Phuket, Thailand - Part 1

Due to the timing of our flight, we started the holiday by driving to Shanghai on Friday afternoon.  Rowan started puking at about 2:30am.  Yes we were "those people" and headed out in the morning, undeterred.  He did well throughout the day, without incident after the late morning.  We arrived in Phuket in the late afternoon and headed out with Ro's new walkie talkies (Christmas present) to explore the grounds.  We were there with friends, who shall remain nameless in order to protect their identities.

This was the view from the hotel room.  Riley and Rowan slept in this little alcove.  Just on the other side of the trees was the Andaman Sea.

Rowan stayed in the room with mom while the other boys and I grabbed dinner with our friends.  Here's Ro settled in with a Jamie Oliver episode.  For some reason he started watching these cooking shows a month ago.  Strange.

A shot of one of the lagoons around the hotel.  We saw tons of wildlife from little lizards to snails to small (about 2 feet long) monitor lizards.

While swimming in the pool all day, we spotted this small guest and had to go over to check things out.

Dinner on night two was on the beach.  The food was great and you can see the view was even better.  To the left of Ro is a blowfish that I would guess could inflate to the size of a dodge ball.

Day two was a trip around Phi Phi island, where a Bond movie and the movie "The Beach" were filmed.  We stopped at about four of the islands.

Monkeys!  We got to throw bananas to them, but they were so aggressive that we didn't do it by hand.

Riley and I snorkeling in about 10 feet of water.  Riley spent about 3 hours in this position throughout the day.  Interesting discovery.

A hidden little town on one of the islands ended up being the site of lunch.

The limestone islands were spread all thoughout the area.

Looking like a 1982 Vidal Sassoon haircut book.  This is the fruit of spending the trips between islands on the very front of the boat.  Zohan would be proud.

Day 2 ended with a fire show at the hotel.  They do this nightly at the JW Marriott.  While not action packed, it was quite interesting and you can see the finale was pretty cool.

Day 3 - Cave exploring.  The limestone islands have tidal caves that run under them, opeing up into lagoons in some cases.

We boated around for a few hours, appreciating the beautiful formations formed by the water.

Mom and Riley "assuming the position".  Going through some of the caves was not for the feint of heart as they let air out of the canoes in order to clear the low ceilings.

On the other side of the caves were some massive and scenic lagoons that we paddled around.

Me and the other two.

One of the lagoons was full of mangrove trees.  The bottom was sandy, so we hopped out to play for a bit.

Back on the boat after dinner, we made kratongs.  These beautiful and ornate flower arrangements / boats are floated on the waterways of Thailand as an offering during the fall holiday, Loi Kratong.

Sunset on the water, enough said.