No doubt you remember what a great hotel we chose for Chiang Mai.  You might also remember my concern/hope that the next hotel would be up to the same high standards.. or at least someplace nice.

Our flight to Phuket was pleasant.  Thai Air runs a very nice operation, efficiently got everyone on board with no waiting around in the jetway.  This may have partially been because our plane (an Airbus A300-600 — a twin engine, twin aisle plane similar to a Boeing 767) was only about half full.  An uneventful two hours later has us in Phuket.

On arrival we ran into an interesting conundrum.. there was no “official” taxi service.  Odd.  And there were a half dozen or so purveyors of car and mini-bus services.  After a few minutes of research, we found that the prices varied only by about 50 Baht (about $1.65).  So we took one of two that offered the lowest rates, and followed their instructions to get to the car.

Once out the door, there was another taxi purveyor.. the official one.  My heart sunk thinking I was ripped off.  But that the front of a long line for taxis were the rates.. exactly what we paid.  And we had no line.  A few seconds later we got to the section where the car services depart from, and we were off in our decked out Camry.

50 minutes later the driver pulled into a nondescript looking hotel entryway, waved to the bellman, and said “Impiana.. you are here”.  I looked around.  This was not what I had seen in the pictures.  Despite it clearly being a nice hotel, we just were not close enough to the water for it to be our place.  Further inspection found the name of the hotel, and we insisted that he call our place to get directions (since he was resistant to taking them from us).

A few minutes later we arrived at the Impiana Private Villas.  There was only one small sign to direct you to the right place, which I decided was fine for a 12 room hotel.  First impressions were pretty nice.  Perched on a cliff overlooking the Adaman Sea, the views were breathtaking.  And we expected they would be just as nice in our room, which included an infinity pool and a completely unobstructed view.

And now, a brief interlude:  Janine and I figure that our Honeymoon is a once in a lifetime experience.  And while we might normally book a nice hotels, we decided we wanted to try to book some unique and special venues for the trip.  If we failed, no harm no fowl — it is impossible to know what you are getting, even with the TripAdvisor reviews.

We were directed into the lobby area which was very nice, although not as picturesque as the one at 137 Pillars House.  We filled out some paperwork and were given welcome towels and drinks.  Meanwhile, our bags were sent to our room.  It was all down hill from there.  In more way then one.

Our room was several flights of stairs down the cliff.  As we walked the indoor/outdoor hallways to get to the room, we started noticing some maintenance issues.  Water damage was apparent in a few places, and parts of the ceiling were removed for unknown reasons.  Whatever, as long as the room was nice, that would be fine.

Upon entering the door to the room, there was a mixture of odors — some of which I did not recognize.  Janine immediately knew what was up.  “This place smells like mold.”  Urg.. that’s not good.  As they are showing us around the room, Janine continued to look apprehensive.  And that made me nervous.

After we looked around, the issues were obvious.  There was water damage all over the place.  And the salt air had been doing a lot of damage (and maintenance was not being kept up).  The thing that concerned us was the mold.  We just did not want to take any chances with baby.

But the view was awesome, so we decided to ask if there was another room available, perhaps without mold.  The front desk staff was extremely helpful, although there were some problems getting our point across due to language differences.  And before long we were off to another room.

Along the way, we saw more of the same type of issues.  We arrived at the new room, and it did not have the same odors.  But it also did not have the air conditioning running.  Again they showed us around.  And again we took a moment to see if we were ready to settle in.  But we were left with more concerns.

The ceiling fan was covered in a combination of rust and dust.  And there were active ant trails in several places.  Insects are the norm out here, but active ant trails just shouldn’t be around — at least not in quantity. And then I noticed that there was a huge stream of water running from a crack in the neighbor’s pool.  Gallons per minute, just streaming overboard.

Ants!!

Rusty, Dusty Fan

Streaming Leak

Oh, and the view was not nearly as good from this villa.  But we could see across the beach to The Shore at Katathani.  We decided against booking it due to costs. But right now that was looking like the wrong decision.

So we decided to go for a nice walk to the other side of the beach…