Our Second Week in Thailand – The Lantern Resort

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. Please read full disclosure for more information.

---

Hello from sunny Patong Beach!

Well, we finally had to leave the beautiful Diamond Cliff Resort, where we’d spent our first week in Patong, Phuket (if you didn’t read the post about our week at the Diamond Cliff, you can see it here). We did a pretty shoddy job packing our bags since we knew we’d be unpacking again in less than an hour, and ended up with more bags than we left home with! This is our version of backpacking, we call it taxi-packing! Because it’s too much to lug on our backs, so we end up taking a taxi. Maybe we should’ve gotten suitcases, after all.

Table of Contents

• The Lantern Resort
• Exploring Patong
• Bangla Road
• Food and Restaurants
• Cats and Dogs and Birds, oh my!
• Finding Out We’re Almost Homeless
• Date Day and Other Love Stuff

The Lantern Resort

We’re staying at a 4-star place this time, The Lantern Resort. It’s located right in Patong, across from the famous Bangla Road; maybe a 3-minute walk (we didn’t realize that when we booked). Like at the Diamond Cliff, we got a really good price for booking early.

Our first impression was great! The lobby looks hoity with a crystal chandelier, and they brought us a couple of glasses of fresh juice on arrival…yummy.

This time there’s no cliff to climb! We went up the elevator to our room, and honestly we weren’t overly impressed at first: the elevator and the hallway reeked of cigarette smoke, and it had the layout of any old hotel: a corridor lined with doors. Oh well.

Our room, however, was nice! It was very large and very clean (and smelled clean too)! Another really large, comfortable bed, lots of desk space, with a great big window/doors leading to our balcony. There’s also a really big bathroom with a soaking tub and a separate shower…we’re going to be so spoiled! There’s even a clothes hanger for outside to dry our clothes.

Our balcony is right over one of the 3 swimming pools, so that’s nice. The view though…we’ve been on the cliffs in the trees with an ocean view for a week. Here, we’re surrounded by buildings on 2 sides (mostly not open because of covid), and there’s an empty lot with piles of debris where buildings were removed to another side. But you can see a mountain between the buildings off in the distance! Guess that’s the “mountain view”.

The third pool is on the rooftop, which isn’t that great because you get a better view of the debris-ridden lots on 2 sides of us. But, of course, our hotel can’t help that. It’s just part of Patong. The pool itself is great! All the pools are extremely clean and well-maintained, and we enjoyed dipping in them every day. 

Maintenance-wise, however, the area around the pools needed some work. Nobody ever (in the week we were there) put out the lounge cushions; a couple of the chairs were broken; some of the awnings (for shade over the chairs) were broken, and they usually weren’t opened until we did it, and there were leaves everywhere; they weren’t swept. 

But Covid’s really hurt things here. You can see how the Lantern Resort was a great place; they just don’t have the staff to do what needs to be done right now, because there aren’t enough tourists. But the things that need taking care of, get taken care of…our rooms were cleaned daily and cleaned well (although we did run out of toilet paper twice). And after a couple of days, the reek of smoke disappeared – I don’t know how, but it did.

The staff are amazing! At breakfast, when they learned we were vegan, they offered to make us whatever was on that day, only vegan! And they did this every single morning …they’d bring us pancakes and fruit whether or not we requested it, and made us green curry, and massaman curry (which is awesome! I love it!) and stir-fried veggies! Not all on the same day, of course. 

So overall, we loved the people at the Lantern Resort, and our room, and how quiet it was (especially for being in the city). But we wouldn’t consider it a 4-star, and in our opinion it’s not quite worth the price they’re asking now, but it will be once business picks up again.

Exploring Patong

This was really our first time in this part of Patong (except for the Big C, which became a big part of our lives, as grocery stores do for us) so we spent a good bit of time exploring. We tried to get a bit of rhythm to our days so we felt like we were actually doing something instead of just playing! 

In the morning we’d usually get up around 6 and walk, often up the beach, and explore a bit on the way home (unless we worked out at the gym). Then breakfast (a big, big brekkie!) at the hotel, and back to the room for a bit. In the afternoons we tried not to go out in the sun too much, but sometimes we did; we’d generally dip in the pool/shower/nap/work/shop/eat supper/work more, but not always in the same order.

But that’s boring! What did we find on our explorations?!

Bangla Road

Well, we discovered Bangla Road rocks on the weekends! From just before sunset till we-don’t-know-when-because-we-go-home-early, you see people heading to Bangla. Very few couples, a fair few younger guys, a whole lot of older guys, and loads of Thai girls and Thai lady-boys in very short, very tight dresses with very high heels. 

They yell and call and try desperately to get you in the bars! There are some shops open too, but it’s mostly about partying.

Food and Restaurants

And, of course, there’s the food. 

We found delicious sorbet at Samero’s; the waitresses dress in French uniforms (we had *no* idea it was a restaurant at first!) and are incredibly sweet; they understood vegan, and offered samples of sorbets (all so good!) and told us the cones contained milk. So I got the strawberry (hard to choose over the mango) and Wayne got the incredibly tart but delicious lemon!

And we discovered the best fries ever! And I’m not saying that just because I’m in fry withdrawal 😉 I’m somewhat a fry connoisseur, and these fries are good, maybe not the *very* best I’ve ever tasted, but darn good. The perfect crispiness, the perfect level of cooked, the perfect amount of salt…yum! AND they had Heinz! Wayne loved them too 🙂

We also had Falafel wraps at Alshami’s Kebab. Another yummy! Pretty much directly across from our hotel. Now, I love falafels, but Wayne usually finds them dry, but even he agreed these are good. The only problem was that we love a fair bit of hummus and we like it “wet” and garlicy; they use a drier hummus than we prefer. But still a very, very good wrap!

We also visited our first two street food stalls! We ate some simply amazing Thai pancakes, which are basically sliced fruit fried in a dough wrapper. I chose banana and Wayne had mango. They’re as good as everyone says they are!

It’s fun to watch them being made, too.

We had some skewers for supper at a street vendor on Beach Road at night: broccoli and tofu and mushroom skewers, cooked on a grill. Obviously, they use the same grill as they cook the meat and fish on, and the broccoli really tasted like fish so I didn’t like it. Last time doing that, but we wanted to try it! And they’re only 10 B ($0.40) per skewer, so cheap.

And we had our first smoothie, a mango-pineapple-banana. They’re made from fresh fruit and ice, and are so cooling and refreshing and good! Now we understand why so many people drink them. 

Also, we started eating at home a bit more this week; we found things like ramen and noodle packs and hot cereals we could cook in our room with a kettle, so had a few lunches at home along with revisiting some of the restaurants we’ve been to and liked.

Speaking of restaurants, check out this one! Unfortunately, it’s closed. It’s actually 2 buildings chock full of these carvings, The Tiger Complex Hotel and Restaurant. No expense was spared to design these places! 

Right now, it’s all fenced in; there seems to be at least one person living in it (many Thais are homeless now, largely because of Covid; you see squatters in lots of abandoned buildings). It’s sad; we’re so incredibly fortunate, by any standards.

Cats and Dogs and Birds, oh my!

Even though many people don’t have enough, you still see them sharing with the local cats and dogs! The Tiger Restaurant always has a couple of containers of cat food and a bowl of water behind it’s fence, and there are many other spots you see bowls of food left out. We’ve seen people driving at night to feed the strays as well.

There are a *lot* of cats and dogs roaming, many with collars and bells, but many obviously stray. The strays tend to be cautious, but pretty much anyone perks up if you offer food; most seem to be accustomed to some people feeding them. The cats tend to be less wary than the dogs; I’m not sure if the dogs get yelled at? We’ve never seen it. Many have wounds, usually bites.

You can’t see it from these photos, but so many cats here have shortened crooked tails! At first, we thought they were broken, but it’s the vast majority of cats, so now we think it’s a dominant gene in the cat population. Weird!

Many people put out their uneaten rice for the pigeons as well:

One more thing we noticed (well, Wayne noticed!) is the wires! As he says, it’s an electrician’s nightmare! At least, you’d think it would be. There are masses of wires entangled with each other, looped, dangling almost to the ground…some are held up by makeshift poles because they’re drooping over roads. Also, check out the electricity poles…they’re made of concrete! Neat.

Finding Out We’re Almost Homeless

Wayne had prebooked another hotel through booking.com for after our week at the Lantern. We need to start paying less for accommodation. We didn’t mind paying more at first because we wanted to ease into this new country and lifestyle, but ultimately we want to live more in the community versus the vacation-type travel of 4 and 5-star hotels and resorts.

Anyway, around day 5 at the Lantern, we went to check out our “new” hotel we’d prebooked since it was only a short walk away.

It was closed. Seriously closed, not just “not open yet for the day”.

Whoops.

We actually handled it fairly well, though it did throw us for a loop! We wandered the area looking at “for rent” signs for around an hour, then went to supper. Then I found a guest house online I wanted us to go look at (not really trusting booking.com right now!) instead of calling them. So we wandered in the dusk and dark up some narrow, winding alleys until we came to the guest house, which was closed. A sweet massage girl who rented a room there offered to call the guest house manager, who gave her permission to give us the keys to the room to look at it.

So, Wayne and I walked up the 3 unlit flights of stairs in the dark, and along the narrow balcony to the room to check it out. I won’t go into details; the room was basic and would have worked, but we’d have to buy utensils and cooking stuff. Also, I was a bit turned off/made nervous by the damage done to the door and jamb where someone had obviously tried to break in.

Ugh. So we said goodbye to the sweet massage girl and walked back home in time for a Lifebook client call, then spent 2 more hours researching places to stay online.

The next morning we set off again to look at 3 places we’d liked online. The first was okay; my favourite part about it was this light fixture downstairs!

The second was the Delicious Hotel, and we fell in strong “like” with the place, the room and the owner, an adorable Thai woman named Pang. And bonus: there’s a pool! We paid a deposit then and there, and went home happy that we weren’t homeless!

As a side note, we decided to stay in Patong beach for a month rather than moving on because Covid seems to be rearing its ugly head in Chiang Mai, and it’s still a bit hot for us to want to go to Bangkok, which were the two places we’d like to see next. Also, there are a few more places we’d like to go before we leave Phuket island! We’ve already been on one local tour (post to come in the next few days. Keep an eye out: there are monkeys!)  and would like to arrange at least one more.

Date Day and Other Love Stuff

We also had our weekly date day. We’ve been together for 21 years now, married for just over 20, and we try to have a date day once a week. We have an amazing relationship, and things like daily rituals and weekly date days help keep it strong!

That same morning we had an online masterclass with Dr. Cheryl Fraser on Becoming Passion. I love Dr. Fraser and have been following her for months! She’s down-to-earth, relatable and a very good teacher. In this program, she talked about the 3 keys to Becoming Passion: Intimacy, Thrill and Sensuality, and how to keep or reignite them. We’d love to do her program but will hold off until next summer when (hopefully) she offers it again. We highly recommend you watch some of her stuff, even if you’re not in a relationship!

That night, we went to an amazing restaurant, the Tantra Indian Restaurant. Ohmygod, our new favourite! Everything was perfect…the ambiance, the scented candle, the service, the food! We’ve had a couple of Indian restaurants where we’ve loved some of the dishes, but have never been to one where every single dish was excellent. Even the spice level was perfect for us, just a hit with no cumulative heat that ends up making us sniffly!

We had 2 freshly made mango juices (which we slurped up without taking a picture lol), a plate FULL of pakoras, chana masala, aloo gobi, saffron rice, and 2 rotis. Holy yum.

So, that was our week! It was wonderful, hot, and we love it here! 

And this week, I only had one tiny breakdown, all by myself 🙂 I got a (bit) overwhelmed with learning a new app to organize our photos, but Wayne, the most awesome and amazing husband ever, offered to take over that for me. Yay! So now I don’t have to do any of that (he’s actually working on it right now, while I’m working on this post).

Oh! Before I forget, here’s this week’s sunset photo for you all 🙂 It’s so much less wavy and crashy now!

We hope that you’re all having a great week, and loving your lives!

Subscribe (box to the right) if you want to know when we’ve published a new post. Or just drop a Hello below in the comments!

Love to you all!