Phuket, Thailand: It’s called ‘poo-KET,’ not FOO-ket (and definitely not ‘FUK-it’).

We’d heard that Phuket was popular. Despite that, we decided to go there anyway.
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We'd heard that was very popular with tourists from all over the world and yet, despite that fact, we decided to go there anyway. To be honest, we didn't need much convincing: “Wait, the place is sunny, humid, AND in ? Woo-hoo, let's go get malaria booster shots!

You don't need a very good reason to go to Phuket Thailand.

The green water of Phuket Thailand
Holy crap, the water is CRAAAAAZY beautiful.

Located on the western coast of the southern Thai peninsula, Phuket is surrounded by the freakishly azure waters of the Andaman Sea. At 222 square miles (and almost the size of the whole country of Singapore), Phuket is Thailand's largest .

But it's tiny when compared to the mainland, which is the world's 51st largest country. Despite that honor, Thailand's still only a little bigger than California. So…I guess my point is…that, um…Singapore is a surprisingly tiny country. Sure, let's go with that.

Phuket Thailand has a lot of boats
An island off the coast of Phuket Thailand or something.

After getting our fill of Bangkok's metropolitan hustle and bustle, we hopped an and flew about 900 km south to Phuket International Airport. Arriving safely in the evening, we hailed a cab and drove the 60-mile 60-kilometer trip south to the remote town of Karon for some much-needed “sitting around doing nothing on a quiet beach” time.

Our beach hotel in Phuket Thailand wasn't on a beach.

According to some people on Wikipedia, the word “Phu-ket” means “mountain jewel” (because 70% of its surface area is mountains), so we probably shouldn't have been surprised that our hotel, CC's Hideaway was so…well, hidden away.

The pool at CC's Hideaway

Though their website says the hotel is “superbly nestled in the lush hills of Karon overlooking the Andaman Sea,” they really meant to say, “You'll need a shuttle bus ride to get to the beach.”

More “wedged” into the hills than “nestled,” the hotel's bold modern architecture really stood out among all the  thatched-roofed, traditional Thai buildings in the area. Yet despite its bright yellow and green paint job, the hotel still wasn't easy for cabbies to find. Nor was it easy to get to — the road up to the hotel angled so severely at one point that the driver had to stop the cab and rebalance the weight (basically, us) before attempting to climb it.

Our hotel in the mountains of Phuket Thailand
The lovely courtyard at CC's Hideaway.

Inside the hotel, we found a charming courtyard area with numerous lounge chairs surrounding a good-sized central pool ostensibly guarded by an inflatable Orca whale. Very reassuring.

The rooms were well-appointed with trendy decor and a rock-solid build quality. The hotel restaurant was surprisingly good, so we ate there often because, as we said, you need a shuttle bus ride to get into town—to the hotel's credit, shuttle rides to the beach were available hourly.

Still, our hotel was pretty nice.

Its location, high above the town of Karon, kept noise pleasantly to a minimum, but that only made our drunken late- singing more noticeable to the other guests. The view wasn't nearly as “impressive” as we'd been led to believe, but only because it would've required us to focus our eyes, and we weren't in this tropical paradise to do work.

Phuket Thailand street scene
Family on the street.

The hotel grounds were top-notch, and the staff couldn't have been nicer (though we didn't really put that to the test). In fact, the only real downside of the hotel was its lack of “being on a beach”-iness. Yet if you want to stay near the beach, but not actually on it, you could do a lot worse. CC's Hideaway was a really great hotel that we would highly recommend…like pretty much everyone else on TripAdvisor.com

We would've recommended the hotel even more highly were it not for the undetermined “animals” that inexplicably shrieked continuously in the jungle from dusk 'til sundown, the cat-in-heat who cried all night outside our room until the wee hours, and the cock that crowed us awake every @#%$$ing morning. Other than that, it was great.

So what's Phuket Thailand got going for it?

On the beach at Phuket Thailand
A thing on the beach place in Phuket Thailand.

As I said earlier (pay attention!), the water around Phuket is either freakishly blue or freakishly green, depending on the time of day. So when on the beach in a rented lounge chair got boring (two days in), we took a boat to the nearby Phi Phi islands — a group of six small islands south of Phuket Thailand — for some snorkeling, swimming, and further sunbathing.

On the trip, we got utterly and completed soaked to the bone as wave after wave of Andaman Sea sloshed over the boat's “protective” barrier, continually dousing us for forty-five full minutes. Fortunately, the bright sun and tropical heat dried us off quickly and sufficiently, so we didn't have to sue the boat company out of business. Whew.

The even tinier islands off tiny Phuket island.

The beach on one of those tiny islands we boated out to.

The boat took us to several exotically named locales: Bamboo Island, Monkey Island, Viking Cave, Pileh Cove, and Maya Bay (where Hollywood actor, Leonardo DeCaprio, shot the movie, “The Beach”).

Each locale was more spectacular than the last. And, unlike many normal land masses, the Phi Phi islands' limestone cliffs thrust dramatically straight up out of the water, seemingly from nowhere (but by nowhere, I mean, the continental shelf).

Weirdly, the base of each island appears to have been eroded over the millennia by those same sea waves. The result of the constant battering is an odd overhang that looks like the island isn't connected to the Earth correctly.

A fat dude standing underneath an eroded out-cropping.

On the plus side, it affords you shade on hot days without having to schlep an umbrella to the beach — I'd like to see that feature in other islands, too (get on it, lunar gravitational pull).

The Phi Phi islands' fine-grained beach sand was as white and toasty as any we've ever stuck our toes in, including the world-class beaches of Clearwater, Florida. In theory, the surrounding islands had all the makings of individual tropical paradises.

Tourists like us invading an island off the coast of Phuket.

These idyllic tropical islands had one major downside, however, and that was the fact that they were veritable magnets for every chartered, speed, fishing, or other boat, even cruise ships in the vicinity—each carrying their full capacity of pale-skinned, camera-toting tourists like ourselves. As a result, the Phi Phi islands were more crowded than the Taco Bell kiosk at HempCon. It was, to be blunt, kinda gross.

The Phi Phi islands aren't far from Phuket Thailand
People other than us cluttering up this otherwise pristine beach.

In fact, we've never been on beaches with more people. Like ever. But luckily, the massive crowds didn't bother us too much because we were only visiting each island for a period.

Had we intended to stay for a few hours or more, we might've felt inclined to murder a few…you know, as a warning to other tourists who might venture into our sun. Thankfully, it never came to that. NOTE: If you want isolated beaches like you see in brochures, try the Galápagos Islands.

Phuket's Old Town looks really old.

Old Town, Phuket Thailand

The next day, we went to Phuket's Old Town area and discovered a ton of Colonial Period architecture, though I suspect other people already knew about it.

We read that the style resembled the architecture of the British Straits Settlement, “Penang” — which was unexpected considering Thailand is the only Southeast Asian nation that has never been colonized. Apparently then, they just liked the aesthetic of British Oppression. Go figure.

Old Town, Phuket Thailand
Old Town, Phuket is not actually in Black & White.

Along with its European architecture, Old Town has super-narrow European streets and sidewalks, too. Suffice to say, Hummers and Escalades are not welcome here — especially since the Thai people drive on the “British” (aka, the left or wrong) side of the road.

Now, having casually flipped through a Phuket Thailand guidebook or six, we knew about the world-famous roti at Abdul's and had to try it. We each got our own, and it was pretty greasy — in other words, it was exactly like every other roti I've ever had, and equally delicious.

Chinatown in Old Town, Phuket

Overall, the area was pretty sketchy, kinda like seeing Bourbon Street during daylight. (Do. Not. Do. That.) Likewise, Old Town is the kind of place that looks best when you can barely see anything, like night. So in hindsight, we should've gone to see the Big Buddha instead because it looked really big even from a distance, and both cab rides cost about the same.

Later that night, we attempted to visit Patong, the really seedy part of Phuket (and probably the most fun), but learned that there was a huge automobile accident on the road, and since traffic in Phuket Thailand is no better than Bangkok, we headed back down to Karon again and went to “On The Rock,” an incredibly beautiful restaurant inside a beautiful hotel with a beautiful view that sells very reasonably priced, yet horrible, horrible food.

The charm of Phuket Thailand's Old Town.
Old Town, Phuket Thailand

While digesting the aforementioned…let's call it “food”…we waited outside a Dino Park Mini-Golf for 45-minutes to get picked up by the hotel shuttle. Evidently, you have to call the hotel in advance and let someone know you're waiting. D'oh!

Boats on the beach at Phuket Thailand
Not all the boats were speedboats.

The next day—at least I think it ended with “-day”—we had a light breakfast and then headed into a dark room with a strange man for “Thai massages,” which fortunately turned out to be Thai massages. Afterward, he promised to keep in touch, but he never did.

Now thoroughly relaxed, but sore and bored, we took the shuttle down to Kata Beach (about 20km south of Karon Beach) and sat in the shade of a rented umbrella reading eBooks while enjoying the balmy weather and delicious mango drinks (a simple mixture of mango, sugar-water and ice).

Just rocks poking out of the ocean.

Like all beaches in Thailand, Kata Beach was crowded as crap. Tons of pre-melanoma, daytime-drunk Europeans, Chinese, and Australians sunned their corpulent carcasses in lounge chairs while sautéing themselves in tanning oil, the smell of which was stultifying and a little like bacon.

The wrap-up on Phuket Thailand.

Kata Beach chairs and sunshine.

Overall, we had a really nice time in Phuket Thailand. We saw a lot of interesting…uh… We ate a lot of really good…um…We did a lot of adventurous…er, um… Okay, fine. We basically did nothing. We pretty much just sat on the beach reading and drinking mango drinks. Happy, now? Because we were.

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