Phuket Thailand

The first week of October is the National Holiday. In 1949, the current government of China took control and this is the week they celebrate. Schools and offices are closed for the week and there are mass exodus' in and out of Shanghai.



We decided to go to Phuket, Thailand to spend the week at the beach. The travel agent failed to tell us that it was typical to have rain in Thailand in October! We had heavy rains for 3 days out of the 6 we spent there. It didn't really matter though, we all had fun still. We stayed at the Sheraton Grande Laguna. I wouldn't recommend it. The service was not that great and it was over priced. The pools were nice. It had a pool with a sandy shore that Alex loved to play in.

Every morning, we went to breakfast, and they had 2 elephants for all the kids to pet/ride. There was a mama elephant and a baby elephant. Our kids loved to feed them and pet them, but didn't want to ride them.

One day, we rented bikes and rode around the complex. There a few different resorts with many villa type houses. We stopped at the Banyan Tree resort. Too nice to take kids there! We stopped at a beach and jumped in waves. It was a lot of fun.

There was a strong undertow in the Andaman Sea at the beach where we were, so there was no swimming in the sea. There was a lot of wave jumping though. A couple times, Alex and Elizabeth were almost swept out to sea. Okay that is a little exageration, but they were big, strong waves.

Everywhere we walked around the resort, Elizabeth would see little girls with braids and beads in her hair. Soooo......introducing the next Bo Derek. It is almost one week later and she still has the braids in!

During the end of the trip, we made friends with a nice family who happen to live about 10 minutes from us and their oldest daughter is in kindergarten at Concordia. Luke, Missy, Lucy, and Allie Stevens are from Minnesota and just moved to Shanghai in July. Elizabeth had a ball playing with the girls and was sad that they had to leave one day before we did.

We didn't love Phuket, but I suppose the weather didn't help it. Probably if we went in February, we would have felt differently.

Enjoy the photos and videos!