Phuket

As mentioned previously, Orsie and I decided to tag along with Trent on his trip to tropical Phuket for the iMedia conference and let's just say, it was gooood! Having never been to Thailand before, I was pretty taken with the very small part I saw. Everything I'd heard prior to the trip was true: genuinely friendly people, incredibly tasty and fresh food and relentless heat.

Orsie and I spent our days exploring the beautiful Indigo Pearl resort, the nearby Nai Yang beach (Andaman Sea) and the tiny beach side village which lay just outside the resort back gate. But for me it was all about the food. And boy, did I eat. Since Trent was in the conference all day for 3 days, I made it my business to graze my way through the room service menu which was full of really delicious local Thai food. Wonderful spicy flavours, steamed greens I'd never seen before and the best crab cakes I've EVER tasted. I was just thrilled to see that the menu was made up of local and traditional options not tailored to generic global tourism.

On that same track, I was surprised by the limited English spoken by all the hotel staff. To be honest, at first I found myself feeling irritated - it took several minutes sometimes to book a nanny or order a meal but after a day or so I realised that this was a good thing. How cool to really have to try and communicate with someone from somewhere else. I actually felt like I was travelling for a moment there! Rare in 2010 I think.