Loi Krathong - the Festival

"Loi" means "to float" and a "Krathong" is a raft.

It usually takes place in November, on the full moon of the 12th month in traditional Thai calendar. this year (2010), it falls on the 21st of November. In this celebration, there will be many people floating the small rafts (Krathong) on a river or other body of water, such as canals, lakes and seas. The floating raft is one way to honor and pay respect to the goddess of water.

so last night was the festival night of this Loi Krathong. We went to Patong beach to be the witness of this yearly event.

We arrived in Patong at 19.00 hours, the street was fulled by people from both local and foreigner, and plus the Loi Krathong Parade was passing by the street.

The parade took about 15 minutes, luckily we were exactly in the end of the street, so we could clearly see it.

the giant Kratong from banana leaves with the kid or lady in traditional dress sat in the middle of it, the marching band, the traditional dance, the traditional-dress fashion show, were the main parts of this parade.

everybody was so excited, no exception :)

apart from that, you could find a totally different vibe of Bangla Road! the middle lot was filled by the rows of vendors, started from food, accessories, furnitures, even food massage. while, a stage for the band was also opened in the front side of this road.

shortly, it was a great combination of the modern nightlife and traditional night market in there.

You would find people gather in any beach in Phuket to celebrate the Loi Krathong Festival, not only in Patong Beach though. Kata, Kamala, or any beaches in town like the Saphan Hin (where the Loi Krathong Night Market took place).

as for Patong Beach, the Kratong sellers were over the street, the prices varied from 50 THB, 150 THB or will be more expensive, depend from their models.

this Kratong later will be floated to the beach.

also the flying lamp, fly it after you make your wish

by: Astrid

Loi Krathong - the Night Market

"Loi" means "to float" and a "Krathong" is a raft.

It usually takes place in November, on the full moon of the 12th month in traditional Thai calendar. this year (2010), it falls on the 21st of November. In this celebration, there will be many people floating the small rafts (Krathong) on a river or other body of water, such as canals, lakes and seas. The floating raft is one way to honor and pay respect to the goddess of water.

One of my friend also told me, there is also a belief that people may find their soulmate during this celebration. If your raft hit someone's raft when you are floating it on the water, he/ she will be your soulmate, it always be a romantic time for many couples in Thailand, she said :)

anyway, apart from that, Phuket town has its own "party", in Saphan Hin, you can find a huge night market near the roundabout. They sell a lot of stuffs in here, start from foods, fruits, jewelery, hose hold equipments, plants and even wooden furniture. They also have a stage with a lot of unique performances, and the game zone for kids.

you will be greeted by the big lotus from the main entrance :)

unique plants to be sold during the night market

the row of food vendors

When I told you the foods are unique, they really are unique (see below):

the performance

By: Astrid

a sunny journey in phuket

Last sunday was a perfect sunny day to hang out.

We decided to go to several places in Phuket, well, actually it was an unplanned trip, because i just got a call from my friend, and she invited me to go out together.

we met at 12:30, when the sun is exactly above your head. Lon mak mak (ref: very very hot), and we stopped for a lunch in Chao Fa East Road, a plate of delicious chicken PhadThai from a noodle restaurant there, "Pah Teaw VIP Noodle Restaurant (since 1943)".

you should not miss the great coffee stop either, just in front this noodle shop, owned by the friend of my friend. 40THB for a fresh ice espresso, and other coffee menus.

after a short chat in the coffee stop, we continued the Sunday's trip,

Chalong Temple!

Thai people believe the 1st place that need to be visited by the visitor for their 1st trip in Phuket is this temple. the believe says that it would give them the good luck.

well, it is quite late for us, since we have been here for almost 4 months and it was the 1st time we visited the Chalong temple.

But anyway, we were amazed by the beauty from inside and outside the temple.. superb!

next! the Chalong Pier ! another beautiful spot :)

a very short stop in the pier, then we moved to Promthep Cape. People said, it is the most beautiful spot, and yes! it is!!

the last stop of the day was in Phuket Old Town. we tried to find the Phuket museum there, but well, it was almost close. so, we decided not to go.

Phuket Old town has a elegant atmosphere, the style of Sino-Portuguese colors all the way there.

By: Astrid

The Beautiful Angle from Phuket

Hi..hi..hi..whatz up?

Here you are with Iyeck , I’m going to share my wonderful experiences in phuket Thailand to you.

What’s going on with Phuket …???

I have a lot of hobbies one of my hobbies is Photography, I like to take pictures of beaches, sunset, Peoples, old town and mountains. Here in phuket you guys will find many wonderful angles. The most important if u are really want to get the best view in phuket ,so you should know where’s nice and beautiful places, I got information about that from sites and Lonely Planet guide book, that’s what I do.

I took this Pictures on the Pier of Tavorn Beach Village Resort and spa.

That Pier one of my favorite place for me even evening time, because from front of the pier you can see beautiful ocean, on the right side u can see small hill with a villa on the top of it and on the left side u can see Patong beach, sometimes in the night many people celebrate the night with firework. So, what a beautiful pier it is.

I took this picture when the sun set was starting to go down in Kalim Beach

The sunset in Phuket is beautiful, one of the famous place for sunset view in Phuket is promthep cape view point, you need to drive in around 40 minutes from Patong beach.

Rawai is a 'working beach' and a launching point for day boat excursions out to Phuket's surrounding islands. Many boats available for hire line its shores, where you can arrange a trip to Coral island, Koh Lone or Racha Island,for fishingor snorkel trip. The beach is also used as a mooring point for the many fishermen who live in the area.

Phuket Town.

One of tourist destination in phuket is Phuket old town, because of the architectures is still in an old Asian style, even restaurant and bar, many tourist visit the old town because of the situation more quite than another places in phuket.

One of the old building in phuket town.

One of bar and café

Night situation in one of the roads in phuket old town, many Chinese living in this old town.

So far during my second training in Phuket island is amazing because many things I do in here than I like to learn culture in Thailand. They are totally different with Indonesia, one more thing that why I like to stay in here is the culinar, the taste of the foods are different. They made the food more spicy and delicious, hhmm..yuummi…

So what are you waiting for guys…?? Just visit Phuket and welcome to Thavorn. J

Old Town with beautiful lights

Created by: Rahmat "Iyeck" Hidayat (Indonesian Trainee)

The best place to joy the night in “Social Area” in Thavorn Grand Plaza

During our internship in Thavorn Grand Plaza hotel in marketing office, we start our work at 09.00hours and finish 18.00hours. And after that, we just looking to have some rest after work, just in our nice small room, but some of us go to swim on 10^th or 3^rd floor.

Around 19.00hours, after 1hour rest time, we usually go outside to find out some food for our dinner. We usually buy at street food behind the hotel. Many kinds of street food there, and for the price is not too expensive around 40 to hundreds THB.

After we finish our dinner, we go back to the hotel, but do not go back to our room yet. We always go to our best place in this hotel on 4^th floor. There is a “Social Area” where all of guest can meet with each other and relax with many facilities provided for guests.

We can enjoy free wi-fi in every area in this place and 4 Computers for free to use. Beside that, in this place are provide some board games & DVDs, books, and there is a cafe-bar. For every guest who wants to laundry their clothes in this hotel providing self service laundry, from washing until ironing, just insert 50THB (5 pcs coins of 10THB) to use the laundry machine, and if they want to drying they also can use drying machine and also with 50THB or just hanging on drying rail.

As the name of this place is “Social Area” so you are not just only enjoying all of the facilities there, but we also can socialize with every guest with cozy and friendly atmosphere, so we can make new friends here. Actually all of guest in here, they come from different countries. We can share with them about the cultural in every country, and for us as a trainee here, we can get a lot of knowledge and everything that we never know in other countries.

This place is the best area in this hotel. I never seen place like this with good atmosphere and meet with friendly peoples.

\\(^.^)//

~created by: Gi2h Pribadi (Indonesian trainee)~

Trip on weekend :) Nov, 2010

Wooooooooooowww…
Amazing Thailand, Amazing Phuket !!!

Trip on weekend :)

As we always get our day off once a week and it’s every on Sunday…

On Saturday night 6^th Nov 2010 it was nice weather in Phuket to go outside, and we decided to rent motorbikes nearby the Thavorn Grand Plaza Hotel, Phuket Town. As normal cost for rent motorbike is 200 Baht/day.


At 19.30 hours, directly we went to night market, local people named it Naka Market. It’s open on weekend only. In 15 minutes drive from the Thavorn Grand Plaza, *brummm ZzZzzzzz it was sounds from the motorbikes when we were parking there, at the time we had planned to buy some food for dinner. If you come to this market you could find clothes, souvenirs, etc and you should try kind of local food with original Thai taste.

Check it out guys…!! :D




On the next day, Sunday 7^th Nov 2010 we woke up late, we forgot that we had planned to go to other place in Phuket. Hahahahaiii.. :D

For the first our activity after we woke up late, we continued to find some food for our breakfast+lunch(brunch). We went to Expo Market, it’s not far from our hotel, we find some sunglasses then continued to find some foods, we decided to have our brunch time in Expo, ‘cos they also have some Food Courts there, we ordered some fried rice (in here they called Kao Phad), Phad Thai (looks like Kwe Tiew, but it’s thinner than Kwe Tiew).

After we finished our meals, we left that place to our next destination place in our “Sunday trip”. Time has shown at 13.30 hours, and we started our trip to Central Festival Phuket (shopping mall in Phuket Town). We visited to Homework (supermall for home utilities), we shown some exhibition there, then continued to Central Festival.

Less than 45 minutes we was walking around in this mall, we did window shopping there only… :D

The next destination is Karon beach, as we heard from online news that organizers of the Phuket Thailand Open have confirmed that final matches for the International beach volleyball event would be held on Karon Beach Sunday 7^th Nov 2010 at 15.00 hours.

We arrived to Karon beach around 15.15 hours, and we parked our motorbike near the beach. When we arrived to Karon, we thought the match was already played, but arrived on the good time when the match weren’t played yet.

We entered to see the match it was between USA vs. Italy, we found out good position to see the match, and we got it. We got good place from supporter seats, on that place we can see the match and also the beach on our left side. The weather on that time was very good, sunny with clear blue sky.

Before the match started we took some pictures, every site on supporter seats there almost filled full with all of hotel guest nearby the hotel along Karon beach such as guests of the Thavorn Palm Beach resort. All of them came to give some support for both of the teams. Then the match started, the announcer called both of the teams, and all of audience yelled when both of the teams entered to the beach volleyball yard. Some of us yelled to give support to Italy team, all of us so enjoyed that match. Around 16.00 hours, we decided to leave that match. We leave the match before that match finished, we continued to go to visit our friend in Thavorn Beach Village on Nakalay bay.


wait for the next story guys... :D

posted by ADAW