We spent 7 days in Phuket and it was bliss! My favourite thing about Phuket was the beach we stayed on, Kata Beach. I am not usually a beach bunny, but I really spent a lot of time reading, swimming, lounging, sleeping and eating on the beach! I can’t speak for other times of the year, but the weather was pleasant and the water was warm!

We did so much more in Phuket, including visiting nearby islands of which Phi Phi is most famous. We spent a day at a spa, ate in a different restaurant every night, met some elephants, snorkeled, shopped (of course), ate a lot of banana pancakes, explored various parts of the island and drank cocktails! I think that about covers it. I have never been more relaxed and spoilt in my life!

I hope to go back to Thailand one day to visit some of the other islands. My Thailand series has almost come to an end. My last post is a surprise and a way for me to say thank you for being such awesome supportive readers!

Have a great weekend,
Anthea

Following on with my Thailand series and straying from the theme of this blog, I present to you some of Thailand’s temples. We visited many, but here are pictures at The Temple of The Golden Buddha and Wat Pho which is the home of the Reclining Buddha. I knew these temples would be amazing so see, but I didn’t expect to be all, “Wow, wow, wow!”. That is literally what I said when I saw the 46m long Reclining Buddha. Also, to be in the presence of 1000 year old solid gold Buddha sure is something! Confession, I am quite a sucker for historical sites and artifacts (nerd alert).

I think that’s the most bling this blog has ever seen. Needless to say, if you’re in Thailand be sure visit the temples on your shopping breaks.

This outfit contains a dress, belt, bag and shoes all bought in Thailand. I was quite happy to find the shoes as I have been looking for a pair for a while as I mentioned here. I was told by the seller that the bag was handmade. I simply love the style and the fact that it is handmade makes it a bit more special. I couldn’t resist the cute print on the dress. You may have noticed that I don’t wear much prints, but this one caught my eye.

Hope the weekend was good. I spent most of mine indoors with the flu! I’m feeling better now, thank goodness.

I hope you haven’t gotten sick of Thai shopping yet because here comes one more post. I had to give The Chatuchak Market the glory it deserves.

Would I sound too dramatic if I said that this market was my favourite place on Earth? It is dramatic I know, but I really love this place! It is a gigantic market that seems to go on for forever. It’s conveniently divided into different sections where similar goods are sold. I liked the organisation. It’s not just random stalls scattered all over the place. The first section I walked into was a the vintage clothing section. It had vintage gem after gem! Finding good well-preserved vintage is usually like finding a needle in a haystack, but not at this place.

You can basically find anything at this market from the vintage dresses to dogs! The lovely thing about it is if you see a section selling goods you’re not interested in then you can just skip and move on. As usual you negotiate the price you pay.

That’s enough about me going on about markets, so I’ll leave you with the pictures we took:

I hope everyone had a fabulous week. Mine really flew past! Next in the Thailand series, A Thai outfit…

As I mentioned in the previous post, shopping in Thailand is fantastic! The goods are cheap and you have a say in how much you want to pay for them. I spent most of my time in Bangkok and some of my time in Phuket shopping and here’s where I shopped:

Platinum Fashion Mall
This mall has over 2000 shops! When I first walked into this mall my eyes literally popped out of my head! I spotted so many things that I could not find in SA. Oh the joy! This mall is more like a market inside a building than a traditional mall so there is some wiggle room with the prices.

Thai women are small and a size medium in South Africa is a large in Thai sizes. I never found anything in size large. If you’re a medium or above then buy the clothing that is one size fit all or free-size as the Thais call it. Lots of the clothing is elasticated, so there is a better chance that it will fit you. The rules are strict in this mall, no fitting on (clothing) and no returns. So, you need the skill of looking at an item and knowing whether it will fit you.The biggest shoe size available in women’s shoes is a size 6 (UK) and size 40 in Thai size. Many shops don’t stock size 40, but most do and sometimes it’s a small fit!

This mall stocks the most fashionable clothing out of all the places I shopped, by far! Think stripes, high waisted shorts, play suits, florals, nautical inspired everything, novelty prints, trousers, maxis and the list goes on. There is a whole floor dedicated to bags and accessories and if you can’t find what you’re looking for on that floor then you’re bound to find it on the other floors. I basically spotted almost every trend that is current. So, this is definitely a fashionista’s paradise.

Pratunam Market and Centre
This encompasses the centre and a hundreds of stalls in the Pratunam area. I was not impressed with the merchandise on sale here. There are some gems, but mostly the goods looked like the kind of “Made in China” stuff I’ve seen here in Cape Town. You can get human hair at a very cheap price though! So, if you’re looking for extensions then it’s the perfect place to find it. Other things you can find is souvenirs, T-shirts, bags (copies and no name brands), earrings, food and cheap shoes. The list of course does go on. This market is known for it’s very cheap prices.

Suan Lum Night Market

This market is in progress of shutting down and is moving somewhere else, but there were many stalls open when I visited. If you didn’t get enough shopping during the day then the Suan Lum Night market is a very nice place to continue where you left off. They do sell a bit of everything and if you’re looking for good clothing you’ll definitely find it here. As usual, you can negotiate on the price. I think the only thing special about this market is that it is open at night and has a good atmosphere. There are also lovely restaurants all around the market.

The Phuket Town Weekend Market

This market has similar goods to those in Bangkok. They did have some lovely fashionable clothing and vintage for sale. The best thing about this market is that most things were already very cheap. So, in most cases we could negotiate for an even cheaper price or just buy the goods as they were already at an insanely cheap price. There are also lots of good and cheap food for sale. I think this is basically the only place really worth shopping in Phuket. There are shops all around but I didn’t find their stock very inspiring. There are lots of copy bags and sunglasses if that’s what you’re interested in. The prices are high though but you can’t bring the sellers down to as much as 25% of the asking price.

MBK Center

This is a very popular mall containing both traditional mall shops and market-type stalls. We found that lots of the goods were already very cheap even though we were told that things are cheaper at the Pratunam markets. I don’t think the clothing is very appealing in this mall. Nothing eye-catching or very trendy was for sale. They do have bags galore and a lot of those bags are designer copies which are both synthetic and leather. There is a floor dedicated to electronics and IT goods. The electronics costs about the same as they do here. I saw Blackberrys and IPhones for very cheap…Dodgy! This mall had some good T-shirt stalls with very cheap prices. The traditional shops which weren’t too expensive also had sizes that I considered more normal like the sizes I could find in SA.

Central World Mall
I didn’t spend too much time here because I already fell in love with the markets. But if you wanna pop into Zara, Miss Selfridge and Forever 21 then they’re all there.

If you’re going to shop in Thailand then negotiate, negotiate, negotiate! Nothing in the markets in Thailand has a set price. I quickly learnt how to bargain and cut the asking prices dramatically. If you’re weary, then walking around and getting a feel for the prices of goods can help you before you buy. I generally followed two rules: know what you want to pay and be willing to walk away.

The cheapest dress I bought was R25($3.67), the most expensive was R80($11.75) and the same goes for shoes although I did splurge a bit and spent R160($23.50) on a stunning pair of wedges. So yes, very cheap and I made sure that what I bought was of a reasonable quality.

You may have noticed that I have not mentioned Thailand’s best market. That’s because I felt it deserved it’s own post. So, next in the Thailand series is The Chatuchak Market…