A Birthday Week in Paradise

A lot of people have been asking me why they haven’t seen me around in Hong Kong recently. It’s because I’ve been in Thailand exploring the country and creating content for HipThailandGuide.com which is due to launch in the next few weeks.

Recently I was invited to Phuket to stay at Andara Resort, which is owned by none other than Dr. Allan Zeman, the man who created Lan Kwai Fong, is in charge of revamping Ocean Park and is now developing the West Kowloon district.

The design of the Andara takes traditional Thai furnishings and blends it with modern comfort. Everything is built on a grand scale. The resort sprawls along an entire hillside 3 minutes away from Kamala beach and the villas and suites are massive! It’s a great resort for people who want grand spaces, abode-like comfort and luxury. It’s also great for those who are traveling with an entourage as many of the villas and residences have several bedrooms and their own private pools.

I was delighted to have met Allan Zeman himself, incidentally in the lobby of the resort. He was wearing a super cool Nehru collar button-down white shirt with stitching that looked like the rays of the sun. He also had a Balinese-looking necklace on and silver rings. It was a very young and stylish resort look. We talked briefly about the plans for the West Kowloon development and he said they were planning on building a performing arts center. Big Thumbs up!

After 3 days of being treated like a princess in the exclusive resort (I had a 3 bedroom suite overlooking the whole of Kamala beach with a private infinity pool at the rooftop), I flew over to Koh Samui to be reunited with some of my new BFFs who I met on the month and a half I spent doing hotel inspections back in February.

The plan was to go to the White Party for the 1 year anniversary of Nikki Beach and at the same time celebrate my birthday which was on April 10th, the day after. I dislike white parties as I can never find anything decent to wear, however I found a really amazing crocheted white dress on one of those makeshift beach shops during my stay in Phuket. It was really good quality and so flattering-an especially good buy for 500 baht!

My friends and I kicked off our sandals and danced the night away by the pool. There were bongo drummers, saxophone players, dancers, models and a big bubble machine blowing thousands of shiny soap orbs into the sky. At midnight, there was a huge fireworks show that lit up the entire sky. I know it wasn’t for my birthday, but it felt like it was anyway (how did they know it was my birthday?!) Shortly after midnight, the waiters started bringing bottles of champagne with bright noisy sparklers to a friend’s table. However, whoever bought the champers was not planning on drinking it and instead sprayed an entire bottle all over the place, including on my beautiful white dress. Thank God it was champagne and not red wine. My dress will live to celebrate another white party!

After Koh Samui, I journeyed onto Koh Tao, a place I’ve been meaning to visit for a long time. Koh Tao reminds me of my days as a young backpacker. Things are still underdeveloped and rudimentary there and that’s exactly why I like it. Electricity is patchy and so is the internet. The flushers don’t work a lot of the time and the toilets are always clogged. There was one sign in a public toilet that said “Pee pee OK, Poo Poo go home!” Whether or not you get hot water is also an issue. However all of this adds to the island’s untouched charm.

Oftentimes people in their 20’s will look around in Phuket and Samui and say “Where are all the young people?” Well the answer to that is Koh Tao. Visitors to Koh Tao, particularly on Sairee beach where the nightlife is, are mostly people in their 20’s. It’s a trendy Euro crowd with a lot of people coming from Scandinavia and England. I spotted a lot of Koh Tao trends for example- The Che Guevara refugee camp beard was quite popular, 80’s retro strapless bikinis, way farers, straw fedora hats and high-waisted shorts.

The reason the crowd is young is because you can still get cheap bungalows and there are not many luxury resorts for the older set. The island’s mainstay is the diving industry- so Koh Tao also attracts the sporty type. You see a lot of people running and exercising in the early morning and late afternoon.

Also notably absent on Koh Tao is the presence of girly bars. What a relief! That’s also probably why you get a younger, hipper crowd instead of retired old perverts that come to Thailand for sex tours.

When I arrived at Ban’s Diving resort, they asked me if I wanted to do any diving. I was unsure my PADI certification from eons ago would be in the database but when we checked in the computer it was! However given that I only had 3 days on the island, I decided to do a round-the-island snorkeling tour instead so I could discover more of the island. I was very pleased that the underwater casing for my G10 camera worked like a charm!

I was doubly grateful for the underwater casing as I was in Thailand just in time for Songkran- the Thai Chinese New Year. For those of you who don’t know what Songkran is- it’s basically a huge water festival held in April- the hottest time of year. The water was probably meant to symbolize blessings at one point but now the streets just turn into one big water fight and everyone gets involved, voluntarily or involuntarily.

I was going out to try to get some breakfast at this café I saw at the other end of the beach. I had heard Songkran can sometimes be intense so I dropped by 7-11 first, picked up a waterproof dive pouch for my keys and money, and put my camera in its waterproof casing. Thank God I had gone through the preparations because as soon as I stepped outside, it was chaos. There was a band playing bongo drums just outside the hotel and people throwing buckets of water at each other. As I stepped into the 7-11 there was a gang of guys with suoer-soaker water guns pretending to take the shop hostage.

I walked down the pathway and was greeted by my Thai massage lady who gently poured water on my back and put baby powder on my face. As I continued down the pathway things became even more chaotic. I was being assaulted by water guns and getting buckets of cold ice water down my back. (It was refreshing actually!) People kept throwing water at each other and screaming and squealing. Music was pumping from every corner, bikes were honking, people were dancing, running after each other and just dousing each other with water and baby powder at every turn.

The thing is- you have no idea where the water comes from- some of it might be sea water- who knows- but one thing you don’t want to do is keep your mouth open in case you inadvertently swallow some of it. I ducked into the back of The Office Bar, a makeshift bungalow bar, so I could drink a beer without getting seawater in it.

After the beer, I got to the T-junction where the beach road kind of ends and there was a mad party going on in front of the 7-11. The energy was crazy! Lady boys were voguing around in red high heels, people were dancing on a platform, there was tons of laughing and nary was there a dry moment. I got some awesome footage but after a while I had to take refuge back in my room because my fingers had literally turned into prunes from being constantly wet! It was my first Songkran and I have to admit- it was very exciting and loads of fun. I don’t think I’d want to go through that water war every year though.

Here are some of my Koh Tao tips:

The restaurant at Big Blue dive resort has amazing Pasta Napoletana, good music and a happening crowd, Wind Resort has awesome BBQ, New Heaven Cafe has great breakfast and free wifi but the staff doesn’t speak English. Fizz Lounge is brilliant for sunset drinks, Lotus Bar is really happening later in the night- they usually have fire-twirlers. The food at Seashell Resort is not too bad either. Farango (which is not on the beach) is good for Italian. For late night eats, the pancakes by the 7-11 next to Silver Sands can’t be beat. The guy named Ali from Bangladesh makes the best pancakes in town. There’s the traditional banana pancake but you can also get beef, onion and cheese or sausage. They are open from 8pm till 5am.

Activities- Do a round-the-island snorkel tour or take a taxi boat to Shark Bay or Ao Leuk. They are two of the island’s nicest beaches and are secluded and unpopulated. There’s also the tiny but stunning Koh Nangyuan island. It has a great viewpoint and a good easy dive called 'Japanese Garden'. The dive called ‘Sail Rock’ is the best dive in the area. We also had Dive Point near the ferry pier recommended to us for diving schools.
 

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