202 ART, Phuket and Tripadvisor

TRAVEL AND ART BLOG

For those who read my travel and art post a couple of weeks ago called Thailand here we come! this is the continuation of that.  As you may remember we were not very happy with the hotel and after a big of searching on the internet we decided to go and look at the hotels we liked the look of first hand, as we didn’t want to have another disappointment.

Oriental painting

ORIENTAL PAINTING

This particular painting is actually of the Chinese Gardens in Sydney, but I think the oriental feel fits quite well into my Thailand story.  No doubt Phuket and this holiday will find its way into artworks later on, that’s for sure.  If you look closely you will find my hubby and I with the two kids in this painting (often we appear in my artwork) as this was a day we enjoyed whilst in Sydney for a wedding.

ARTISTIC INSPIRATIONS

Anyway back to Thailand as we spent the first day going around checking hotels out in the Patong area and settled on the Mercure after checking out their rooms and facilities.   Our room was on the sixth floor with a balcony which was in a private position (away from the stairs and walkways) overlooking the lovely pool and swim up bar.   Breakfast in the restaurant was plentiful and we enjoyed cocktails in the swim up bar during happy hour as well as in the lobby area where there was also some great live music for a couple of hours each night. The hotel was central to all areas with Hard Rock Cafe across the road, the markets along the way and Bangla road and the beach within walking distance.

THE ART OF TRIPADVISOR

Happy Hour at the Mercure

As I wrote a TRIPADVISOR MERCURE HOTEL review when we got back I was very happy to see that the General Manager had immediately taken up my two suggestions for improvement, needless to say that was not the case with our other hotel TRIPADVISOR BLISS HOTEL I must say that I do really like TripAdvisor which gives you a chance to see what peoples opinions are and also to rate your own experience both good and bad.  I find though that you have to take everything with a grain of salt to account for biases and tastes!

TAILORED ART

The rest of our stay was great, we found lots of good restaurants, had some suits and shirts made by a tailor David (he was originally from Burma but spoke very good English and also Swedish as it turned out) who I would also recommend.  We did of course do a lot of shopping at the markets and shops on our walks and the quality of the goods in Thailand was really good for the most part.  Saw quite a few “backrooms” with high end knockoffs too, which of course demanded a higher price.

I found the Thai people very friendly and nice, perhaps not quite as full on in their selling style as it is in Bali if you show the slightest bit of interest in their wares, which meant shopping was a little more relaxed.

THE ART OF THE HAPPY ENDING

We both loved the Thai food and also tried quite a few other cultures restaurants too, which was fun but my favourite thing to do was to have a massage.   Hillivi our daughter recommended a fantastic spa at very reasonable prices very central to everything called Limone where we went almost daily.  You really have to choose your spas with caution as we learned from an amusing story told by our friends (who recently celebrated 30 years of marriage)Jim and Ros Franks who on their Phuket holiday decided to have a massage each.  From what I understand they were in adjacent rooms at the same time, and both massages were lovely and relaxing, that was until Jim’s masseuse startled her client awake and said; “Only five bucks extra for a Happy Ending!”

So I will leave you with this quote from Jim Rohn (perhaps he is just home from Thailand too:), one that was perhaps faced by our friend Jim recently;

“Everyone must choose one of two pains:  The pain of discipline or the pain of regret”

Till next time, happy painting and sculpting and of course lots of happy endings, lol.

Love Marie xxx

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALEand SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.