Family Holiday Week 1

So I have braved leaving Mum, Michelle and Claire in the hotel for an hour so I can come update my website probably for the penultimate time!!

So since almost passing out at the sight of awfully pasty coloured flesh that was covering their bodies on day 1... I decided some much needed sunbathing was in order! So that is pretty much what we have done for the first week. A day by the pool, a day at Patong Beach, a visit to a national park and the Gibbons, a day at Surin beach, a trip to Phi Phi via speedboat and another day at Patong Beach!

The hotel is pretty nice barring some annoying Germans who think it is hilarious to spend hours throwing a ball back and forth and splashing each other (and us)! The whole family have the combined IQ of a pencil sharperner and that is being generous!

Patong Beach is fairly busy but the sand is white and the sea is warm so cannot complain, we spent our first day there messing about in the sea as the waves were pretty decent and relaxing on our sun loungers! Unfortunatley Michelle who is more of a shade wordshipper than a sun wordshipper managed to get an attractive burn on chest and shoulders! So she was then bright white in some places and bright red in others!!! But everyone else managed okay and Claire has already started her "Ruin Mels Tan" mission by going as brown in two weeks as I have got in 5 months!! (who invited her!!!)

The Gibbon Rehabilliation place was cool, it was my second trip there so I felt a bit like a tour guide showing the other three where to go! We all wanted a Gibbon by the end of it! We also had a bit of a hike up to a waterfall that was fairly knackering in the heat but it was nice to do something other than sunbathe for a day!

The next day we went to a beach north of Patong called Surin on our taxi drivers advice, It was really nice, alot quieter than Patong and had some decent places to eat on the beach front. We all got a brilliant Thai Massage and me and michelle ended the day with an intense game of extreme frisbee!!!! Well it was just frisbee but extreme frisbee sounds better!

Phi Phi was an experience, we got a speedboat over and visited lots of places, Maya Bay where the Beach was filmed! Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Ley, Monkey Beach, Viking Cave and Khai Beach! All were great picture oppurtunites but were total tourist traps which was a shame! But I suppose when you are in Thailand you have to go over to Phi Phi and that is what every other tourist is thinking! The trip introduced Mum and Michelle to the wonders of snorkelling, Mum was slightly nervous about this but we were all very impressed with her for doing it - her elegant dismount from the boat - resulting in a big scratch under her bum and small amounts of blood was a highlight of the holiday for all!

And that brings me to yesterday where we got up late, decided to book a sea canoeing tour up to James Bond Island for next week and resigned ourselves to an afternoon at Patong Beach! It was a really hot day and not much breeze, I think the sun must have got to our heads as we seemed to purchase something off every single beach seller walking past (and there are alot of them) First off Mum brought 3 headbands which I am pretty sure she did not need, then we all got Henna Tattoos, then ice creams, then spring rolls, then some incredibly overpriced nuts! It was like we could not stop spending!!! Will have to fall back to our strict budget for next week!

Today we plan to go to Kata as they have two beaches which are apparently the best snorkelling in Phuket!

And thats it, I am not able to upload pics from this internet cafe as I cannot access the USB ports so I am going to try and find another one!

Will update again at the end of the holiday if we do not get eaten by sharks today or our sea canoes do not capsize at James Bond Island!

Having a wicked time, its great to see everyone and this time next week I will be back on English soil! I will not go into detail on how I feel about that and will just say I am looking forward to seeing anyone who is still reading this! and anyone who has got bored of my travel tales and stopped reading my journal a week in can piss off, I am not looking forward to seeing you and your the reason I left the UK in the first place!!!!!