Monday Montage: House Hunt Phuket

This week has been all about finding a house to rent here in Chalong, Phuket, Thailand. We have learned many things about renting in Thailand since our experiences in Hua Hin. For example, we made sure that the house has a water tank large enough to hold enough water to last at least a few days (or twelve). And we wanted the house to be in a location where we can walk to everything we need, it’s the city girl in me.  And we wanted to do it on our own. Our experience with a rental agency left a bad taste in our mouth and we ended up overpaying for our place in Hua Hin (or so we were told at least).

We rented a car for the past three days and went on the hunt for a house. We drove through the neighborhoods that appealed to us and just started calling the numbers on any house we saw with a for rent sign. I made many phone calls (I honestly thought I had forgotten how to actually make a call on my phone, this was a good reminder that I still can do so), looked through 6 or 7 houses and ended up finding an awesome place and signing the lease papers yesterday! We are moving into our three bedroom, 2 bathroom (hallelujah more than one bathroom!) beautifully furnished house on Saturday. It will be our home base as we travel more this year. More on that in my Wednesday post.

Here are the pictures from this past week. Thank you again for reading and following us here on And Three To Go.

This is how we found houses to look at to rent, just following the signs and calling

Driving around near Rawaii, Phuket

This is a gas pump, you could just pull up and fill up without the hassle of the gas station

We found a large second hand store that sells mostly things from hotels and restaurants that have closed down, but I found this among all the furniture, it was a bit creepy. I have no idea what it would be for.

The lights on Chalong Pier, Phuket

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Wednesday Write-Up: What’s Been Going On

I feel like I have written many posts about parts of what we have been doing, but not many on the normal stuff we are doing. I mentioned a little portion of it in my last post, but I decided that I wanted to catch up with you all today.  I am going to try my best to make sense as I currently have the stomach flu and a head cold (I guess I am getting my yearly sicknesses over in one fell swoop).

We have been in Phuket now for two weeks. We started our time here at a guesthouse just about a 10 minute walk from Karon Beach called Pineapple Guesthouse. Steve and Lek, who own and run the guesthouse, treated us wonderfully. They have a daughter who was 8 years old, but there were also a few other girls that hung out there that were nearer to Z’s age and would play with her every day. Z loved her pineapple house, as she called it. When our week there was up, we were sad to go, despite the fact that we were not very happy with the Karon Beach area.

Just to give you a little of my perspective on Karon beach (and the neighboring beach, Kata), it was far too touristy. The food and drinks were all very overpriced (900 baht, or $25 a person for a Thai food buffet… you have got to be kidding me!), which means a ton to me. I like to eat, as you all know, and I hated having to cut back on my eating. Also, the locals that worked there seemed a bit jaded and unhappy. On the plus side though, Kata and Karon beaches are absolutely beautiful and for 100 baht you could rent a chair with an umbrella and waste the day away.  I think a week vacation in Karon is fabulous, but I wouldn’t want to stay there long term.

This is Karon Beach. Gorgeous is not a good enough word to describe it.

This past week we have stayed at the Palm Garden Resort. The resort, which is 24 Thai style bungalows that surround a gorgeous pool, is much more fancy of a place than we normally stay in, but it has been such a treat. Not only is the resort great, but the day we moved in  so did another family, with another Zoe, who is one month younger than our Zoë. They became fast friends, it always makes my heart full to see Z so happy and playing.

Zoë and I have met a bunch of other moms and kids in the Chalong area and after hearing about how much they love living here, we decided to stay for a while longer.  So now we are looking for a place to rent short-long term, 3 to 6 months or so. We will see if it all works out.  But, before we can do anything else here, we have to do another visa run, this time to Singapore. I am quite excited to finally see the place that a couple of my favorite bloggers (Journey of the Fabulist and Kids “R” Simple) call home and write about. We are spending a little bit of time there so I will be writing a couple of posts about what we do there.  I am pretty excited about that. Oh, and we are finally trying out the part of airbnb.com where you actually rent a room in someones house. I am hoping and praying that it goes well, it is a little nerve-racking.

So those are the mundane, everyday things we have been doing in our travels in the past couple of weeks. If you want to know more about where we have been or what we have been doing, feel free to leave a comment. There are more exciting posts to come, so make sure to subscribe, follow, and share if you feel so inclined! Thanks friends!

Chalong Wat Chinese New Years Fair

There have been times during this adventure of ours that the timing has felt just right. I had this feeling again this past week as Zoë and I met a few expat ladies and their children at Chalong Wat in …