[jbr715]

Ladies and gentlemen, I have for the past couple of year’s been using this forum as a valuable source of information for forthcoming trips to Phuket and I feel it is about time I a) thanked those people who have given their advice and recommendations and b) offered some advice of my own that others may find useful.

It is not beyond the realms of possibility that this will be my one and only post, but as stated earlier I have benefited from this forum and hope that others will benefit from my own experiences, so here goes…

My trips to Phuket are always with a group of friends whom share the same outlook to life; work hard in “Blighty” and work even harder on holiday! We are all in our mid to late 30’s and have fairly good incomes, which allows us a certain lifestyle and for that reason we tend to do the higher end stuff during our holidays.

We have now been five times and are due to be back in Phuket in March this year, we have always rented Villa’s during our stays, mainly because of the freedom and privacy it gives us, we have stayed in Villa Lilla in Kamala four times, Baan Sabai once and in March we will be staying in another Villa in Patong.

In terms of how we get to Phuket from the UK, we fly business class and have flown with BA – nice beds, EVA – nice seats great service and will be flying with China Airways via Amsterdam this time, bit concerned about seat comfort but the flights were under £1000 – bargain me thinks!

We often stay in Bangkok for a couple of days, have done the Siam Reap thing in Cambodia – recommend doing but not for more than a couple of days. Fly down to Phuket with Airasia or Nok Air - who were cheapest this time £100 for three of us return.

My experiences of Villa renting are very good, being able to step out of your room suffering from a hangover, with your hand in your pants checking everything is still there from the night before, is far easier and more acceptable if you know those other people by the pool are your friends and not a Eastern European buffalo who checked in the night before – No offence to Eastern European Buffalo's!

Villa Lilla is a lovely villa, the owner is a friendly chap and the villa itself is great if your happy to be slightly away from all the action, we have always eaten just across the road and have spend many an hour in the Kamala Lawn Bowls Club throwing black balls backwards and forwards in an activity that in any other location or situation, I would never dream of doing!

Baan Sabai is a cracking villa, it’s expensive don’t get me wrong, but the staff are amazing, the food is to die for and the delight on the faces of your overnight guests when you get home is fantastic to see!

In March we are staying in a different villa, from the pictures I have seen it looks magnificent, it does not have live in staff, but it is close to Patong itself so we don’t expect too many problems on the food/laundry front.

The villas we have rented have been through Phuket Luxury Villas or direct with the owner, can recommend “PLV” – this is not meant to be an advert just advice – but they are expensive and do deal only with high end stuff.

Activities wise, we do the normal BG stuff, all LT we pay what we want to pay, know what the going rate is and go from there. As mentioned previously we do the Lawn Bowls thing a couple of times each visit, it really is good fun even if the preconception is that it’s a hobby of old codgers. Sometimes play golf either at Phuket Country Club or Laguna, prefer Country Club but only for the reason that it’s more relaxed and the caddies wear “Smurf” suits!

We also tend to do a couple of scuba dives, this is done in conjunction with the chartering of Blue Lena, a 38 odd foot cruiser, absolutely fantastic experience, even though its quite expensive, which I can recommend highly if your budget can manage the cost – they will arrange a Dive Master plus all the gear needed.

Never knowingly been to MTB; may have unknowingly! Although think this time we will make an efforts to at least pop in for a couple.

Well that’s about it, I hope this will be useful to someone along the way, I could spend hours telling this or that story, but overall the thing my friends and I like the most about Phuket is that every day creates its own story!

Once again thank you to all those BM's who make this forum possible, life generally only gives back what you put in and clearly some people put alot into this forum.