Thailand is a new destination for both Deborah and I. First impressions are always so important for me when I arrive in a new city. So this might get a little wordy, I hope not. It was my first time traveling on Malaysian Airlines ever, even with the tens of thousands of airline miles over the years. That being said my thoughts still went back to those 239 poor souls on Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 that disappeared completely off radar on March 8, 2014 - almost two years ago to the day. A special note to the attendants on board - they're gorgeous - they're were all dressed in a very Malaysian type dress, something like a sarong but certainly a very nice touch.

Our B737-800 (1 of 56 in the fleet) arrived on time into the Phuket International Airport (without any issue whatsoever) which is located at the north end of Phuket Island. I had pre-arranged to have a driver dedicated to us for our 3-day stay. I even emailed him from Hong Kong before we left there and received his confirmation when we arrived in Kuala Lumpur that everything was on schedule for the afternoon pickup. Great. I haven't had much luck on our last three tour deals, in fact one of the guides actually issued a "Wanted Dead or Alive" poster because we missed his connection in Costa Rica.

Anyway, we arrived and went through Thai Immigration smoothly. We got through the throng of people at the front and we looked for the "sign", the sign that was supposed to say FORSTER - but nothing, I thought here it goes again. Up and down we walked the platform, lots of names, but no FORSTER. I spoke to a girl at a tour desk and asked to borrow her phone so that I could call Daj - sure enough he answered the phone and told me he was just running a little late.

Five minutes later up pulls a 9-passenger Toyota tour van that apparently will be at our beckon call for the stay - a little over kill I know, but you book these things online and bam - up pulls this huge b*****. Anyway, back to the sign - apparently, I had missed the sign that his girl was holding up - I guess I should have realized that "BOY" really meant "FORSTER" - anyway we hooked up and got underway for the one hour trip south to Novotel Hotel & Spa in Patong Bay. The price for the airport pickup was $800 Baht or just shy of $25US for this one-hour ride.

We're driving at 5:00ish p.m. on a Friday evening in Phuket. Insane is not the word. It's been quite some time since I've seen so many mopeds, scooters and motorcycles in one spot. Men, women, kids and going like a bat out of hell and we thought we came here to relax for a few days before going on to Singapore.

We checked into our room and then off to the hotel dining room for a Seafood Buffet Dinner. Great dinner, great view, great company. Tomorrow, we're back with Daj and will be spending the entire day running around the island to see as much as we can in two days. Thanks for tuning into my blog, the number of "reads" seems to rise every day so thanks for taking the time to follow us through Asia.