With that, after day 7 (well it’s either 6 nights or 7 nights I really can’t remember) it was time to head south and stay at hotel #2.
Part of the Phuket Sandbox was the requirement to stay in a hotel for at least 6/7 days – this is to keep you from spreading covid everywhere and stuff. As much as we loved Banyan Tree, we wanted to explore other places!
We left Bang Tao area and headed towards Patong.
Generally not a huge fan of Patong – but one of the best hotels in Phuket is a 15 minute drive from Patong.
We arrived with excited anticipation to Rosewood Phuket – an amazing hotel built after the tsunami into the hillside, focusing on natural preservation of landscape and sustainable construction – and also sustainable farm-to-table cooking.
The lobby of the hotel is absolutely stunning – can’t think of anything like it really!
We were escorted to our room, that was already stocked with a refreshment and we settled in.
Outdoor tub – nice touch!
Each room has an outdoor plunge pool, but it was a liiittle bit cold so we actually didn’t use it other than once – otherwise we went to the main pool.
Hungry for lunch, we headed down to the main area that has a refreshment station, pool, beach area, and a restaurant one level above.
The refreshment area was nothing short of stunning – the entire hotel was stunning I’d say. We were hungry so we ordered some snacks, AKA hamburger and flatbread pizza LOL.
During our time at the hotel staff was never really like, obvious, but seemingly there at a moments notice if you needed them. I’d also say that I think that they watched us because they seemed to know exactly when we went back and had something get to our door literal moments later. For free!!
All of this lux treatment really wears you out so we didn’t want to leave the resort for dinner, so we ate at their main restaurant, called Red Sauce, which I guess is Italian on the weekends.
Food was delicious – and well portioned, and we left STUFFED.
It was a wonderful evening and the staff were so chatty, helpful, and just overall really kind. I can’t wait to go back!
We got back to our room and of course, someone had been there…it’s like they’re watching us…
The next morning it was off to complimentary breakfast, which is literally all you can eat off a printed menu, and sometimes I felt like we were ordering a bible worth of food, but they didn’t seem to mind!
And the view while eating?? WOW!
As with all trips sometimes you gotta do the un-fun stuff, so that today we did laundry.
We also went to the mall in Phuket Town which was close to the laundromat. We skipped lunch due to the sheer size of the breakfast we had, and moseyed back to the hotel after a teeny tiny amount of shopping to…more free snacks.
I enjoyed the view, but they could have cut down the hedge and it would have been better!
I’m not going to make excuses, we really did enjoy eating at the resort, so we did again for dinner but this time did it at their refreshment bar area (that didn’t serve alcohol during covid – the only place that didn’t put it in a coffee mug…)
And we watched the sun go down.
They had a pretty well stocked menu, that was cooked upstairs in the main restaurant and brought down.
I will not apologize for ordering the burger a second time.
The next morning, time to eat again!
With….plenty of food LOL
Today we decided to swim in the resort’s ocean / beach area.
Yet again we skipped lunch and ate dinner only – this time we did takeout through Grab, and sincerely misjudged how much food we actually ordered. It just seemed too good to be true that we were ordering things that were like 2-3 dollars – well, that’s how cheap it was and we ended up with A LOT.
Funny side note, the other requirement of Phuket Sandbox is location tracking and an app. Well, it certainly follows you around!
The next morning we were back at it with a big breakfast!
It was our last day in Phuket, so we went to get our final covid test that would give us our results so we could fly back to Korea. After that we perused Phuket Town a bit and then went back to swim! I think we kept going back and just staying at the hotel for, well two reasons – one, we didn’t want to catch covid and get stuck there, and two we really, really loved the hotel! They were nice enough to let us do late check out!
And with that all good things come to an end. I guess since it was the end of the trip I was just trying to get us home and it was a little stressful, so I didn’t take many pictures.
The Phuket Airport was desolate – it seemed like our flight was the only one taking off. It was painful trying to get our ticket, as they couldn’t seem to understand that I was an American not going to America. I guess they get penalized if they bring people who can’t enter but it’s not like the guy understood the visas anyway? I get frustrated when airport agents act like immigration agents. Anyway.
There is a single lounge that’s open – and they have some food – but it left a lot to be desired. Actually, I take that back. There was more food there than in Korea or US airport lounges so I can’t bash it too much although I found it funny this was one of the food items.
Flight to Singapore was uneventful!
We overnighted at the transit hotel in Singapore, and again the process was nightmarish, where you have to be escorted everywhere. Transit hotel staff were standoffish and rude. Thankfully our flight was 8am so we could get out and head home.
They served breakfast since it was a morning flight.
Once we arrived we had to “quarantine” but Korea allowed modified quarantine for vaccinated people so we did that.
Be Still My Seoul 