The plane took off from Suvanaphumi Airport at 8 o'clock in the morning and that started our journey to Phuket, an island province in the southern part of Thailand whose nick name is "the pearl of Andaman sea." It took approximately an hour on board and we arrived safe and sound at Phuket International Airport. In this trip, we traveled in a group of 5 people - 2 adults and 3 youngsters, thus it's advisable to rent a car and drive freely around the island by ourselves. We ended up getting a compact black Honda Jazz for our trip and I was a driver. Even though I didn't know the way around, I could easily take everyone to the hotel with the help of a map and good navigator. We stayed at Hilton Phuket Arcadia Resort & Spa on Karon Beach in the west-southern part of the island in the Suit with a fantastic panoramic view of a sea and the area around the resort. After taking some rest, we decided to have a lunch around Patong area which was 20 minutes by a car. As it seemed that all parking spaces by the sea were always occupied, we ended up getting ourselves to the newly open department store called "Jungceylon" and ironically having "Burger King" as our late afternoon meal with Starbuck coffee. We did some shopping for snacks and drinks as the hotel's minibar price-list was usually crazily high. As the night fell, we headed out to see friend of our trip organizer at his restaurant by the sea called "Kan Eang 2." The sea-food here was freshly delicious with excellent quality. We went back to the hotel not too late as tomorrow would be a big day for full-day excursion to Phi Phi island area

We woke up and prepared ourselves for a day-trip to Phi Phi island. We got on the van that took us to Chalong Bay on the south-eastern side of Phuket to board a speed-boat with some other 50 passengers - mostly foreigners. Just an hour off shore, we got to our first and most beautiful destinations of the day - Maya Beach. This is the place where Leonardo DiCaprio could get a hold of himself in the controversial movie "the Beach." Even though it was said that the movie set destroyed all natural beauties of the place, after Tsunami two years ago, the mother nature had cleaned the beach and Maya was getting more beautiful. The grains of sand is smooth like a baby-powder and the sea water is crystal clear. After admired the beauty of the beach, we went snorkeling nearly and then had our lunch on Phi Phi island. In the afternoon, we went to Kai island. Some took a nap, some played beach valley-ball while I swam and walked around this small island. This ended up our day-trip under the clear blue sky. At night after relaxing in the hotel for some times, we went back to Patong for dinner at Savouy restaurant. The night was young but it's impossible to take a detour to one of those pubs and bars in Patong because we traveled with teen-agers. In the end, we came back to our hotel and watched the movie from the cable inside our room instead.

It's raining all day long and we decided to stay inside the hotel. There were plenty of activities to do including visiting the Game room where you could relax and enjoy variety of classical board games or even played the PS2 console. Those who prefers in-door sports would be pleased to be able to play table-tennis and squash or even go to the fitness-center for working out. In the afternoon, we visited the hotel's pool equipped with a spring-board. The rain stopped in the evening so we decided to have our dinner at the restaurant by the sea called "Danung" - no, it's not Vietnamese Danung. This restaurant is in the same league as the place where we had our dinner on the first day when arriving Phuket. We should go to bed early as our plane would leave early on Monday morning.

We woke up around 5 o'clock in the mooring and packed everything ready to go back home. The check out process of the hotel caused a tiny problem but we couldn't  lose any minutes as we might miss the plane. Finally, I drove without looking at the speedometer and arrived at the airport just in time for boarding. With more hate, a youngster in our group forgot a PSP hand-held game-console in the rent car. Fortunately, the plane was delayed so I could retrieve what is lost thanks to the kindness of the stewards and ground-officers as well as security officers at Phuket International airport. The plane arrived at Suvanaphumi Airport around 9 o'clock in the morning and suddenly the members of our team (of 5) realized that one of big bag was missing. Fortunately, the bag was at Lost & Found counter in the Phuket airport  which could be retrieved by someone in Phuket. Hopefully, the bag was in the same condition.