Jenni goes east: Phuket is paradise

When we booked our South East Asia trip, we were excited that each stop was something different. Stop 1 was a city (Singapore - read all about it in my previous blog post), stop 2 was a beach (Phuket) and stop 3 was a jungle (Elephant hills). So after a lot of hustle and bustle at stop 1, we were excited to arrive in Phuket for a few days of relaxing, sunbathing and lots of midday cocktails.

We were booked in at the Amari Phuket, which was right by Patong beach and was such a beautiful place to stay. The rooms were massive, we had a private beach and there were 2 lovely pools too. They also had super comfy sun loungers round the pool which sounds like a small detail but a whole day of lounging around can really do your back in if it's not the lovely cushioned kind (it's a hard job but someone's got to do it).

It was already mid afternoon by the time we arrived in Phuket so we simply got ourselves straight round the pool to enjoy the lovely weather and cheap beers. Can you believe it was the equivalent of £20 for a bucket of 5 bottles?

Then it was time to get ready for our first night out! I'd gone for a pretty colourful wardrobe for Thailand so I went with this pink and orange combo for night 1 (everything shein oops). We were bed and breakfast at our hotel so we were going to be heading out for dinner, but couldn't resist stopping off at the hotel bar for a cocktail first. And they were literally the prettiest cocktails I've ever seen!

Evidently, pretty cocktails were the order of the night, as the next round came with hallowed out fruit as glasses! Our hotel was really ideally located at the side of Patong beach, so we only had to walk for about 10 minutes before finding lots of lovely restaurants. We chose a Thai one for our first night and I got the most amazing Pad See Ew.

After a busy few days of travelling, exploring and travelling again, it was so lovely to have a perfectly chilled day. The weather was a little odd; it was super hot (over 30 degrees) and humid but also really cloudy and didn't feel sunny at all. Yet, we all got tanned (and burnt!). It actually made for quite a pleasant tanning session as it never felt like your skin was literally melting off. It did mean you had to be really on it with the sun cream though as you didn't feel like you were burning at all. Luckily my bikini of the day was a good one for minimal tan lines. I love this brown zebra print number and it was a new treat specifically for this holiday.

We had 4 nights in Phuket and with 4 of us on the holiday, we decided we'd take it in turns to choose the restaurant. So for Aidan's choice, we headed off to a very highly rated Indian restaurant which turned out to be literally incredible. It was a little bit of a further walk down the strip but the food was amazing. After a day of all of us getting burnt, I thought I'd wear cream to really accentuate the redness! I love this playsuit and the cute little pom pom trim; I added orange bag and shoes, plus red earrings and lipstick for a few pops of colour to really set it off.

There was literally loads to do in Phuket in terms of excursions, day trips and activities and initially, we thought we might like to do a boat trip or two. But actually, once we arrived, we decided we were quite happy chilling. We'd had a busy couple of days in Singapore and knew we had a busy few days in Elephant hills ahead, so we just wanted to enjoy the downtime. Although, we didn't want to travel all that way to see so little of where we were staying so we knew we wanted to visit the old town. It was about a 30 minute drive from where we were staying, but taxis were so cheap that it only cost us about £9 each way. Plus we got to see more of the island on our travels! The old town itself was really pretty and we loved the colonial architecture. There wasn't masses to do there but we had a nice little wander around and we were glad we'd gone. For the day of exploring, I wore these printed floaty shorts and white lace bandeau top with beaded flip flops.

Then once we got back to the hotel, it was back to the status quo! Sunbathing, getting pizza brought to our sun loungers, drinking happy hour cocktails and trying not to burn in the deceptive sunshine. This bikini was another new favourite and I'm just obsessed with the colours and the shell print. It's also handy as it can be worn multiple ways, including strapless to eliminate those pesky lines.

The next night was dad's choice of restaurant so naturally we ended up at an Italian place (his fave). I finally gave the orange shoes and bag a night off and instead opted for black to go with this bright colour pop outfit. I'm obsessed with bright block colours at the minute so loved this green bardot top paired with this purple floral print skirt. I wore my hair half up and half down in an attempt to help it stay straight for longer, but tbh with the humidity at nearly 100%, it was in vain anyway (me and mum were like Monica with the 'it's the humidity' practically the whole time we were away). Again, we had amazing food, and we treated ourselves to a tuktuk ride to get home rather than walking back up the big hill, which was a lot of fun!

How quickly our last day in Phuket had rolled around! It turns out that time flies when you're doing very little and eating rather a lot. In fact, our lunch on the last day was one of my favourite meals. This Thai tapas platter was simply amazing as I'd been craving all the Thai starters but was never hungry enough at dinner to manage one with a main. Our hotel food was actually so good - I feel like we made a great choice with the Amari. Especially given the private beach too, which was where we finished up the day - my first dip in the Andaman sea!

When I first bought this dress, I knew it was destined for a night out in Thailand so I figured it was perfect for our last night in Phuket. I just love the satin fabric and the thigh split. The dress combined with the sleek pony and red lipstick made me feel rather boujee indeed. Naturally I was back on the cocktails before we headed out for dinner; this time we went to a Thai fusion restaurant and I got the most amazing red Thai sea bass. Although the portion was insane; you got practically a whole seabass AND potatoes AND a big dome of rice on the side! The restaurant was also super pretty with all the lanterns and there was live music playing too which was a lovely extra touch. We finished the night with a tuktuk ride past a less cute bit of Phuket - the lively strip! Which was wild and very much reminded me of South East Asia's answer to Magaluf! Needless to say, we didn't go anywhere on the strip but it was good to see it all in action, before our time in Phuket wrapped. It was such an amazing few days even though we just had a super chilled time. But knowing the action-packed few days we had ahead, it was just what the doctor ordered. Then it was onwards to Elephant hills (stay tuned)...