This was our first time in Thailand and we were not disappointed. The hotel staff were very efficient and things were off to a good start when the pre-arranged private car and driver were at the airport waiting for us. The hotel is about an hours drive north from Phuket airport.

We stayed in a poolside deluxe room and it was very nice indeed. We requested privacy when making the booking and whether it was a coincidence or not, there was nobody in the room next to us. The poolside, garden and lagoon rooms are independant chalets consisting of two independant rooms. Our room was very spacious with a large bathroom, efficient air con, TV with good selection of channels - my husband is Spanish and there was even a Spanish TV channel. The bathroom has an "outside" shower which is lovely but you need to keep the door closed because of the mosquitos. There are no more mosquitos here than in any other tropical place but by spraying ourselves liberally in anti mozzy stuff before going out we managed to get away with only a couple of bites.

The bed was large and very comfortable, we did not see the "please make up room" button until the last day and could not understand why they took so long to get around to cleaning our room ! The mini bar was stocked with 2 large bottles of water and two smaller bottles of water. The small bottles were complimentary and replaced every day, the larger bottles of water were charged for accordingly. I never did find out why there was a long list of other items on the minibar list such as coke, fanta, alcohol etc when there was only water in the fridge -perhaps you had to order it in advance, not sure. Decided to have a week without booze so did not bother to find out. I did use the bottled water to clean teeth with.

We opted to pay for the in room wifi, but the signal was so bad that I asked them to come and remove it. I then tried to use the free wifi in reception, but again, a very very slow connection so I gave up in the end.

We only had breakfast in the hotel, which was a sufficient buffet. Not the best I have seen, but more than sufficient. We spent most days on the "beach" of the hotel. This descripton is a bit misleading:- there is a small lawned area with palm trees which leads directly onto the beach, the sunbeds of the hotel and the shades are all on the lawned area, not actually on the beach. There are no sunbeds or shades on the beach and it was too hot to sit on the beach without a shade so you have to sit on the lawned area of the hotel - where there is less of a sea breeze and gets very hot. I thought that the service around the pool and beach area could have been much improved upon. We would have ordered many more drinks had a waiter been on hand. As it turns out, there was a Thai couple that came and sat on the beach just in front of the Mukdara and La Flora - the next door hotel - they sold the most divine peeled fresh fruit, spring rolls and small chicken or pork kebabs as well as having a small supply of bottled water, coke, fanta etc. 2 cokes from the hotel cost 129 baht and 2 cokes from the couple on the beach cost 55 baht. You do need to "bag" your sunbed quite early, en-route to the gym at 7.45am I would take the pool towels and reserve two sunbeds in the beach area - not a lover of doing this, but had no other choice if we wanted to be on the beach area. By 10am, all beds on beach area are reserved, unless its market day. Around the pool area is where the children tend to play and is therefore a bit noisier.

There are lots of restaurants within easy walking distance just outside the hotel, we did not have a bad meal in any of them, but we did go back several times to a shack like restaurant on the beach. As you go from the Mukdara down onto the beach, turn left and walk along beach passed la flora and I think 2 other hotels, then you come to a shack with tables and chairs outside, we ate the freshest seafood here and it was one of the few restaurants that listened when we asked for the food to not be too spicey. It was called Tonsons, but I don't think it had a sign up. Everything very casual, not too much english spoken but great food and we struggled to spend as much as 20 euros a night.

Just next to this restaurant there are a bank of thai massage beds, a thai massage cost 300 baht and all of the girls were great. We did not realise how cheap Khao Lak was until we arrived in Bangkok. The same thai massage in Bangkok started at 700 baht. The price of king prawns in Khao Lak was in region of 230 baht per kilo, in Bangkok they were 1950 baht per kilo ! Wine was quite expensive in all places, the cheapest bottles being in region of 30 euros (am used to paying 5 euros in spain).

We hired a moped for 4 days, it meant that we managed to go a bit further afield and was a bit of an adventure.

With the hotel we booked two tours. Elephant and rafting one morning and snorkelling around some of the Similan islands. Again, it was all very well organised. Personally I did not enjoy the elephants, the poor animals did not appear to be very well cared for and they literally just trudge around a small forest area in very muddy conditions and you can hear the traffic noise from the main road - not very nice but I suppose great for little kids. We took lots of mozzy spray with us. The rafting was quite lovely, you go down a peaceful river and the views of the surrounding forests are quite spectacular. Afterwards our driver took us to a monkey enclosure but we did not think it looked very nice so we requested that he continued to the hotel. We were then taken to a local restaurant near to the hotel and given a nice enough lunch.

The day trip to the Similan islands is OK too, you get to see 3 or 4 of the islands and you can snorkel and lay on beach. Lunch is also provided. There were about 20 passengers on our boat and unfortunately there are lots of other boats also with passengers, all doing the same thing, so its a bit "en masse" but I guess the only other way would be to hire a private boat.

There is quite a large market which is open at the weekends just a short walk from the hotel, interesting to see and lots of good things to eat.

I did not use the Spa in the hotel, but I did use one of the local beauticians, which was excellent. Walk out of Mukdara onto road, turn right, keep walking for about 10 minutes until you come to a beauticians with glass fronted shop and with white leather chairs lined down the right side and beds lined down the left side. I had a manicure, pedicure, footscrub, masages and fish massage. The levels of cleanliness and quality of work were fantastic.

For a first introduction to Thailand, Khao Lak was a good choice. I will definately return to Thailand but now I have seen Khao Lak I would prefer to go and see other areas.