So, we nipped over to Thailand for 10 days during the kid’s half term holiday. Nipped I say, because it takes 90 minutes on a plane to get to Phuket from here!
The week before our holiday, Ben had his residential trip with the year 7; they went to Tioman Island in Malaysia via bus and a 3 hour ferry. Once arrived on the island, the kids had to trek through the jungle 7km to get to their camp on the beach! Then followed 5 days of incredible activities such as snorkelling, kayaking, jetty jumping, camping, visiting turtle sanctuary, beach clean-up etc. Not bad for a school trip… if you are curious about where he was, check out this link.
Ben was happy, tired, dirty and smelly when I picked him up on the Friday afternoon. In fact, so tired that he left his passport and Singapore resident card on the bus…and I didn’t realise this until the bus had gone back to Malaysia. Thanks to a joint effort by his teachers they managed to track the documents down and have them couriered back to us at 5 in the morning the following day! Shaky start to a holiday!
Arriving in Phuket we rented a car at the airport and drove to our hotel, Sunwing Bangtao Beach. It’s only a 30 minute drive and we got to the hotel just before dark.
The hotel has a great location on a stunning long beach of fine sand. The water is warm and inviting and the views are amazing, just lush green jungly hills, turquoise sea dotted with long tail boats. Along the beach are a few hotels and restaurants where you can sit under colourful umbrellas with your feet in the sand and enjoy the best tiger prawns you could dream of. Perhaps a cocktail or two too!
We were incredibly lazy this holiday, didn’t do any real sightseeing. Gareth and Ben went on jet skis a couple of times and one day we rented a boat and went out to the nearby Rock Island to do some snorkelling.
The water around this little rocky island was incredibly clear and visibility was great. Beatrix refused to get out of the boat, she’s not much for adventure but luckily our skipper was a friendly chap and he kept her very entertained by luring schools of fish to the boat with some old bread. She did eventually climb down the ladder and put her head under water to have a proper look. It was so much fun swimming amongst these colourful stripy fish, they were nibbling at my bikini and and swimming right up to my goggles. We also saw massive starfish, different kinds of angel fish, parrot fish, seal faced puffer fish etc. Gorgeous corals, big tiger cowrie snails and crabs. A wonderful experience, I wish I could go snorkelling like that more often!
The weather was just perfect, it is rainy season but that doesn’t mean it rains non stop. We mostly had thunder and lightning roll in in the evening and giving us exciting displays to watch whilst having dinner. A heavy shower lasting 20 minutes and then it was over, refreshing the air and taking the temperature down a little. The one night we had decided to go to the Sunday market in old town Phuket it was unfortunately a total wipe out and we had to go back home. We had however already been to the old town a few days earlier in the day time so here are some pics from there:
Ben, singing to his fans… 
Now back in Singapore I’m already missing the lunches and dinners on the beach and sand between my toes. The kids miss the slide and coconut milkshakes by the pool! And, the ridiculously beautiful sunsets!
To get us out of the post holiday funk, the kids and I decided to do a little safari in our own neighbourhood yesterday. They don’t go back to school until Monday so we still have a few days to relax and do fun things at home. Here’s what we found on our bike ride:
We actually saw lots of Monitor Lizards but this one was the biggest. Just chilling under a bougainvillea enjoying the views of the city!
Today is Friday and we will soon head into town and have lunch with mr D, the kids are keen to see where he works (they know he works in the “Gotham Building”…hope they won’t be too disappointed when they realise there is no actual Batman there) and then we can explore the areas around Bugis and little India. So Long for now!
Dougbergs in Singapore 