Phuket Unfiltered: A Luxury Resort Escape, a Chatty Taxi Driver, and an Unexpected Sales Pitch

I remembered the other day a trip to Phuket. It’s an island off Thailand, and after standardizing ourselves in Bangkok, the plan for Phuket was strictly high-grade R&R: fly in, grab a cab, park by the pool, grab a cab back, and fly home to London. Simple, peaceful, predictable.

So there I was in the back of the taxi, recovering from the flight and mentally queueing up a good book and some local food, while our driver took us through town, past the usual neon blur of bars, pickup spots, and restaurants.

Naturally, our driver decided now was the time to pitch us on the local nightlife and wrench us away from our luxury resort with its seven excellent restaurants.

I was letting his standard tourist pitch wash over me until one particular sentence snapped me back to full attention:

"You come into town, meet some local girls, and then wake up in the morning and realize they are not a girl."

He then magnanimously offered to set us up for the evening with these new “friends”. I have to admit, the sales pitch lacked punch; I was clearly not his Ideal Customer Persona (ICP).

When we pulled up to the resort, I handed over a tip while the concierge grabbed our bags. I casually turned to my friend and asked, "Did you catch his sales pitch?"

She’d completely missed it.

Needless to say, we skipped "downtown" entirely and decided to stick to the soft luxury of our resort instead.

Photo from Tripadvisor