It has become almost an annual pilgrimage since my first visit in 2009, with only a break in 2011. I had wanted to post this right after I came back in April but only these few days I had only found time to sort out the photos I have taken over the past few months. No thanks to Ingress, in particular.

I almost had to cancel this trip because for the better part of the week before my flight, I was down with flu. It was particular bad two days before, when I was shivering in cold in spite of the warm weather. It would have been really sad if I had to cancel the trip, because I love Phuket and I would miss it dearly if I can’t go.

This time round I stayed again at the Woraburi Resort. There wasn’t much changes and the staff are still as friendly. What has changed, is that some of the staff can now speak Mandarin, perhaps as a reaction of the tourism industry in Phuket due to the number of mainland Chinese tourists flooding all parts of the world. Two of them attempted to speak to me in Mandarin even though they heard me conversing in English with my companions. When I told some friends of this, their reaction was horror, and even revulsion for being mistaken as mainlander Chinese. I have to say that Singapore appears to be the only place in the region that rejects the new reality of a resurgent China, even though we had no problem adapting to the influx of Japanese and Korean tourists in the past. For a predominantly Chinese place to reject Chinese, it has got to be another first for Singapore! The eradication of Chinese education in Singapore has been so successful that many Singaporean Chinese have become OCBC – Orang Cina Bukan Cina. Well done, PAP!

Anyway, rants aside. I had once again visited Phuket during the Songkran. The reason being that is the only time where I can play with water with abandon and not worry about getting soaking wet. While I would admit I hated being sprayed in the face and eyes with high-powered water guns, that doesn’t really happen very often anyway. It helps a great deal to get the stress and frustrations out of me as well.

I will end here and let the pictures speak for themselves. Unfortunately I ain’t very good at photography so I might not have captured the essence of what I saw very well. But I do hope it manages to bring out the beauty of the place so others may visit the place to experience it for themselves.