As promised in our hotel's promotional material, the best thing about the hotel is the view. Each room is a private bungalow built on the side of a steep cliff covered in dense vegetation. We started the day with a breakfast buffet at one of the hotel restaurants overlooking a large bay with Karon Beach stretching into the distance.
We finished the free breakfast and walked down the trail and over the rocks to the beach. A short time later we were on a rented motorcycle and touring the western coast of the island. When we grew tired of that game, we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing by the pool, Piyawat with his Kaplan Grammar Power book and I with my Teach Yourself Thai.
The highlight of the day, however, was attending the Phuket Fantasea, Thailand's answer to Cirque du Soleil. We took the motorcycle north along the coast, through crazy Patong, to Kamala Beach. A big buffet dinner was included in the 1600 baht (US$40) admission fee and since we hadn't eaten since the buffet breakfast (see a pattern here?) we gorged on good Thai food.
I had low expectations for the Fantasea show, since I have yet to see good large-scale entertainment (theatre, concerts, etc) in Thailand. But it turned out to be pretty good. It did a good job of stuffing a lot of traditional Thai culture and mythology into an hour and a half. In other words, there were a lot of trained elephants, quite a bit of silliness, and song-and-dance odes to rice farming. All in all, though, it was a good show that I'd certainly recommend to anyone visiting Phuket.
