The Country That Keeps Calling Us Back

Thailand  |  Phuket  |  April 2014 + March 2015 (+ 2 additional visits noted) 

We have now been to Phuket four times. Four. That's not a number we've hit anywhere else on earth, and we've been to 31 countries. That's worth explaining.

It started in April 2014 with what were, at the time, the longest flights we'd ever taken to a destination: 13.5 hours to Beijing, a 2-hour layover, then another 6.5 hours to Phuket. Our flight had this feature on the seat display that showed the globe view of your route, which confirmed we were literally flying over the top of the Arctic Circle and halfway around the planet. The 3-minute Mandarin announcement followed by the 30-second English translation ("Ladies and gentlemen, the choice is beef and rice or chicken and rice") strongly implied we were missing something from those other two and a half minutes. We accepted the mystery and flew on.

We arrived in Phuket at 1:30 in the morning, cleared the enormous immigration line, and made it to the JW Marriott Mai Khao by 3:15am. They had fresh juice waiting and told us our room would be ready in an hour, which on no sleep after 22 hours of travel felt like the kindest thing anyone had ever said to us. We chose to wander the dimly lit resort grounds rather than sit in the business center, which was already the right decision. By the time we finally got into the room it was 5am. I set an alarm for 9am. We woke up at 10:20.

And that first morning on the beach told us everything we needed to know. The Indian Ocean is warm in a way that feels almost intentional, like it specifically decided to be welcoming. The waves are substantial and will absolutely take you off your feet if you don't pay attention, but once you figure out the bobbing technique you're completely fine. We ate Thai noodles for breakfast at the hotel and decided immediately that this was exactly the right choice, both the noodles and the destination.

Phuket has a quality that's hard to name but easy to feel. The pace of it. The people, who are warm without performing warmth, genuinely kind in a way that feels effortless. The food is extraordinary at every price point, from the resort restaurant to the roadside shack where the woman who owns it comes out speaking no English just to check if you're okay and you realize in that moment that "amazing" is the word you wish you knew in Thai. The beach. The way the whole place conspires to make you stop rushing. You understand very quickly why people return.

Matt's birthday dinner on that first trip was at the resort's Thai restaurant and set the bar for every Thai meal that followed. He ordered a crispy fried lobster in spicy chili sauce that was nothing like the cold-water lobster we know back home. Tender in a completely different way, with heat and brightness in the sauce that made the whole thing sing. I had a BBQ sea bass with turmeric and lemongrass that was beautiful. Dessert was mango sticky rice and banana fritters, both exceptional. Three waitresses balanced a birthday candle on the mango sticky rice and sang an extra verse of Happy Birthday, which meant Matt got his birthday embarrassment halfway around the world. Some things are universal.

We drove ourselves around on day two of the 2014 trip because Matt is legitimately fearless about driving in foreign countries (he once navigated a manual transmission out of Paris in heavy traffic, so Thailand's left-side driving was practically relaxing by comparison). We got completely lost trying to find what were supposedly major tourist attractions because nothing is well-signed and Apple Maps had opinions that turned out to be wrong. We drove down endless unmarked roads and doubled back more times than I'd like to admit, and we found everything eventually. The Buddhist temple Wat Bang Riang required me to purchase a cover-up top and pants for about three dollars because I hadn't thought ahead about dress code. Adding any layer of clothing in 90 degrees with 100% humidity is the kind of experience that makes you momentarily reconsider your life choices, but the temple was worth every sweaty second of it.

Lunch that day was at a roadside restaurant where we were the only non-Thais and where the food was home-cooked and extraordinary and cost nine dollars for two people including four beers. Nine dollars. The owner came out and just wanted to know if we were okay. We were more than okay. We were completely, ecstatically happy.

The monkey cave at Wat Tham Suwan Khuha was another navigational triumph, found eventually via a kilometer marker from a travel blog when Google Maps had given up on us. Hundreds of monkeys, which are simultaneously fascinating and make you feel like they're about to leap directly at your face. They don't. They just follow you, climb everywhere, and watch you with the particular intensity of an animal that has decided you're mildly interesting.

By the time we found a row of beachside shack restaurants on the drive home and Matt whipped the car over, we were ready for exactly what they served: whole fried fish, sand crabs, cold Chang beer, and a thunderstorm rolling in off the ocean while we sat in our little hut on the beach. This became our place. We went back multiple times. There is no better meal in the world than a whole fried fish on a beach in Thailand during a warm tropical storm when you have nowhere to be.

One year later we were back. The Marriott Beach Club this time, a sister property minutes from the JW, and Singapore Airlines, which has become our definitive favorite carrier for long haul travel. We arrived at 9am instead of 1am, cleared immigration in what felt like minutes, and had our room ready in twenty. I proudly said hello and thank you in Thai to the front desk staff, which I'd practiced. We took a small nap and walked along the beach to a local restaurant tucked between the resorts, ordered fried fish with three sauces, papaya salad, and Tom Ga soup, and sat looking at the Indian Ocean with a cold Chang in hand and felt the exact specific feeling of returning somewhere you love.

Something I want to say about Phuket and Thailand more broadly: everyone is happy here. That sounds simple and it isn't. You look around the pool or the beach and people are smiling, dancing, hugging, just thoroughly enjoying themselves. It's a genuinely diverse crowd, with Americans actually being the minority, which Matt and I both appreciate in a way that's hard to explain without sounding like we're apologizing for our countrymen. We're not. We just really enjoy being surrounded by families from all over the world. It brings a different energy than a Florida beach resort where, as Matt would say, we are there in droves.

Also the women here wear whatever they want on the beach, in every shape and age, with complete and total confidence. I find this deeply inspiring every single time. Matt suspects the rest of the world simply doesn't manufacture one-piece swimsuits. I think both things can be true.

We've returned twice more since 2015. Each time the pull is the same: the food, the people, the pace, the ocean that is the right temperature at the right time of year, and the sense that Thailand somehow resets something in us that the rest of life winds too tight. Four trips and we are not done. Not even close.