After taking our complimentary breakfast at Kantary Bay Phuket, my friends and I visited its nearby luxurious sister property, the Cape Panwa Hotel. This was also where an international conference was held, of which a handful of our travel-mates participated in.
Cape Panwa is just a few hundred meters away from Kantary Bay but we grabbed the free shuttle service, which looked similar to our jeepneys in Manila, that morning. This was after all the start of our Day 1 in Phuket. We are reserving our energies for the many adventures later on.
I remember too that this was a weekend trip that almost never happened. But thanks to my kind friends, I was able to join them literally at the last minute.
We were greeted with Cape Panwa Hotel’s elegant and inviting lobby as soon as we alighted from the shuttle. It exuded an understated elegance with its predominantly wood interiors. There were blue, white and brown fish decors swirling around its high ceiling which I think would probably look lovelier at night. Right around the corner was the main pool which was flanked by a few tall coconut trees on one side.
We continued walking down to the resort hotel’s exclusive beach front. It was beautiful, serene and thankfully devoid of way too colorful umbrellas. Even better was the fact that there were only a few of us in that tiny patch of paradise at that hour. No wonder why Lonely Planet describes this part of the island as ‘the last vestige of Phuket as it once was.’
Although the beach was very inviting that morning, EJ was the only one who took a dip. My friends and I were just content in watching a few cargo ships ply the Andaman Sea and the fluffy clouds that hover over them.
On our way up to the lobby, we ditched the stairs and tried the hotel’s charming tram instead. This also gave us a view of the lush greenery of the property.
I think somewhere in those greens are the exquisite Pool Villas and other high-end accommodations of Cape Panwa. This seclusion commands a certain price range which are well beyond the reach of earthlings like myself. But it was well within reach of course for famous celebrities such as Elizabeth Taylor, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Leonardo Di Caprio and many others. The latter is said to have stayed during the production of the film ‘The Beach’ back in 1999.
But one can very well imagine for free and that’s all I did until my friends and I we reached Sea Breeze, an open-air Thai restaurant along Soi Aonui. We took a quick lunch here before walking further back to our hotel.
Cape Panwa Hotel, Phuket
Website: http://www.capepanwa.com/
27, 27/2, Mu 8, Sakdidej Road, Cape Panwa, Phuket 83000, Thailand.
Tel:+66 0-7639-1123-5 | Fax: +66 0-7639-1177
E-mail: reservations@capepanwa.com
