Eat Drink Patong Beach

There are quite a number of kiddy attractions in Phuket, few of which like the Zoo, Butterfly Garden, Aquarium, Waterfall, Fantasea (cultural theme park), elephant trekking, island hopping, etc.

But besides elephant tracking, we did not move our butts out of Patong Beach. The hotel that we stayed, Holiday Inn, was very convenient for beach-buming. Just need to cross 1 street to the famous Patong beach. The hotel even has a guard who would assist to slow down the traffic, so that the hotel guests can cross without too much hassle. Holiday Inn is normally quite expensive, about RM500/night for a room that can fit a small family with young kids. But if book during their Great Asia Sale, the rooms is going at RM290 onwards! (I think economy not good, hotels also got sale. We booked during their 24-27 Feb sale & I saw that the hotel group recently held another one on 14-17 Apr.) But if don't like the hustle & bustle of being right smack in town, can always go to compare hotel rate, which for me, is better than most search engines because the hotel prices are quoted in our local currency & there are plenty of hotels listed, with rates comparison from multiple online merchants.

Patong Beach is relatively quiet when we were there in March. Supposedly to be low season. But still got plenty to 'sai ngan' (wash your eyes), as 99% of the female species there, from age 3 to 75, are clad in bikini! (Trust me, you would also be interested to look, if you are as self-concious as me & wandering 'why are they not'!! lol)

Though it's a busy beach, it's much cleaner & the sand is much softer than Penang's. Somewhat better than parts of Langkawi, in fact. One thing to heed is don't plonk yr stuff down at the sun chairs, because it's 200Baht for the use, which is not actually expensive if you are into some serious sun soaking (which we are seriously not, going by the amount of sun block I slapped on the boys & myself).

Food & drinks - plenty along the road parallel to the beach & along the off-roads too. If the craving is for authentic local fare, try the off-roads. But with my 3 very 'yim chim fan thong' (picky rice eater), of course we didn't, sigh!

Beer & drinks - There's a bar (or 5) at almost every corner, especially Bangla Road. Patong really comes alive at night.

Shopping - they told us that Phuket town have more variety & cheaper. But the taxis want to charge RM80-RM100 both ways, so Daddy told them to 'forgetaboutit', sob, sob! Mommy was able to seek solace in Patong's 2 small Ocean departmental stores, and its new Jungceylon shopping complex which houses Robinsons (wink!). Actually, I didn't have much to buy, except underwear, ha, ha, which is cheaper in Thailand (& on top of that, Triumph & Wacoal were having upto 30% sale).

And these Glico products:-
Glico Porky is going about RM2.90 here, but in Thailand, RM1.50 equivalent. The boys love it. Glico Thailand also have a lot of variety not carried in Malaysia too (or at least, I cannot find), one of which is the the yellow-color packaged LARB flavor which I absolutely love, love, love (Kor-Kor love too though it's a bit spicy). I think I bought more than 20 Glicos & would have sweep all off the shelves, if not for Daddy giving me the look!

Overall, it was great fun. The boys, as usual, cannot get enough of the pool & beach. Here they are living the high life:-