Hi all,


We are travelling to Travelling to Phuket - Karon Beach and staying at the Swiss owned Movenpick Resort.
I have swept the web and got all sorts of different opinions, now it's to ask the crew in here, I know this time of year the beach has a nasty undercurrent and many tourists have drowned, other than that the island seems run by various mafia types like the jet ski hire pricks and the tuk tuk / taxi mafia, are they just going to rip me off a couple of hundred baht or kidnap my family(Wife a 5 yr old boy and a 12 month old baby girl)? Are there any other issues of real concern that I should be wary of, I have traveled and have street smarts, I am very observant and aware of my surroundings, not paranoid just aware and take notice of things.

We are staying it in a Swiss owned 5 star resort so I doubt I will have arseholes coming through windows and doing unspeakable things as what happened in Bali a couple of weeks ago. We have travel insurance and are travelling with friends.

Can we get Aptamil baby formula there and so on.

Any advise will be appreciated.

Regards Geoff

^^^ agree as above

went to phuket a fair few years ago, stayed at meridien just above Karon beach, hired motorbike etc but refused to hand over passport, passed over something else as said above, would take own baby formula, tuk tuks dirt cheap into patong for eating, negiogate price first or ask someone in hotel, u should not have a problem with security in a 5 star hotel, eating and drinks in small local restaraunts was about $20 aussie for a couple, hotels $100 so a fair difference in price and food was better in small places. Phuket town waste of time, u will just be taken to some relations shop or the major shopping centre which was poor, better shopping in patong, have a great trip
Edit
I think u need to get international drivers licence if u want to use motorbikes or cars, pretty easy, i hired a kawaski 1100cc roadstar harley lookalike thing and kept if for 3 days and saw most of the island, just dont crash or if u do u better get up quick and get out of there

I have travelled to Thailand more than 5 times and I have stayed at Karon twice and nearby once. The area and the beaches are safe. They have warning signs that the beaches are dangerous but they are not dangerous to people who can swim. The locals are helpful and we didn't get ripped off on the jetskis because we took pictures of the jetski before we took it out as proof there was no damage done by us.

I travelled around a lot by myself and felt very safe so you should be fine as a family. Negotiate the price of tuk Tuks before you get in. The movenpick is a really nice hotel to stay at in Karon!

Just got back a few day's ago, No problem with the local's, It's the knob head Russkis who are are complete and utter A---h---s.
We stayed up the hill in a new place called the Mandavara, oppisite the dried up lake, in Karon, hired a couple of scooters ($8.00 a
day) and rode down Kata way, good easy ride , top little beach side resturant called the seabreeze on the way to the lighthouse
down the bottom (aunty know's how to cook them prawns) and a little local resturant in Kata called Red Chair. We also did a scuba
dive up at the Samilian Island's, 1 1/2 hour to the dive shop, then 1 1/2 hours on fast boat to get to the dive boat but was well worth it, spent another week in Koh Samui but that's another story. So just keep away from the D--k h--d pork pie wearing Commie's and you shoud be fine.
p.s. the Airport in Phuket is ****e.