Annie, her helper.

30th August

We arrived in Phuket early in the morning. The Westin Siray Bay Resort is ~40mins from the airport, so by the time we went through immigration, collected our checked in bags, hired a taxi and got to the resort, it was late morning. We were lucky, our room was ready. T had to wait for hers, and it wasn’t ready until almost 3pm!

The room was sea facing, and had such a spectacular view. With 2 hollywood single beds + a complimentary child’s rollaway bed, it still felt spacious (although Daddy complained a bit). I forced the girls to take their naps (because I wanted to take mine too, since I was packing till late midnight, and woke up 5am that morning) once the Ooos and Aaaas died down in the room.

Zara slept in her rollaway, Daddy has the huge bed to himself and I shared mine with Zaria.

We woke up around 2pm, and the girls were eager to get to the pool. So off we went, and met Tasha there.

The rest of the first day was spent with the girls in the pool, and exploring the facilities in the hotel.

For dinner, oh, I must share this, because it still makes us pissed just thinking about it.

We (including T, Tasha and Annie) thought we’d go to a near by restaurant OUTSIDE the hotel and thought we’d walk.

It was dark, and we didn’t know how far we must walk. Half way walking, a driver in a Westin car asked us to hop on. He’d send us, for FREE. So, ok, we got him to drive us to the restaurant (which was less than 1km from the hotel).

This restaurant, Plaey Leam, is those outdoor type (like our Warong Tomyam); menu showing prices of Tomyam 450Baht; prawn cakes 400Baht etc etc. Reasonable right? So, we ordered Tomyam, prawn cakes, a fried fish, a vege, pineapple fried rice, drinks for everyone, I think that was it.

Before we settled the bill, the person in charged came over to tell us that the driver ordered fried rice, did we want to pay for it? We thought, ok, we’d pay, just as a treat to him.

Who knows, soon after, the man waved to the driver, and both of them went to the back, and less than 3minutes, the driver was out, stuffing something, probably fried rice (?), into the pocket!

And the bill came. Freaking ~5000Baht (~RM500). The driver’s fried rice was 200Baht! All the dishes was double the price of what was indicated on the menu, apparently, he gave us double the portion of everything. We complained, and he just gave us the grin, “This no expensip, this Thai plice.”

So we got blardy conned, by the restaurant, and the driver! Daddy was fuming; but T said, the consololation was the food was not bad.

31st August

After breakfast, we went to check out the Westin Kids’ Club. An adult have to accompany children below 4 (Zaria) but for children above 4, you can actually leave them with the staff, and they will have activities from 9am to 5pm to keep the kids occupied. There were also lots of arts and crafts to be done and most of them were free.

One of the staff taught the girls how to draw chicken, and Zaria immediately started working on her (four legged chicken) piece.

At 11am, thanks to my sis who prebooked our seats (only 11 seats per trip), we followed the hotel free shuttle to Phuket town.

We spent all our time shopping in Ocean and Robinson, and had late lunch; and then took the free shuttle back at 3:30pm.

Children didn’t want to nap, and preferred to do more swimming.

That night, we walked out to Look Mai, another restaurant near Westin (only 2 within walking distance). This time, we checked all the prices and made sure ‘small’ portion was ordered. The prices were definitely more reasonable, and the cooking more homely.

The girls wanted to watch TV when we got back to our room, but Zaria knocked off 5mins into the show (no nap == early bed time). Tasha came over to sleep with us, and shared a bed with Zara. Daddy moved to the roll over, and claimed it was more comfortable than the heavenly bed.