Hotel Booking with Agoda.com

Over the years since Jamie's Phuket started, I have looked at a number of online hotel booking sites, signed up for affiliate deals, seen the results, tried new sites... the original idea was to have several different booking options for the hotels reviewed here, giving people the opportunity to check rates at a bunch of different sites. Regular travelers will probably have their preferred booking site, I don't wish to try and change anyones mind about which is best, but I have to say that over the last few years the Agoda.com site has got neater, the hotel descriptions better, the booking process easier.

Having experimented quite a bit, there are just two hotel booking options on Jamie's Phuket - Agoda and LateStays. The latter is designed only for late bookings, no more than 28 days ahead and sometimes has the best rates. Agoda can also be used for late bookings, but of course also offers advance booking.

Agoda is part of a larger company that also included PrecisionReservations.com and PlanetHoliday.com - these both redirect now to Agoda.com. The brand name is getting well known especially around Asia, as Agoda is based in Singapore and Bangkok. The word "Agoda" you might expect to mean something in Chinese or Thai.. in fact it's just a result (according to the About Agoda page) of a phrase suggested by someone at Agoda "Agoda where I wanna go to!". The important part of the word being "GO"! For more about Agoda, check their FAQ.



Agoda offers a reward program. From your first booking you get reward points worth around 5% of the room price. You can use these points to reduce the price of the room you are booking, or you can let the points mount up after several bookings and use them to get even bigger savings, or even free rooms! You decide. A friend here in Phuket said he ended up with a free room on his last trip to Kuala Lumpur, having saved up his reward points. You can earn extra points by contributing a hotel review (good or bad!) after your stay. You should also check the special offers on offer.



The Agoda site is available in many languages, not just English - for example you can find Agoda in German, French, Japanese, Swedish, Thai .. and many more, reflecting the worldwide appeal of Agoda. Not just Thailand, not just Asia, but Worldwide. The site is very easy to use, easy to navigate, it's easy to find rates, easy to make bookings. I'd suggest checking Agoda for your trip to Phuket and Thailand.

Related Jamie's Phuket pages:

• My Phuket Hotel Recommendations
• LateStays.com - for Late Booking Deals

Wat Vichit Sangkaram (Phuket Town)

Yes! It's time for another temple! I do like to check out a temple now and then.. there are about 25 temples and shrines on this blog so far... so if you are a fan of religious architecture, or want to follow the temple trail, check my Phuket Temples section. There are Buddhist temples all over Phuket, mixed in with Chinese shrines and lots of mosques too.

Wat Vichit Sangkaram, also called Wat Kuan, can be found just to the Northeast of old Phuket Town, near the government offices, the court, the prison and Satree Phuket school. As with many temples around Phuket, there is very little on the internet about Wat Vichit Sangkaram. As of now, it's my weather blog that is No.1 in a Google search!.. I imagine this blog will be by tomorrow. All I can find is that the temple has been used for funerals of some important local people, and last year was the site of a ceremony paying respects to Her Royal Highness Princess Galyani Vadhana.



I forced a "temple stop" on the family some weeks ago. We had just eaten lunch at the Uptown restaurant which is nearby, and I could not resist the lure of an unblogged temple! So, I ran around and took a few photos. The temple grounds were being renovated, with backhoes and construction workers all around. Sure it will look better soon!







Naga (multiheaded snakes) guard the entrance to the temple. The Naga is a part of the Buddha story. You often see Naga images above the head of the Buddha. In the story, the Naga raised it's multiple heads to protect Buddha from the rain as he meditated.

 
(above) Naga outside Wat Vichit Sangkaram, and detail of one of the temple doors.

More temples to come. I think, if you are passing by, any local temple in Phuket is worth a look. The detail and decoration is often impressive. Much more to Phuket than beaches, you know!

Travelfish Guide to Phuket

Phuket, pearl of the Andaman Sea, with golden sands, beautiful smiles, blue skies... Phuket is blessed with powdery, palm-fringed white beaches, sparkling island-dotted seas ... delightful turn-of-the-century Sino-Portuguese architecture.. la la la. You know it's the same kind of poetry on almost every website, the same cliches, some of which are true in a way, but certainly there is the idea that Phuket is indeed perfect. I have to say this: I love living here, Phuket is great, but Phuket is not perfect. I hear this many times: "I was surprised by... (insert comment here)". Somewhere out in the mass of websites and guidebooks is the truth. I hope Jamie's Phuket paints a fair picture of Phuket, though as Lana points out - I don't write about the bits I don't like!

Back in August I did a quick review of the new Lonely Planet "Encounter" guide to Phuket, which is a nice little book, well researched, a good deal more up to date than your average LP guide book.. Lonely Planet "Shoestring" bearing backpackers walk past my office every other day looking for a guesthouse that closed 2 years ago. Sometimes they come in and ask and are AMAZED to find that the Bible is wrong!

So, I am happy to say that for under 5 US dollars you can buy a well researched, up to date, easy to use, recommended-by-Jamie guidebook for Phuket. Well, "book" is the wrong word. Actually you can buy a 37 page pdf file by making payment online and the "guidebook" can then be downloaded. And it's good. It knows things I don't know, it has reviews of guesthouses and hotels, it says this about Patong: "a seething mass of tourism, squalor and unrestricted development, a mess of hotels, bars, restaurants, travel agents, massage parlours, tailor shops and touts. Patong is everything that tourism in Thailand should not have become." Amen.

You see? This guidebook does not pull any punches! Compare to the No.1 website about Phuket, which says "With its wide variety of activities and nightlife, Patong is an ideal place to party and play.".. although admittedly Phuket.com does try to hint that Patong is not perfect... "the steaming hot streets, neon lights and chaotic atmosphere of Patong can be overwhelming for the new arrival".. yeh, still overwhelms me 9 years later!

So, where can you get a $4.95 Phuket guidebook? The website to look for is Travelfish.org, which has been silently growing into an internet giant. If you are looking for SE Asia information, Travelfish is a very good starting place. And the range of guidebooks includes Phuket, Phi Phi, Koh Tao, Koh Samet, and various guides in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Travelfish is certainly backpacker oriented - the accommodation recommendations are for lower budget travelers (Note to Travelfish - you should include Pineapple Guesthouse in Phuket!). The Phuket guide includes some general info, local transport info (local buses, not taxis - this is for backpackers!), and extended info on different beach areas and on Phuket Town. The information is tightly packed, no wasted space, ready to print. It may not suit the luxury traveler, but on the other hand, if you are looking for a very nice hotel and want to explore some of the real Phuket, this Travelfish Phuket guide is certainly worth 5 bucks!

Thanks to Stuart of Travelfish for sending me a copy to read. It's good, I say again. The price of a few beers for a guidebook? If you're coming to Phuket, you should head to Travelfish and download the Phuket guide.

• Travelfish Phuket Guide - Get it here!

At Work: Missing The Queen

We were very sad at work yesterday.  The Queen came to Borough High Street to open up the Royal British Legion and we had no idea she was right in our area!  Once we realised that the Queen was visiting, we rushed out of the building and were greeted with the sight of the police guard departing.

We went around the corner to check anyway but she was definitely gone.  How sad for us!  We did get to see a couple of dashing young chaps in uniform so it was all worth it!  I think I am going to start walking up and down Borough High Street again instead of taking my usual short cut through Kings College and Guy's Hospital.

Apologies for the photo quality - I took them using my mobile phone again.  Maybe I'll make a Spring resolution to carry around my camera in future.

Exams results

I passed all three exams with credit and am now the proud holder of a National General Certificate in Health and Safety.  "Credit" is not quite a distinction but it is a convincing pass.  [insert massive sigh of relief and big grin here]

More blog news

I promised when I started this blog that I wouldn't blog about blogging and now I am doing it twice in one week!  Nevertheless, I have some "Emm in London" news and need some feedback and so it has to be this way!

Layout
I have been wanting to switch to a three-column layout for a while and have finally rolled out my new layout. I tried to keep as much to my old theme as possible because I liked it. It's not perfect, but this layout is wider and it gives me more space and freedom in my sidebars. I couldn't use footer bars in my old layout and that is definitely a plus in this layout. The picture in the header is my own, which is much better than using a template but I think I might need to work on the header a little bit.

Importantly, this layout allows me to use the "more" tag. That means that if I have a very picture-heavy post, then I can write an excerpt and put the rest of the post behind a tag for people who have slow Internet connections or are on dial up.  Would that appeal to anyone?  I know Mike suggested once that I start a photo blog but to be honest, this kind of is my photo blog and the purpose of starting the blog was primarily to upload my photos and give a bit of a story behind them.  So I know I have some serious blogger friends out there - let me know your thoughts on "more" tags!

I am still trying to get the layout looking decent.  Please let me know any problems with my use of yellow or any problems with loading times or pictures not loading!

Followers
If you follow me on Twitter, you'll know that Blogger and I are no longer BFFs.  I follow a lot of blogs but in my defence, most of those blogs are photo blogs and I like to sit in bed and scroll through them on Google Reader and comment on the ones that catch my eye.  Well, with the recent following-debacle that I posted about two days ago, I realised that I was now following all of those blogs on an "anonymous" basis.  That means that if I was following you - you wouldn't know about it and most of us have noticed that our "following" numbers are right down.

Having been in the blogging game for 8 years now (been on Livejournal since 2001) I know how important it is to spread the love and "anonymous" just doesn't do that.  It looks like you need to click on every single blog you are following, edit the settings and after about 5 clicks, you can follow them publicly again. 

Thankfully, I found a bit of a work around:  I added all of those blogs to a category on Google Reader and then imported that entire category by clicking "add" in Blogger Home and selecting "import from Google Reader" and then "follow publicly".  What a mission but now I am spreading the love again and you should see me following you again!

I don't like the new "following" widget but  my whole layout looks funny to me right now so I am sure I'll get used to it all.

I'm sure I had something more to say.  Oh well... maybe that was it.  Going to central London tomorrow for movies and dinner with friends.  Hopefully I'll have something interesting to post about.  28 days until we go to South Africa!

Road Trip (North): York - Minster and surrounds

Part 1 - Churches

Alongside Cologne Cathedral, York Minster is the largest gothic cathedral in Northern Europe (some say it is the biggest).  While it is known that earlier versions of the Minster existed, there is no longer an archaeological evidence for these.  The building in its current form dates back to 1100 though, which is pretty old! 

York really was a festive little town and I loved the atmosphere in many of the places we visited on our road trip.  Many times in York, Warwick and Bath there was an air of festivity with live music and stalls and fun fairs.

This man was playing "Hallelujah" on his piano.  I couldn't really say whether it was the Leonard Cohen or Alexandra Burke version but seeing as I spent tons of money voting for Alex to win, I'll just say it was hers.

There was a memorial to those lost fighting the Anglo-Boer war in South Africa between 1899 and 1902.  Even though I am of English decent, I took a moment to remember the many Afrikaans people who perished both in the fighting and in the concentration camps too.  It is an often overlooked fact that the British invented concentration camps.

War memorials are very sad to me actually.  I think war is such a senseless thing and there is rarely a true right or wrong side, just thousands of needless casualties.

I'd better steer off the politics before I lose all of my readers!  (Or the ones Blogger and Google Connect did not drop, that is).

Right across the road from York Minster is another church, St Michael Le Belfry.

St Michael's is an Anglican church and was built between 1525 and 1537 during King Henry VIII's break with Rome.  How does one describe Henry's architecture in the way that we describe "Elizabethan", "Victorian" or "Georgian" styles?  This style is not my favourite, anyway.

On our way back into the town, we spotted this bridal party making their way into the York Minster.  Can you imagine getting married in such a place???  Hardly the outdoor, poolside, South African bush experience I had!  

They must have been freezing.  As it was, we were too cold to stick around and wait for the bride!!