Chengdus & Don'ts: We made it!

The Pool with the beach in the background.

We departed for Thailand yesterday for our Christmas break. It was a stressful day as everything seemed to go wrong for us. We got on our plane and the flight ended up being delayed for 1 hour. We only have an hour to catch our connecting flight. I talked to the flight attendant from Thai Airways and she said she would call ahead and help us make our connecting flight. Right before we landed she moved us up to business class so that we could be the first off the plane. We had to ride a bus to the terminal and then try and catch our flight. We were pleasantly surprised when we were picked up by a Thai Airways van which whisked us away to our airplane. When we arrived at our plane the woman who picked us up spoke to another woman and they both hopped back in the van and took us back to the terminal. They didn’t tell us what was going on and I didn’t want to ask. They told us that we would have to go through customs first. They took us to customs, but as we were trying to get through someone radioed them and said the plane left. We had to go to the Thai Airways counter and try and catch another flight to Phuket. We were able to get a flight that was about 4 hours later and they were nice enough to let us use the business class lounge until our departure which was really great. We thought that nothing else could possibly go wrong, but when we arrived in Phuket at midnight there were no taxis stands open and we were at the mercy of the taxi drivers that were just waiting to take advantage of foreigners. We negotiated for about an hour before we found a very dodgy taxi driver to take us to Khao Lak. We arrived at the hotel at 2 am and we were very disappointed to find out that the room we booked was no longer available, so they put us in a different room.

A view from lobby of the pool and sea.

Since it was so late when we arrived we didn’t get to see much of the hotel or the grounds. We were pleasantly greeted by beautiful weather and scenery when we woke up in the morning. We went and had breakfast and then took a tour of the pool and the beach. I thought the tour of the pool and beach was important to do before I went to complain about the room, so I didn’t really let them have it. The pool was lovely with 3 different areas with different depths. The beach was more than fantastic! I couldn’t believe how clean and gorgeous it was and it seemed to go on for miles! The water was very aquamarine and warm.

I went and sorted out the room situation and they offered to discount us for two nights and gave Jonny and I a free hour massage in their spa to make up for their mistake of giving our room away.

The rest of the day we spent by the pool and on the beach with great food in between. Here are a few shots of our holiday so far!