Phuket Villas

Miss judged the time it takes to get from the city of Bangkok to the airport and sat in the airport for 5 hours - domestic terminal - no duty free even - but found the bar, good job.

Our villa was waiting for us when we arrived and I had truly forgotten how beautiful this resort is, the bath was filled with still warm water (and it was 1 am) and topped with rose petals and orchids, nice touch.

My artist in residence husband and I luxuriated in the tub for an hour before falling into the best bed in the world, gee Mark and his team do it well here.

The Big Picture....A picture is worth a thousand words...

The adage "A picture is worth a thousand words" refers to the idea that a complex idea can be conveyed with just a single still image.From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

So more photos for you to enjoy!

The Big Picture

Well what a time we have had here at Anantara Hua Hin. As usual all of the staff are warm and welcoming and I have relished the time spent walking through the wonderful tropical gardens of the resort. When guests at the resorts ask me what my favourite resort is always say this one because of the gardens and the staff from the Land of Smiles.

Last week my artist in residence husband had a huge job, when he was asked by the GM to create a painting that reflected 'The Big Picture'. A painting that would mark the start of the year long celebrations for 10th anniversary of the resort group and this resort. He told me that he took his inspiration from the magnificent gardens of the resort here in Hua Hin, he defined what he saw in the big gardens as being an excellent way to start his big painting that he ultimately designed in a collaboration with Asaya Kongsiri, Head of Marketing and Design, Khomapastr Fabrics here at Hua Hin, using some of the wonderful printed fabric produced by Asaya, to produce a wonderful contribution to their 10 year anniversary celebrations here.

The GM added an interesting twist by introducing the idea of all of the invited guests to The Big Picture dinner participating by painting a panel of the painting, so my artist husband worked well into the night marking out the panels and the day of the event took art classes for all of the invited guests, all in all a very big undertaking, but also lots of fun. The art class was an amazing event in it's self, the GM had invited a group of writers and celebs, so the talent pool was just bubbling with inspiration. I had a wonderful time, working side by side my artist husband and we make a lot of friends very quickly, it was just awesome.

Then came the party and much excitement with the unveiling of the painting 'The Big Picture' and the announcement by the GM that the painting would be auctioned as part of the The Kings Elephant Polo event in September, so that was very worthwhile and we are all looking forward to reading all about that event.

The glamorous stars and celebs where so excited and posed for a myriad of photos and everyone was very happy with the painting. A great night of food from the great kitchens here and fine wines from Siam Winery, it was just great to see my husband's art on the 'Monsoon Valley Art Series' wine labels, on the wine bottles as well...all in all a wonderful event...surrounded by Christopher Hogan's macro-images and lots of people enjoying the experience and above all having a great time.

Monsoon Winery in the Hua Hin Hills

Late last year, my artist husband did a collaboration with Monsoon Wines and produced the much talked about Art Series wines. It was only recently that he and I decided, enough time to go visit this winery and sample some of their now famous wines, as Thailand's only winery we knew it would be special and we were not disappointed.

Organised a local car and driver, only 1200THB for the day and headed off into the hills. After a 45 min mostly dusty ride we arrived at the winery which sits like an oasis in the hills behind the beach resort of Hua Hin.

We were very impressed with the buildings and the vineyard, especially the troupe of elephants that take visitors of rides through the lines of vines. very special, next time if we can drag ourselves away from our glasses of crisp white wine and wonderful views down into the vineyard, we too may experience such a ride; but this time we were content to sit and ponder the array of little plates of treats that seemed to accompany each different wine we tasted. Hours of talking, eating and drinking ensured and before long the sun was starting to dip into the hills and we decided that we needed to go into the night markets in Hua Hin - it was our day off and we really enjoyed it. Now I can't stop recommending it to everyone I meet!

Hua Hin

The spa
Flowers everywhere here in the Land of Smiles


Some of my pics from around the resort here that I love. Anantara Hua Hin is a magnificent resort, the gardens and pools are beautiful and the traditional Thai architecture endearly romantic.

Over the past week or so there have been 3 weddings in the grounds and the flower displays they do here at the resort are unbelievable, you could just not get that amount of roses and orchids in Australia for your wedding, it would cost a bundle, but here everything is so affordable.

My artist husband has been busy with guest classes and planning and painting for "The Big Picture" event here at the resort. Should be interesting I will keep everyone posted. 80 panels in the painting and he will be doing a collaboration with a local print designer.

A few of my favourite things.....

been sometime since I blogged; things have been up and down, busy too with an planned trip back home for Christmas to visit the kids and grand kids and of course, my mum who turned 89 in December.

I had a wonderful time, lots of time to play with the little ones and take them out to the many new attractions in Brisbane at the MODA and State Library and on the Gold Coast to the new 'Rockpool' in the Broadwater park. All great things to do with young children and all free, what a bonus, no Dreamworld or Wet'Wild this trip.

We had a great evening out at Chill, a swish restaurant on Main Beach with my grown-up kids for my daughter's birthday party, all of us had a wonderful time. Those are some of the times that I miss being a wife in residence, so it was good to be back for a short while. I had time too to catch-up with good friends and time to sit and talk; mostly about my new life and what we were all planning for 2011. Great times, good friends and lots of good food and, mostly, NZ white wines.

Now I am back in Hua Hin with Christopher, while he does his second stint here as artist in residence. I arrived back on New Year's Day at 3am; so missed the festivities at the resort but had champers and cheers at 36,oooft on our BA flight on-route to BKK. Feeling at home here in the resort, we have the same room which makes it easy and today we are going out for lunch at Monsoon Winery, looking forward to that.