It seems that no matter where I am in the world Christmas morning will always start in the same way; waking up ridiculously early and jumping on everyone else in the house to get them up too.
The boys had brought us out presents from home so we got started on our stockings right away. With Christmas songs playing and Santa hats on our heads it was almost beginning to feel a little like a traditional Christmas. Then we stepped outside into the blazing sunshine and went and had a thai green curry...
If it wasn't for the red sea of Santa hats along the beach, Christmas Day would have been very much like any other day on Phi Phi island. To make it special and as a Christmas present to us the boys hired a longtail boat for the day so we could explore the surrounding area. Firstly we stopped off at Maya Bay, the National Park where 'The Beach' was filmed. It's a little different to how it looks in the movie but is just as beautiful and it's pretty cool to think we were stood where Leonard Di Caprio once was. If I still wrote Christmas lists he'd definitely be at the top.
We were hoping to sail through the famous Pi Leh lagoon but the sea was too choppy so instead our driver took us to another more enclosed area where we could snorkel. We jumped, dived and back flipped off the boat into the bright blue water. It was so warm we could've swam in it for hours but we were soon joined by swarms of fish that chased us back onto the boat.
Finally we ended up on Monkey Island which is supposedly home to hundreds of primates but we didn't see a single one (I guess everyone deserves a day off at Christmas?) What we did find there though was a paradise beach with the whitest sand we've seen in Asia. Sadly we picked the only westerner in the world who can't use an iPhone to take our picture so we ended up with a video of his face rather than a photo of us on this beach. You'll just have to take our word for it though and believe that this sand looked genuinely good enough to eat (like Hagen Daas ice cream, according to Ross.)
After a mid afternoon pad thai we arrived back at the hotel in time to skype our friends and family as they opened their own stockings back home. I thought it would make me feel homesick but I found myself wishing they were out here instead. It's hard to want to be huddled around a fire when you're dangling your toes in a swimming pool - I do love my onesie but I love a bikini more!
As the family sat down to their Christmas lunch we were starting on our pre-drinks. We've had the best nights out at the beach bars here but they all seem to have blurred into one hazy memory, mostly starting with Fareed's alter ego Godfrey getting everyone on the drinking games and ending with Ross being an absolute mess. Somewhere in the middle there's vague recollections of brightly coloured buckets (some as drinks, some as hats), game-changer songs, Hana stealing strangers' clothing and me demanding pizza time. It's certainly been a Christmas to remember, if only I could remember more!
Merry Christmas everyone, we missed you this year <3
No comments:
Post a Comment