We spent 5 glorious days in northern Phuket from 18 to 22 Dec, doing absolutely nothing and yet indulging in everything we so desire. Languid days melted into one another, until we could hardly distinguish between each day. The tranquillity experienced in northern Phuket, far from the madding crowd, was therapy in itself, where we were able to feel at one with nature, each other and ourselves. Beautiful.
Here are some highlights of the different Phuket that we had experienced:
1) The Hotel
In keeping to my preferences for hotels situated in remote locations away from the city, I researched for and selected a hotel - Holiday Inn Mai Khao - situated in a secluded part of northern Phuket. The hotel was perched right beside the majestic Andaman Sea, and located right in Phuket's Sirinath National Park. We were truly removed from civilisation - with bustling Patong about 40 to 45 minutes away, ensconced in the arms of serenity and stillness.
The hotel was pretty luxurious with modern resort-like architecture, despite its 4-star rating, and the service was one of the warmest Hubby and I had seen in our manifold trips overseas.
We booked a Kids' Suite, which was the best decision we had made - it provided us with the luxury of space needed by 2 growing daughters, yet allowed us to be close together in one living space for perfect bonding.
Essentially, the Kids' Suite comprised of 2 rooms connected by one huge common bathroom, with bunk beds and bright, colourful bedsheets in the children's room. Needless to say, the Bees were thrilled with the bunk beds and their own little private space!
Food
Another excellent feature of the resort was the promotion that kids could eat free for all buffet meals! When we topped this off with very reasonable buffet prices (usually around S$20 to S$30), it meant incessant gorging for us during breakfasts and dinners - to the extent that I was frankly rather repulsed by food in the last 2 days!
The breakfast spread was good, and dinner buffets had different themes every night. We were very excited by a Southeast Asian themed buffet on a Thursday night, and were stuffing ourselves silly with favourites like Hainanese chicken rice, laksa, beef rendang, kuehs, Thai desserts etc! There were lots of Russians and Eastern Europeans staying in the hotel, and it was quite amusing to see their baffled expressions when they saw all these food that were so foreign to them!
Leisure Activities
We did not get out much from the hotel these 5 days (other than long walks on the beach and half a day of trekking which I will write about later). Firstly, we selected this hotel so that we could be staying within a national park; secondly, we wanted a hotel perched so close to nature's perfect beauty to purge us of our urban toxins; and finally, this hotel had a wonderful array of leisure activities within its confines, which was excellent to entertain the Bees when they got a little tired of long beach walks and wave surfing!
We spent a lot of hot lazy afternoons on team games like badminton and lawn bowling. The trampoline was also a huge favourite with the Bees and us - we loved that free fall feeling of jumping high up in the air, only to be sucked down by gravity, and then to bounce high up again. It was such a liberating, unfettered feeling!
There were plenty of board games and chess sets around. We spent a languorous afternoon amidst a thunderstorm, sipping coffee, eating Lamingtons and black forest cakes, playing Scrabble as a family (well, the Bees beat the 2 adults flat, sigh!).
Big Bee and Hubby also indulged in a late morning game of chess in a little pavilion just beside the sea, whilst Little Bee and I played Jenga (because lousy Mummy here was the only one in the family who doesn't know how to play chess!). With the balmy morning breeze twiddling its insouciant fingers through our hair while spending quiet time with one another, the feeling was divine.
There were also a good selection of DVDs and PSP games (the Kids Suite had a PSP playstation, although we did not use it) - and it was so easy to rent movies to watch in the comfort of our hotel room.
The marvelous thing about these activities was that the games and sporting equipment were all laid out for anyone to play, without the troublesome need to book or register your time. So, for people like us who prefer spontaneous play, it was so convenient and fuss-free!
We only went to the pool a couple of times, preferring to stay by the sea instead. However, the freeform, infinity-edge pool was situated just a stone's throw away from the beach, so it was quite an experience to swim in the pool while enjoying the seaview and sunset at the same time.
I am usually not one for Kids' Club, preferring to spend quality time with the kids instead. However, their Kids' Club was so attractive and colourful, filled with hourly fun activities that Little Bee could not resist them, and kept persuading me to let her spend some time there! There was a huge ball pit with a small playground in the middle of the club, and a huge playground outside.
There were also PSP games to play, movies to watch, and an interesting haxagon-shaped reading area for the older kids who did not want to be disturbed by nosy little children!
In the end, we did put the girls in the Kids' Club, while we indulged in a short spa session. When we returned after our spa to fetch them, we saw happy faces (yes, even from cynical Big Bee!). They had both learned a new skill from one of the club's hourly activities - balloon sculpting!
On the 3rd day of our vacation, the hotel also put up 2 huge bouncy castles on the grounds for the kids, much to the delight of the Bees, especially Little Bee!
Spa
I indulged in 2 sessions of Thai massages on 2 days - once with Hubby (when we left the girls in the Kids' Club) and another time alone, with Hubby spending quality time with the Bees, watching a DVD movie. Prices were so reasonable for the massage, the ambience was so peaceful and relaxing, and both my therapists were superb!
2) The Beach
Gazing at the boundless expanse of the regal Andaman Sea for several hours a day was a daily ritual that rejuvenated our flagging spirits and jaded urban minds. The horizon was a clear line, unobstructed by any ships or islands. The skies above seemed grander and more magnificent than other skies viewed from other locations.
Staring at these beauties never failed to make me realise the immeasurable magnitude of the universe, and how terribly miniscule we human beings really are, just like fragile chess pieces that could be smashed into nothingness and scattered all over.
Yet, these supposedly insignificant human beings -
us - seemed to possess such inordinate powers to potentially wipe out earthly existence with the industrial activities we indulge in. When faced with such breathtaking beauties of nature everyday, it is indeed forlorn to think that
urbanisation has taken over so much of Earth, wiping out the colours of nature with ugly grey city structures.
OK...I am ranting! Back to the beach...
Beachcombing
Mai Khao beach is the longest beach in Phuket, with a 11km of near-deserted strip of sandy beach. There would be pockets of hotel guests in the few resorts scattered around, swimming in the sea or worshipping the sun on the sand. However, in between these resorts, when we went for long beach walks, we often ended up being totally alone without chancing on anyone. This was the pure luxury of solitude.
We went on a particularly long 2-hour walk on the beach one late morning, which culminated in us entering another hotel (Renaissance) for lunch and a short coffee break. In that 2 hours, other than the few hotel guests near the resorts, we only saw about 4 other people taking similar long walks. The sand was coarser and darker than the usual fine, white sandy beaches, which made walking a lot harder and more challenging. Little Bee was a little tired from all the walking eventually! Even my legs were aching after trudging through the undulating sand for a couple of hours!
The beach was fringed by miles of uninhabited land with myriad coconut trees, casuarina trees and shrubs. Yet, other than the beachfronts of the hotels, parts of the public beach areas were filled with debris and rubbish washed up from the sea or from campers who had left beer bottles or fishing nets behind. Thinking of how these rubbish could affect marine wildlife just saddened me, and we used this opportunity to talk to the Bees about keeping our beaches pristine (although the Singapore seas and beaches are amongst the dirtiest I had seen, sigh).
We have a tradition of picking seashells from the beaches wherever we are on a beach holiday, so this holiday was no exception. I love this activity for the fact that it gives the family an excuse to pore closely at the sand on the beach, observing minute details, and picking out the best of seashells, whilst observing marine life on the beach punctiliously. We started with a small handful of collected seashells, which expanded to a huge bag of gorgeous seashells on the 3rd day!
Wave-surfing
The waves and currents were very strong here, despite the fact that the sea had become much tamer in December. We spent hours in the sea wave-surfing. Little Bee was a little terrified by the intensity and strength of the waves initially, but gradually got over her fear, although she still preferred to play at the edge of these delirious waves. Adventurous Big Bee was more of a risk-taker. Together with Hubby, they would venture further out to the sea, despite
red flag beach warnings. They would ride the surf, with Big Bee squealing in absolute delight. At times, the waves were so strong that they would crash right over the heads of Big Bee and Hubby, pushing them right to the edge of the beach or sucking them in with the strong currents.
I was a little skeptical and worried about the intensity of the waves, and insidious thoughts of the terrifying 2004 tsunami that hit Phuket kept creeping into my mind. On hindsight, I was quite glad that everyone was safe and sound, despite our hours of playing by the beach with rough seas!
Resplendent Sunsets
Both Hubby and I are unwavering fans of watching sunsets. For me, I love the brilliant, changing hues of the skies as the sun descends. Part of the advantage of staying up north in Mai Khao was that we faced the glorious setting sun to the west, and we sat on the beach almost everyday to gaze wondrously at the miracles of Mother Earth.
To be able to observe the gradually setting sun, to be immersed in the enchanting tangerine hues of the sunset, to feel at one with the ever-rotating Earth as we were plunged from golden brilliance to the lavender gloaming, and eventually dusky evening....we feel totally connected to the omniscient rhythms of the Earth indeed.
As Darkness Falls
We strolled on the beach one night, in total darkness, as we wanted to show the Bees a different perspective of the sea and beach in complete darkness. The swashing waves seemed louder, the breeze seemed colder, and the nocturnal world seemed more expansive in its darkness. We also hoped to observe a more active realm of marine life, but found it very challenging to achieve in pitch darkness. It was unfortunate that we had a new moon that night, which meant that sliver of lunar brightness could not emit any light for the mortal beings on the beach to see better.
However, we saw a few
sky lanterns floating up in the ebony obscurity, and it was magical to see these little cylinders of luminance slowly but steadily progressing up to the high heavens, transforming into little baubles and speckles of radiance, to join the brilliant stars.
3) Marine Wildlife
Elusive Marine Turtles
We are very fortunate to be staying on a beach where the endangered giant leatherback turtles (one of the largest and most ancient species of marine turtles)
prefer to nest, and we are even luckier to be staying here in the midst of nesting season! There were also other marine turtles which will nest here. When I first found out, I was thrilled, and hence, wanted to stroll along the beach at night in the hopes to catch a nesting sea turtle. Unfortunately for us, the darkness acted as a natural shield for these amazing marine creatures.
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| The Bees standing around a big marine turtle's nesting pit! |
However, in the mornings, we would comb the beach, in a bid to search for the nests of marine turtles, and often, we were not disappointed! As this seemed to be a busy nesting season, we could easily find several large turtle nesting pits along the beach, sometimes on the section of the beach just outside our hotel! Miraculous.
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| 2 big nesting pits were found side by side! |
Turtle nesting pits resemble huge craters in the sand, always along the high tide line. The fascinating thing is that sometimes, we could literally see the turtle tracks leading to and from the sea, especially if we were combing the beach early enough. Once, Little Bee and I chanced upon a nest crater with the outline of a turtle's head, its 2 front flippers and embossed shell patterns on the sand! We were awe-struck, and just kept gaping at the nest crater.
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| The eggs should be underneath the high pile of sand, supposedly created by the marine turtles to camouflage the eggs |
On our last morning in Phuket, we discovered nesting pits with tracks of turtle hatchlings (very likely the beautiful olive ridley turtle) heading towards the sea! It was a stupendous discovery for us.
Friendly Dogs, Shy Crabs and Some Nonchalant Fireflies
The beach was also dotted with an abundance of nervous crabs scuttling swiftly away and into their ubiquitous nests. Little Bee was a little spooked by these crabs initially (probably watched too many cartoons with evil crabs threatening folks with their sharp pincers!), but her fear was assuaged when she realised how shy and fearful these little crabs were.
The beach was also home to a few friendly dogs who would comb the beach for goodies from tourists, or look for a fun romp with a cordial beach lounger!
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| A friendly dog enjoying the sunset view |
During our walk on the beach at night, we even saw a couple of fireflies cruising past us indifferently! They were very amiable, unlike the shy ones we saw in Desaru - hovering very close to us on the beach, with their glow accentuated in the pitch-black beach!
4) Treks with Nature
Bang Pae Waterfall
On our 4th day, we visited Phuket's largest waterfall, the Bang Pae Waterfall. It was situated in the Khao Phra Thaeo National Park, which was only about half an hour's drive from our hotel. We had to trek and climb through the lush forest of the national park for about half an hour before we reached the main waterfall (adults might complete the trail in 15 to 20 minutes, but we had 2 city kids with us, so progress was a little slower).
It was the Bees' first overseas trek in a somewhat challenging forest environment - slippery and steep mud tracks, rocky riverbanks, fallen tree trunks, etc.
The walk down was more treacherous than the trek up, due to the lack of a proper path. So, we had to lead the way, and asked the Bees to follow where we stepped, just to avoid the prevalent loose rocks on steeper slopes.
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| The walking path was really narrow, and the drop down seemed a little precarious... |
I am very proud that Little Bee, being the little dainty self that she is, completed the trek up and down the waterfall on her own, without any complaints. And I could tell that Big Bee would be an adroit and adventurous trekker, keenly following behind Hubby and I as we walked through some difficult slopes. I am looking forward to future trekking holidays with them!
While the trek was thoroughly enjoyable, the waterfall itself was a little small, especially in the dryer month of December. However, we could see locals and tourists swimming in the water under the falls - how fun! For us, we merely splashed a little water by a rocky riverbank, as it was getting late and we need to adjourn to other places. But swimming under a waterfall is definitely an item on the family's to-do list!
Gibbon Rehabilitation Project
As we emerged out of the forest from Bang Pae Waterfall, we strolled past the
Gibbon Rehabilitation Project. This is an incredible effort to house and care for adult gibbons that are abandoned by commercial touts in Thailand, before releasing them back to the wild.
As we walked around the area, surrounded by the dense forest of the national park, we were treated to the haunting calls of the gibbons echoing throughout the silent, majestic forest. We listened and meditated - and were touched by the fact that Earth is filled with so many beautiful creatures, yet discouraged by the acts of cruelty that much of humankind inflicted on our fellow creatures.
Promthep Cape
From Bang Pae Waterfall, we adjourned to the southernmost end of Phuket to Promthep Cape, known as the best location to view a stunning sunset. Hubby and I were always fascinated by promontories, hence he was lured to this place after seeing online photos of the various islets and the signature Promthep Cape's promontory.
It was a breathtaking place perched on a high vantage point in which we could view the limitless Andaman Sea. The hues of the sunset were indeed splendid and magical from this vantage point, but I thought the crowds of people distracted me from feeling at peace and at one with the world. Hence, I still prefer our little corner by the Mai Khao beach for watching the sunset!
In all, I love this short getaway because we get to see a beautiful slice of Phuket that is not commonly listed amongst the top ten things to do in Phuket. I love it because time literally drew to a halcyon stop. It was restorative and rejuvenating - and I hope the Bees get a few steps closer to nature here as well!
