Padel Playing Foreigner

                                                                                                                  Earlier  in January  this year, I was fortunate enough to visit some of my team in Jakarta. I currently work at a startup where b usiness travel is a rare occurrence given how responsible you have to be with budgets, but if you plan ahead (and make sure to spend the company’s money as if it’s your own), it’s definitely achievable. Not only would this be my first trip to Jakarta, it would be the first time I was meeting my extended team in person. Needless to say, being able to see firsthand how things are run locally , seeing the team face to face, being able to have work (and non-work) conversations around the desks and spending time together outside of the office over a delicious meal was an invaluable experience. Outside of office hours, though - the team had commitments which meant most of my nights would be free, so instead of being cooped up in my hotel room all nigh

One of the benefits of living in Singapore, is it's proximity to all that Southeast Asia has to offer. You can hop on a plane and after a ~2 hour flight, you can find yourself in exotic destinations like Bali, Cambodia, Borneo, Vietnam and the OG of tropical destinations, Thailand.  I've been fortunate enough to have visited Thailand a number of times since 2006 when I first holidayed there, and to this day - it still offers so much in terms of it's beauty, things to do and delicious food! So when a close friend in Hong Kong suggested we meet in Thailand for a Padel weekend - I was all in! Thailand, like so many other countries in the last 2 years - has seen Padel explode and this has led to increased investment to build world class facilities to attract players. To this end,  I had heard of a mythical Padel Club that neighbored a water theme park in Bang Tao (a district in Phuket) so naturally - I was super keen to try it out! I'm of course referring to  Padel Phuket a