We are staying at the Beyond Resort Karon beach.

An intimate and cozy, of hotel 81 rooms located directly on Karon Beach in the south of Karon Bay. Near to shops and other tourist establishments.

We are flying Malaysia Airlines out of Auckland to Kuala Lumpur and then onto Phuket.

The hotel does themed dinners every 2 nights – there was a BBQ one and this one was seafood one.

The dinner was 550 Baht each (about 22 NZD) and included all food but no drinks.

There was a very nice little moose on a square of bread. Lots of salads, and a large selection of deserts.

The seafood consisted of Prawns, Crab, Fish and Squid.

See all the people on the beach – I like to think of them as ants – ants everywhere…… Basically our hotel is the only one that is directly on the beach – all others are back on the main road and you have to cross over the road to get to the beach so most of the people in the water are not from our hotel but somewhere else.

The pool can be quite free of people at most times during the day – a lot of people spend 5-10 minutes in it and then go back to lie on their chairs. I have spent hours in the pool.

Pam has been in the pool which is a very rare thing, although she uses a smaller pool with bubbles and not so deep.

Breakfast is included with our room and there is a lovely deck that overlooks the beach if you are early enough to get a table there.

Amazingly we get Espresso coffees with breakfast something I thought I would not drinking until back home in NZ.

There is lots of nice fruits and they change one of them every day – most I do not know what they are.

In Phuket as in all of Thailand there are lots of tailors. We went to a couple of get an idea on price – quite hard to do as they are quite pushy and want to sell sell sell.

We found one that looked good and went back the following day but found the process to be a bit of a problem.

We decided on the fabric for some shirts (this can take a while) and then got measured.

Then it was time to pay a deposit. The man then decided that the visa machine did not work and wanted cash. We did not have any cash on us so they then went out and decided they could use someone else's machine. Probably another shop close by?

Then he was going on and on about a 7% fee he got charged and wanted to charge 100% of the price upfront.

So after 2 hours all up or close to it I got pissed off and left the place never to return.

We had enough of tailors for that day

Next day we went out again and found a new tailor called “Thomas Exclusive Style”

I am not sure how the process works exactly, but it looks to me that this guy gas the fabric and then he has people who make the products from his stock.

Pam & I both bought some tailored clothing from this man. Every time we go back to his shop he tries again to upsell us something else – and every time the price gets better.

I bought 6 shirts (+1 free) + 3 pairs of pants for 9,000 Baht.

Got upsold 2 more pairs of pants for 2,000 Baht.

Got upsold 3 more shirts for 1,800 Baht.

This was it – no more now – all up about 12,800 Baht.

Pam had quite a few things made and also ended up buying some more.

The process basically goes like this

• You look for some fabric and decide what you like – colour, texture, pattern
• You get measured
• You pay a deposit
• They make one of the items and you come back the next day to try to try it. So 1 shirt, 1 pant.
• UPSELL
• They then make any alterations if you want them to and a day or so later you pick them up.
• UPSELL
• Pay the balance

They seem to work 7 days a week – always looking for the next customer.

Eating at the Red Chopsticks again – it is very nice and popular.

Duck Curry and Massaman Curry (again) – both lovely.

Breakfast – black pasta frittata, a chicken and noodle dish and a potato rosti.

Noodles with Seafood

Rice with sausage, and a nice noodle dish.

I had seen this on TV at some point previously and I wanted to give it a try. 100 Baht for 15 minutes. Kind of tickles.