10th - 15th September - Home stretch - Thailand

10th The flight was excellent. The steward came up to Catriona and advised they had been notified too late that she required a gluten free meal but tried very hard to find something she could have. The vegetarian Mousaka fit the bill so everything was good. In the morning they brought a vegetarian breakfast thinking it had worked for the dinner so breakfast would be the same. It was vegetarian sausages which are made with wheat! Anyway we ended up exchanging it for an omelette and David had an English breakfast. The landing was smooth and then we had our next challenge to find the left luggage and book in for our flight to Phuket. Everything went very smoothly until we realised we had left the sunscreen in our left baggage. We managed to purchase some from boots and then check in for our flight to Phuket, again with a few hours to spare. We found a little restaurant and read while we waited for our flight. The flight to Phuket was good and we had no trouble getting a taxi to our hostel in Phuket town. It did however stop along the way at a tour shop and they wanted to know what we were doing for the rest of our trip. Luckily we had all our accommodation for the rest of the trip booked. Everyone we told that we were staying at Phi Phi island village resort ans spa said "very nice hotel, very nice". So they left us alone and took us to our hostel.


11th We went out for breakfast and did some shopping and Catriona had a manicure and pedicure. We checked out and waited for our transfer to the island. The driver picked us up early so he took us up a mountain where we had an excellent view over Phuket. He took a photo of us at the viewpoint, he seemed to like the sky. He then took us to the pier via the office. The trip to Phi Phi was quite rough and took 1 ½ hours. Catriona had to go out on deck for some fresh air but managed the trip without being sick.
The ferry stopped to let 90% of the passengers off at. Tonsai bay , the main village on the island, then headed off to Phi Phi Island Village beach resort and spa. A speed boat met us at the ferry and took us to a big tractor/ bus
that then transported us to the shore. We were ushered in to the reception area and given our welcome drink.
We were then given our dinner and massage vouchers and shown to our bungalow
Very nice,

there were even flowers in the toilet.
We went for a walk around the resort to check out where things were. We had dinner at 7pm in the Marlin restaurant overlooking the water, during dinner it poured down with rain which made it difficult as we had opted for the fisherman’s village seafood BBQ buffet @ Bht 850 each and the eating area was separate from where the buffet was laid out. It was delicious but we ate too much so decided not to have the buffet again. After dinner we went for a romantic walk along the beach in the moon light then headed back to the bungalow. We ended up watching Jack the ripper with Johnny Depp and 9-11 staring Nicholas Cage. Apart from the rain during dinner it was a hot sunny day with little wind.

12th Woke to a beautiful sunny day, we slept in till 8am and were at breakfast by 9am. After breakfast Catriona had a complimentary hand/arm scrub then we set off for the beach. David picked up the snorkels and masks from the activities desk and we went snorkelling in the shallow water in front of the resort.
It was getting very hot and the tide was going out so we sat in the shade on the shore for a while reading
before moving to the pool. David took a few photos of Catriona in the spectacular pool
before having a swim himself. We sat round the pool for a while before heading back to the room for a shower and then lunch at around 2pm overlooking the beach. After lunch we headed back to the room for a siesta in air-conditioned comfort. We headed off for a 45 minute yoga lesson on the lawn by the pool at 5pm. It was a good workout and we were sweating like it was Bikram yoga. We had a green and a yellow vegetable curry and felt much better than last night. When we got back to our room the bed had been turned down and there was a little leaf on it which said sweet dreams.

13th We had the alarm set for 6.30am as we planned to walk to Tonsai bay after breakfast while it was still bearable. We made it to breakfast by 7am but after breakfast it was already very hot and we were tired so we headed back to the room to have a rest. While we were in the bungalow the wind came up and it started to rain so we were glad we had not gone for the walk and ended up watching Backdraft on the TV. It cleared up and was not too hot so we went for a walk to the viewpoint close to the resort, past a tsunami memorial
and up the hill. We had good views of the resort
and Lana bay.
We headed back to the resort via the tsunami evacuation route
and had lunch back in our bungalow and rested some more. A buggy came to collect us from the bungalow to take us to the Wana Spa for our massage, very civilised. First we were taken to a waiting area on the veranda overlooking tropical vegetation and the beach and were given cold towels and a cold herbal tea to drink. A lady came to collect us and we walked a little further up the hill to one of the bungalows where they had two massage tables set up side by side and a male therapist was waiting. We both enjoyed our 60 min. Ayothaya massage and the lady even braided the front of Catriona’s hair at the end before taking us back to the veranda and giving us a warm herbal tea and some watermelon. That night we had our 4 course romantic dinner on the beach.


We had our own waiter who waited close by to our table for the whole 2 hours it took us to get through the meal. The singers came over and sang “love me do” and the whole night was lovely. After dinner we took another walk along the beach to the pool and back to the room where we watched “Broken arrow” before going to sleep at around midnight.

14th Another 8am wake up but at breakfast by 8.30. We decided we should be able to make it to Tonsai bay this morning so after breakfast we set off. It was a hot and sweaty walk uphill
to the viewpoint and down and over to the village. We passed a few properties that were demolition sites 3 years after the tsunami.
There was also alot of construction going on. We walked around the village
and had lunch at a restaurant overlooking the bay. After lunch we did a little shopping and set off back to the resort. We had a shower and headed off to the pool where we had a drink at the swim up bar.


15th Had and early start as we had to get the 7.30am ferry back to Phuket. Mostly just a travel day. Ferry to Phuket, Mini van to the airport, 2.15pm plane to Bangkok and 5.45pm plane from Bangkok to Sydney. We had a good flight but there was a crying baby in the cabin that we could hear in the background through the earplugs.

16th Arrived in Sydney and were met at the airport by Chris, Catriona's Mum, David's Mum, Catriona's sister Megan and her two boys Ibrahim and Amadou. It was great to be back home.

18th Doing the final update to the blog at Sheldon's in Kirribilli