We had a company trip few weeks back, to Phuket. It’s good to be out of Singapore once in awhile and we get to skip work so double yay. Accommodation was arranged for us and we stayed at Anantara Vacation Club, located at Mai Khao, northwest Phuket. It is about an hour’s drive away from the famous Patong so unless you have no wish to visit Patong, I really have no idea why people will come to Mai Khao which had absolutely nothing to do. Anantara Vacation Club has both apartment suites and bedroom pool villa so the bulk of us stayed at the suites. Accommodation was good, food was decent and service was awesome. I really have to give them credit for giving us good service for I admit we are a bunch of very. very. difficult. customers.

View from our room

I think I spent 1/3 of my time in the pool

How the suites look like from outside

The 2-bedroom apartment suite

We walked to the beach, which was empty and unoccupied

If we had a choice, we probably had stayed at Anantara Phuket Villa, which was opposite the Vacation Club. That place had an infinity pool bar and much more amenities to enjoy and also, nearer to the beach

Lunch was served shortly. We had room service mainly since there were like 30 of us and half the time we were just drinking, I mean chilling in the villa. And I have no qualms that you should just stick with local cuisine instead of western/pizzas. I mean seriously, it’s Thailand! We had lunch, dinner and breakfast at Anantara. It’s fortunate we were only there for 2D1N since we would probably have tried everything on the menu if we were gonna stay there any longer

Indian Samosa

Vietnamese Rice Rolls

Pad Thai

Nasi Goreng

Green Curry Chicken

Basil Pork

Hawaiian Pizza

We requested for BBQ dinner with cooking staffs at one of our pool villas which they did a good job setting everything up. The staffs were really attentive and constantly checked that we were enjoying ourselves

Our meat/seafood we ordered

And the cooked food area after they finished bbq-ing the food

Jasmine Rice & Corns on Cob

Seafood was good, chicken was decent, the pork & beef was a little tough. I guess it’s the cheap cut we took but oh wells, we had a budget to contain to =/

And a live desserts station

I think we had an overdose of Mango Sticky Rice in one day. Not kidding but we had this every meal, including tea break

Breakfast Buffet at Chaam Restaurant

I must say the breakfast was surprisingly good, especially the porridge and noodles

We finally got out of Anantara and headed to Sala Resort & Spa which was located about 10 minutes drive away. There was supposed to be a go-kart activity at Patong which was scrapped cos.. the owner was being such a meanie, and was absolutely rude to me. And cos it was a monopoly, we didn’t have other choices to choose from. So anyways, stepping in Sala is like stepping into a sanctuary. The place feels relaxed and much more cooler and it was just a very good place to chill the day away.

So different from Anantara

It felt like a resort in the wild

Ice Thai Milk Tea

Gosh, best Thai Milk Tea ever. They didn’t have this on the menu but specially made them for us and it was amazing. The sweetness was perfect. We had the same thing at Anantara and it was a disaster. haha

A variety of Tapas

Thai Red Curry

Thai Fish Cake

Maybe it was a case of the grass is always greener on the other side but, Sala resort is probably one I’ll recommend if you are looking for a resort to chill in Mai Khao. This place is just so pretty.

That concludes my 2D1N in Phuket, which was just non-stop eating. Well we visited Patong at night, where the ladyboys were an eye-opener.. like seriously not kidding. This was my 2nd time in Phuket and it felt as rushed as my first. haha I think I need a proper Phuket holiday. Anyone?