Phuket Thailand

Our first stop in Thailand was in Panwa Bay near Phuket. We stayed at a fancy hotel that we booked through hotwire.com called the Panwa Beachfront Resort. We got such a good deal for this awesome hotel room with patio doors that open directly to a pool. Our friends were just a short swim over in their identical mansion hotel rooms.

This hotel is quite a contrast from what we had in Japan for the past 2 weeks.

This was our room in Tokyo – the 4 of us slept in 1 big bed with no room to spare.

tiny hotel room in Tokyo
tiny hotel room in Tokyo

And for less money each night, this was our hotel room at the Panwa Beachfront Resort, Thailand.

Panwa Beachfront Resort - our 2 story room
Panwa Beachfront Resort – our 2 story room
Panwa Beachfront Resort room view from our first floor.
Panwa Beachfront Resort room view from our first floor.
Panwa hotel view of the pool that attaches the rooms
Panwa hotel view of the pool that attaches the rooms
Panwa Beachfront Resort room from the second floor
Panwa Beachfront Resort room from the second floor

These pictures don’t show the walk in closet, the giant tub with California shutter windows looking into the bedroom, or the 2 bathrooms. I don’t think I’ve ever stayed in a hotel room this big, I felt a little guilty about it.

The hotel had 2 other amazing pools and it was on a beach that was safe to swim in, the water was warm and salty and would have been great to float in all day long.

Our first day there was really relaxing and luxurious. It was paradise. Then by dinnertime, we noticed that we all had giant sunburns. It was a typical first day move for us Canadians.

The breakfast at the hotel was great, there was good selection of Western and Asian cuisine and awesome pastries that we would sneak out for later. The food wasn’t cheap though so we wanted to venture out for dinners.

The downside to the hotel was that it wasn’t very close to anything outside of the resort. The road was not really walkable and we had to get a driver to take us to town for other dining options.

We hired a driver to take us to Patong Beach. We walked the busy streets full of shops and bars and restaurants. It felt safe but dirty, people were smoking all around us which raised questions from the kids as we are not used to this in Canada. We watched the sunset at the beach and ate at a seafood restaurant where we had to pick out our giant prawns from a little market.

Then it started to rain with frequent flashes of lightening in the distance. The rain was so heavy that the restaurant started flooding in spots. We had to slosh through water to get to the toilets, there were leaks in the roof of our restaurant and all the workers scrambled around to get all of the awnings up. Our drive home was very interesting, from the comfort of our big van, we watched all the people on mopeds and tuk tuks driving in deep water, their bare feet buried in the water. Some had those plastic bag type rain jackets on with the hoods tied tightly exposing their faces only. Others wore only their bathing suits. It was night time, dark and wet, the streets were totally flooded and nobody even seemed to notice, like this was a regular occurrence.

1,184 comments

  1. Such fun to read this blog from Phuket. I hope the rain stopped by morning. Lucky you to have paradise to go home to.

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