12 Hours in Phuket | Phuket, Thailand

Ho Chi Minh - Phuket

To start: all I can say about this plane flight is WOW. Flying over all of the small Thai islands was amazing.

We packed a lot into our 12 hours in Phuket. Including me causing a bit of a scene at the airport not once but twice! First, when we saw the exchange rates for money (which we desperately needed) and secondly when a taxi driver tried to convince us that we needed to pay equivalent of $50NZD for our taxi ride. In my defence I wasn't the only one verbally expressing my disgust regarding the exchange rates. The cheap prices of Asia are obviously becoming engrained in me though because in NZ I would think that $50 for the taxi was a bargain considering the distance we needed to travel! Or maybe it was because we didn't have enough cash to actually fund the fare and I was being stubborn on accepting the airports exchange rates. Luckily, a lovely German couple must have seen this tantrum because they approached us and asked if we wanted to share a taxi - life savers! We all jumped in and headed to our hotel (our German friends, with no previous accomodation plans, taking our word that the Expedia reviews were good decided to spend the night as well). Upon arrival, we were told that there was a nice shopping mall "just down the road" where we could change money. So off we went for a nice evening stroll....but just down the road in Thailand must mean something else in NZ because we spent the next hour walking! The mall was amazing, as are all the malls we've visited in Asia to date, but we made the visit short so we could spend the evening relaxing at the hotel before our long journey in the morning.