Another Blog About Seafood?!

But no, it’s not necessarily what you think. One of the things that we did while in Phuket, Thailand was indulge in multiple trips to multiple spas. In 3 days I enjoyed a grand total of two 1-hour massages, an hour full-body scrub, an hour long pedicure, a manicure and an hour long foot massage including scrubbing at least 5lbs of dead skin off of my feet for about $120. 2 of these things were done as a package at our really nice resort spa. After 4 months of wearing the same boots every day, my feet could really use some TLC and Thailand is just the place to go for great therapeutic treatments at pennies to the dollar for what you’d pay in the states. One of the spas even sold their AMAZING smelling products. Lemongrass is the signature scent here, the scent of it is AMAZING (we had lemongrass ice cream one night!) so I picked up a few heavenly spa products- lip balm, oils, etc in the incredible scents to remind me of my time here.

But one of the coolest things we did was the “Fisho Spa”. As seen on Oprah, Phuket was full of these fish spas, where you put your feet (or your hands or your WHOLE BODY) into these pools of “Doctor Fish” which nibble away (though they have no teeth) at the dead skin. It was SOOO funny- I giggled and squirmed and squeamed the whole time- it tickled SOO much! Thailand is a culture that puts a lot of focus on the feet- it is rude to wear your shoes inside anything (like your hotel room or someone’s house or a spa) and any spa treatment starts out by them washing your feet, as seen here. Here is also a picture of the “Doctor Fish” attacking Nicole’s feet. Overall, it was a fun experience and I am glad that I could say I tried it. I’m not sure if it got a lot of my dead skin off, but it did help circulate the oxygen in your feet more, so we felt like we walked a little lighter in our sandals after leaving the “Fisho Spa”.


So then we checked into our hotel- the “Diamond Cliff Resort and Spa”. A lovely gem of a hotel, situated at the farthest most north point of Patong Beach (Patong is the ridiculously wild and crazy and crazy part of the island). We could walk there for outdoor market shopping (or bartering) and street-food eating in about 15-20 minutes or take a tuk-tuk for about $5. What is a tuk-tuk you ask? A tuk-tuk is a basically an oversized pick-up truck, with the back converted into 2 long benches for seating and covered. Here is a tuk-tuk. Yes, it felt slightly unsafe and probably wouldn’t pass any sort of government safety requirements in the States, but it is vastly safer than the alternative mode of transportation in Thailand: mopeds (with or without a food stand attached :)). Here I am with my 2 travel buddies for the port visit, Jean-Ann and Nicole in our Tuk-tuk.


Back to the hotel. The hotel was on a cliff (which made for some good exercise walking from the open-air lobby to our room). We booked the room through MWR (morale, welfare, and recreation) who sold hotel reservations on the ship the week leading up to the port visit. The hotel was incredible- normally the MWR hotels aren’t always the nicest and sometimes you don’t even get as good as a deal as you would online. However, this was reasonably priced at $160 a night for what is one of the nicest hotels in Patong Beach (most of the ones right in the heart of “downtown” were like $60). In fact, one of the stipulations of our hotel was “this is a family resort- no local joiners”- a local joiner being a lady you might meet out at “a go go” club. So we paid a little more for peace, quiet and relaxation.


The hotel had a lovely spa, 3 pools- one that had a swim up pool bar!, one halfway up the cliff with a view of the ocean and one across the street- ON the beach! The hotel reminded me a little bit of the hotel that Dan & I stayed at in Crete on our honeymoon- it was a very sprawling complex up a hill and the beach was small and rocky but gorgeous and quiet. Our room was wonderfully appointed with 3 double beds and 3 little sets of comfy bedroom slippers (since you’re supposed to take off your shoes!). everything was hardwood and the linens were white and had little wispy “curtains” over each bed! It really was a beautiful room and the whole properly was spread out and felt very roomy- I would have loved to have been there with Dan!


The 2nd day that we were there, we donned our new beach cover-ups that we bartered for at a local market and checked out the beach. Jean-Ann and her fair skin spent most of the time under a shaded palm tree but I wandered down to the beach. The beach was a little “alcove” part of the Andaman Sea, and the water was warm (but not too warm) and calm amidst the rocks.

Here are some pictures of the beach area. You can see the pool here- and to the right of the infinity pool was the beach
You could even see a cruise ship here in the background- what a cRaZy place to pull into! Overall, it was a GREAT place to stay- my only regret is that our duty day did not allow us to stay for more than one night at the Diamond Cliff Resort!

Other than spa-ing and beaching and eating, the only thing we really did was shop-shop-shop! And what fun it was, given that you could barter for EVERYTHING. And, like the rest of SE Asia, every single stand sold knock-offs. Knock off purses, knock off polo shirts, knock off Haviana’s, knock off Ed Hardy teeshirts (there were THOUSANDS of them! They must have known that 6,000 Sailors from SoCal were swinging through!). Like a good Aunt, everything I saw I wanted to get for my precious niece, Alexandra (baby kimono’s anyone?) and had SO much fun shopping for her. In an effort not to go totally over the top, I settled on an adorable bring pink polo shirt dress, one of the ones where the little skirt looks like a tennis skirt (a knock off, of course, but she’s 4, so that’s ok :)) and a tee-shirt with a patchwork elephant with 3-D floppy ears and a matching patchwork skirt. I am so excited to get home and send them to her! Given that I have NO idea what size children are, I bought up, hoping that she can grow into it if it’s too big. That’s the thing about kids, they’re always going to grow but rarely shrink, right?

I am already giddy for the markets and shopping in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I am obsessed with local crafts and gifts- I think it has to do with being at a stage in my life where I don’t have a lot of “knick-knacks” (although my mom would probably argue otherwise) and it is so much fun to collect things for our new apartment that represents our travels and this stage of our life together (unfortunately these are travels without Dan right now)- serving dishes, art, picture frames, etc etc. Kuala Lumpur has one of the world’s most famous pewter factories and I cannot WAIT to check it out. It will be a perfect place to get us some nice things for ourselves and family and gifts to have on hand. But I am just as happy bartering for knock-offs and local crafts and jewelry too.


One other interesting thing about Thailand is the way in which the people there express their religion. Buddhism is obviously the predominant religion in Thailand and you see small temples all over the city. People come up to them and leave flowers, lei’s, water bottle, half empty soda cans, pictures, toys, etc to show respect. Almost every restaurant, shop, etc (and apparently people’s homes) have a small corner like this. It was very interesting.

Well, I’d love to keep writing but it is already 2:30am and while I would love nothing more to stay up and continue chatting away, I should probably get some sleep. I am furiously finishing up Thailand blogging though because only a few days til we’ll be in a new port again! Hope everyone is doing well and I promise to do the best I can to keep you all entertained during the supposed massive snow storms that are about to pummel the east coast. Stay safe and warm!

Hugs & kisses!