Glen decided to celebrate turning 40 in style so he booked a seven-bedroom villa in Phuket, Thailand, and invited friends along to fill it. Ten of us converged on Phuket from different parts of Australia, all arriving at different times.

Glen and I left Perth very early on Good Friday morning, transitting (is that a word? It should be) through Singapore and then landing in Phuket around 2pm. Dion, Ben, Donna and Callum were waiting for us on the other side of immigration in the steamy heat. Glen and I had joined the short queue at immigration, not realising it was only being processed by two officers while the ‘long’ queue rapidly shrunk and was dealt with before we’d got to the front of the queue.

A staff member from the villa was waiting for us with a sign, we collected the other four of our party, and then drove south to our accommodation for the next six nights. Anna and Rob had arrived early and were already checked in (and napping) by the time we arrived.

The villa is stunning. There’s an infinity pool and a big lounge and dining area, then the bedrooms are all different sizes with different views. Glen and I took the master room at the top (also on the same level as a bbq and outdoor seating area), while the rest took their rooms on the other three/four levels. We’re also high enough on the hill to be surrounded by forest and with a gorgeous view across to the ocean. We were in humid heaven.

We then spent a few hours in the pool with our drinks. Anna bought an inflatable unicorn at Sydney airport which was very fitting for us and was much enjoyed.

We had dinner at about six or seven with a selection of six Thai dishes cooked on site, with a whole steamed fish, Thai green chicken curry, pad thai, and a whole heap of other dishes that were delicious. To wrap it up we had coconut sticky rice, Glen’s favourite.

We all tried to stay up late but Glen and I were wiped so everyone except Donna and Callum toddled off to bed. Simon and Julian arrived a little later but the rest of us were dead as and happy to crawl into bed.

Relaxation Plus

We spent Saturday doing very little. We swam. We ate. We played games. We organised the rest of our activities. We really did eat too much. The staff were impressed and pleased that we’d polished off the previous night’s massive dinner, but we think they then took it as a challenge to see how much they could feed us. The lunches and dinners have gotten progressively bigger since then.

Elephant Jungle Sanctuary

Despite being on holiday, we rose early on Sunday morning to go to the elephant jungle sanctuary. Donna and I were keen to go see one though were anxious about supporting unethical animal-based tourism. We think we found a decent one with Elephant Jungle Sanctuary as it’s sister-camp in Chang Mai is highly regarded.

We had an early breakfast – the cooked breakfast includes omelettes but it’s been a bit hit and miss when the omelettes arrive as not everyone has always got what they ordered – and then were taken on a half hour car ride to the sanctuary.

The sanctuary runs two sessions (a morning and afternoon) and there were about forty people there for the experience. We paid our money, listened to the spiel (the elephants are bought from illegal logging camps and given new homes in the jungle sanctuaries), and then went to feed the five elephants who were down that morning.

They ate watermelon, sugar cane and bananas, either taking the food from our hands with their trunks or with us putting them in their mouths. We did that for about half an hour before getting changed and going down to give the elephants mud baths.

Cue my Western sensitivities about amoebic meningitis and other parasites living in mud… We were soon covered in the stuff, much more than the elephants. We then went into the pond – more horror over getting infected with something nasty – and washed the elephants and ourselves off.

Germ-phobia aside, it was really fun.

Elephant bathing done, we had a shower and then Donna, Glen and I volunteered for a small cooking demonstration before we all had lunch. They then gave us some Thai-style ponchos, made in Chang Mai, and we were done. For 2500 THB it was worth the early morning start.

Back at the villa, we swam and relaxed before going to the night markets in the evening.

From Amoebic Meningitis to Gastroenteritis?

We quickly got through the shopping stalls and found the three long aisles of food stalls. Despite my reservations about eating from food stalls, it was all fairly manageable.

We ate delicious fish cakes, steamed dumplings, mee goreng, chicken satay, potato balls, and banana roti, all washed down with a few beers. Food was great and we didn’t get sick. The heat inside the markets was close to unbearable and I don’t know how people can work in there for five or six hours with very little cooling.