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When I arrived in Phuket, Thailand for a family vacation I didn’t think it would involve being rushed to a secret location after being chased by immigration police at the behest of a local gangster named Raj… but then again, it was a holiday with my uncle so I shouldn’t have been surprised. More about that later. I arrived in Thailand excited to escape the chaos of The Big Apple – ‘the city that never sleeps’, Gotham City, the city of trapped ants running around square blocks in the monopoly game of capitalism. A game created by the universe – or Elon Musk’s simulation (whichever you believe), for shits and giggles. Phuket was beautiful! The air smelled of hibiscus and optimism. My mum and I dropped our luggage at my uncle’s holiday apartments – the site of our future fleeing. My aunt, cousin, and uncle had already been there for a few days. Thailand was filled with everything I had hoped for – beaches, massages, and stand up paddle boarding - the true reason anyone goes on vacation! The water at Bang Tao beach was a perfect 89 Fahrenheit. The beach was lined with restaurants and food stalls. The food was fresh and delicious! It made me realize what was amiss with Thai food outside of Thailand – you aren’t in Thailand! For the first time ever, I was getting the real deal! We quickly got into a routine of daily massages at the local massage place. While we were in deep tissue bliss, my uncle, as always, was doing business dealings. Something about the deed to the holiday apartments he was selling. Several encounters with a “business-man” who wanted to “buy” (i.e. forcibly take) the deed, a few skipped details later (getting the full story from my uncle is like trying to figure out what happened in the writers’ room of Lost), and we were rudely interrupted mid-massage. We were given strict instruction to “get back to the apartment immediately because we had to pack all our stuff and leave”. As we rushed back to the room I’m pretty sure we walked past the immigration police hounding the women at reception for information on my uncle’s whereabouts. It was wild! We smushed our belongings into our bags and hurried out of the apartment. We jumped in a black sedan. Yep, my uncle’s friend drove the most clichéd getaway vehicle. Well okay, 2nd to a white minivan. We sped to a lovely 4 star hotel in another part of Phuket. I’d tell you where, but then of course I’d have to kill you. My mind went back to a previous vacation when I jumped out of a plane in the morning and the Southern Hemisphere’s highest cable car in the afternoon. But the adrenaline induced by sky diving and bungee jumping in New Zealand came in a distant second to this. Once my uncle had checked us in under a fake name, we hung out in the luxurious lobby until our rooms were ready. This hotel was gorgeous! Lily pad water features by the pool, day beds in the lobby, and most importantly, a 5 star breakfast buffet. I love a good fugitive holiday upgrade. Meanwhile, my uncle rushed to the airport to return to Sydney and escape whatever fate Raj had in store for him. Once my heart rate had returned to it’s normal mildly amused rate, we had a fantastic rest of the trip. We went scuba diving, did a day trip to Pang Nga Bay and took selfies with lady boys in Bangla Road. It was almost as if we hadn’t nearly been thrown in a Thai prison. Our next stop: Sydney. And yep… the food poisoning we all unwittingly contracted at the end of our trip decided to show up on our respective flights back to Sydney. I always say, there’s nothing like having food poisoning in a metal cylinder you can’t escape from while Air China keeps charging you for bottles of water.