Phuket
Congratulation to AirAsia! In recent Skytrax’s 2010 World Airline Award, AirAsia won for the 2nd consecutive year as the best low cost airline in the world. It was the winner in 2009 after beating all other popular budget airlines around the world such as Ryanair, Jetstar, Tiger airway, Air Berlin, Virgin Blue and so on. As the award was voted on by passengers, the result actually reflected the satisfaction index of passengers towards the airlines.
I’m so lucky to be in Malaysia who can fly whenever I like with AirAsia and I did fly in AirAsia for my recent tour to London as well as Phuket. I have had few flying experiences with them and my only comment on AirAis is that they are really getting better and better as a budget airline. From my first AirAsia flight to Bali to the most recent flight to Europe, huge improvement could be easily noticed, from the services they provide, the transparency of their pricing, the comfort of their seating and most importantly the punctuality of their flight.
I had 2 experiences of flying with Ryanair and Transavia recently in Europe. Comparatively and surely to conclude that, I had a better flying experience with AirAisa instead.
In fact, AirAsia had become the market leader in the local airline in terms of innovation. AirAsia always leads while other Malaysian airlines could only follow.
I love its transparency in terms of pricing. travelers can always get cheap or even free air fares if they decide where and where to go earlier, at least 6 months ahead. Every 6 months AirAsia will start a Zero Fare campaign for budget conscious travelers to grab a limited allocated seats to most destinations. After free seats have been taken up, price will progressively go up in stages, depends on number of seats allocated for each price stage until the ceiling price. Airport taxes are excluded. All other costs such as seats selection, check-in baggage and meal on-board are excluded. You have the options to buy or not. Other than that, there isn’t any hidden cost. This is called pricing transparency. Unlike other airlines who always rip you off with ridiculous pricing, passengers of AirAsia are the one to control the flying cost, not the airline. Check out my top 5 tips in booking Cheap AirAsia flights before doing so.
With the quality of their services being improved so much, I have more confident to fly with AirAsia for my upcoming worldwide travel and hope AirAisa can add more world’s destination into their map and long haul flights to US and Europe. Well done!
Again, I’m not attached to AirAsia in any way. I’m just a budget traveler who loves to visit other parts of this world with limited budget. Because of AirAsia, I have more opportunities to realize my travel plan and travel wishes. 
– Travel Feeder, the ultimate travel photo blog
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Apart from being a South East Asian and an Australasian tourists destination, with a totally different culture, weather and religion, Phuket and Gold Coast do have something in common. Both of them have beautiful long, white sandy beaches, beautiful sunshine, and friendly people. Also they are both very popular destinations among travelers around the world.
Why travelers around the world, including Australians love to visit Phuket while Thai and South East Asians love the beaches and sun in Gold Coast? Here are the top 5 travel experience travelers can have either in Phuket or Gold Coast and tourists should travel to these 2 hot tourists spot with 2 different approaches to have 2 separate travel experience:
- Phuket is best for singles while Gold Coast is best for family. You can stay up late until even next morning in Phuket for endless and lively night life. Bars, dance clubs and restaurants are open until late at night especially in Patong Beach. If you feel hungry in the middle of the night, you can always find something to fill. On the other hand, Gold Coast’s lifestyle is more relax and ‘healthier’. Most shops and restaurants close very early at night. Nightlife in Gold Coast is very limited. However, if you visit if your family, there are so many themes park for family and your children in Gold Coast. Being the Theme parks capital city of Australia, your family would love to visit either Warner Bros’ Movie World, Sea World,
- Gold Coast is best to drive around while Phuket is best to hike a Tuk-tuk. Perhaps it’s just my perception, I feel much safer and easier to drive in Gold Coast than in Phuket. Motorways are more systematic and motorists are more behaved (though not necessary at weekend night) in Gold Coast. The best part of driving in Gold Coast is to be able to drive up to the Hinterland and soak with the beautiful mountain scenes and vineyards. On the other hand, Phuket’s taxi or Tuk-tuk are so convenient that you better don’t risk yourself driving through all the trunk roads;
- Phuket’s food is cheap while Gold Coast’s wine is cheap. Quite a straight forward calculation. Aussie Dollars is much stronger than Thai Baht. Living standard in Australia is much higher. Thailand holidays is famous of its cheap but fantastic local cuisine. However, if you are a wine drinker, drink a lot of Australian wine in Gold Coast where they are cheaper than a Coke in Phuket!
- Gold Coast is best to stay higher. Phuket is best to stay lower. Why? Gold Coast has many high rise apartment along its 57Km long beaches. Staying higher at one of those apartment can have a wider and better view over the vibrant city. There isn’t many high rise apartment in Phuket and their best accommodation type is beach resort (perhaps it would be better for a city which experienced Tsunami attack before);
- Gold Coast is cool and windy while Phuket is hot and stuffy. My favorite time to visit Gold Coast is in March or Autumn when the weather is cool in the region of 18°C but still have plenty of beautiful sunlight. What about Phuket? Gosh. When I was there in October last year, it was really hot at day and stuffy at night. Without any wind blow, it felt even warmer than in Malaysia!
So be prepare when you travel to one of these 2 popular beach destinations in the world. They should be explored differently in different approach and travel experience you are going to have in both places are simply unforgettable. Good travel! – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog
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What do I do most on my travel to Phuket other than sight seeing and pressing my camera shutter? Eat. Eat. Eat. What do I eat on my travel to somewhere I’m not familiar with? Local foods. I love trying out delicious local foods at all places, be it restaurant, cafes or even street. I tried some local Thai foods at food court in Jungceylon which was good. I’ve also tried some local seafood at local seafood restaurant along Rat-U-Thit Road that was worth trying. But what to me was the best local food that we had in Phuket? Not the specialty food. Not the lobsters. Not the fragrance rice but the Tom Yam noodle selling on the street! Let’s find out how we discovered the street food while wandering about Patong Beach.
We actually went to morning market in Patong Beach on our 3rd day travel in Phuket. Walking along the Rat-U-Thit Road, we spotted a steamy motobike with a few of local Thais standing around the bike that tucked in the alley between shops.
Looking like we have found some local favourites, I decided to have a look closer. A bowl of soup noodle. It’s a mobile noodle stall!
Interestingly, this Thai was pouring some kind of sauce and started mixing the noodle himself. This vendor is selling noodle soup with fish ball and crispy pork skin.
It looked delicious and I wanted to give it a try. I asked the patron how much did he pay for a bowl, he showed four fingers to me, which meant 40THB or USD1.25 only. Sounds good. “Give me a bowl please.”
This hawker asked me whether want the pork skin and which flavour we like, Tom Yam or fish ball?
We ordered 2 bowls, one Tom Yam and one fish flavoured soup noodle with fish ball and cripy pork skin. It looked YUMMY!
Jean and Bobo. “Who wants to start off first?”
‘You taste the noodle, I taste the Tom Yam soup…’ Umm, it is delicious!
Who cares how we look?
Faster! Faster! Where is my other bowl?
Fish ball soup noodle finally came. Jean tried it first also. Now you know who was our taster in Phuket trip!
The best photo to show how much we loved the noodle soup, though it was only street food.
“Honey, stop snapping! Come on and try some of it! I’m going to finish it all!” OK OK. I’m coming…
(Click this link to see all photos of Phuket taken by me using my Nikon D60.)
This mobile noodle stall can be spotted along Rat-U-Thit Road opposite the Cristin Massage parlor and Patong Resort. Subscribe this travel blog to receive free updates of my travel stories around the world via email. Until then… – Travel Feeder, the ultimate travel photo blog
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Good news! Travel photo wallpaper calendar for June 2010 is now available here to download FREE! If you still haven’t got the April and May 2010 wallpaper calendar, Download it first. As usual, 2 sizes are available here: 1920 x 1080 px for Full HD wide screen LCD and 1280 x 1024 px for conventional [...]
This is a post what many travelers are missing out on! No introduction I think is needed for this place. Those who have been to Phuket and Patong Beach before must have also visited this travelers’ hot spot. For other travelers who are planning to visit Phuket, you must have also heard about these lively [...]
I’ve been taking it for granted as a Buddhist and Taoist all the while where I didn’t realise that many of the travelers out there are not. Since most of the Asian countries are Buddhist countries (Thailand, Vietnam,Cambodia, Laos or China), it would be great if travelers of different religion could understand a thing or [...]
My attention was caught along our way back to our Safari Beach resort by this lady in Thai costume. She was sitting along the Bangla Street at Patong and carving a melon with a short knife. You can see there were other fruits carving on display in front of her and lit up by a [...]
Do you fancy eating lobster? A lot of people do and all of those many seafood restaurants in Patong are selling lobster. There are 2 types of lobster displayed for patron’s selection: dead or alive! Dead lobsters are off course much cheaper. Another factor deciding the selling price is the restaurant. Some are selling dead [...]
What Patong Beach is first famous for? The beach off course! I’ve posted quite a number of Phuket travel stories so far but I still haven’t posted much things about the beach itself. This is it: The Patong Beach, the beach itself. We reached Phuket and Patong in the morning, had our first look at [...]
Still remember how we arrived at Phuket Island and reached our Safari Beach Resort at Patong Beach in early morning? (Read them first if you are not) At 11am, still a bit early for lunch but we were starving. So we looked for restaurant for our first lunch in Phuket. Our cab driver suggested we [...]
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