Club Med, Phuket Thailand

We have finally returned after 7 days in Phuket and we stayed at the amazing Club Med Hotel and Spa. The most amazing part really was the Hotel. It had fantastic gardens and a beautiful pool and even better: a Petit Club geared towards babies from 4 months old! A little creche during the day and babysitters after 5pm for 100Baht an hour (about R30.00 per hour!). I was really hesitant to use them in the beginning (I brought my baby with just to put her in another creche!) but after issues with the heat and seeing how much effort they put into entertaining the little ones I lost all guilt and just went for it: my tip - use them!

Phuket is not the prettiest place with a lot of wires hanging everywhere. Whether it is still from the tsunami that devastated the island or whether it always looked like this I can't tell. Still a new culture to explore and the shops are so much better in the malls than in South Africa (Starbucks people!). 

The one thing that really surprised me was, that for such a poor country, we didn't see one beggar. Most people have modified little bikes (tuk-tuk) to double up as a little restaurant selling food or anything you can think off.

We did a lot of things and there are so many things to do that we couldn't do it all but we did some:  

Elephant trekking - this was strange, sitting on top of a swaying elephant, feeding them these mini bananas. And there were baby elephants everywhere!

Temple watching - so many of them everywhere and all in red and gold not to mentions the little shrines outside every shop and house.

A trip to see the FantaSea Show that was like a mini version of Las Vegas (they even have chickens that are trained!). There were lights and shows and shops and everything in between, even a shop where you can dress in traditional clothing and take pictures. Amazing!

And a trip to Phi-Phi Islands were not to be missed. No kiddies under 4 though as we were travelling by speed boat (so little Em spend the day being entertained by Club Med babysitters and probably had more fun than us as the circus was in town). We visited one just for the beach, one for swimming, one to shop and have lunch and one again for catching some sun.

All those beautiful photos you always see, ever wondered if they were fake? Well I can testify they are not. Even a crappy photographer like myself could not help but accidentally take a beautiful photo everywhere!

Little Em enjoyed her time so much despite the enormous heat. She flew like a trooper (I will add my little list of essential baby-travel tips later) but the heat itself was a bit much and she had a fever if she was in the heat too much. Thank goodness for the baby-club where she could play inside whenever the heat got too much for her.

Despite the heat we had a great time and all thanks to great company and fantastic people at the hotel!

Where should we go next?