The Beachy Life

Happy Christmas!! 

Being away from family and in such a different climate, Christmas doesn't feel so much like Christmas. But we're getting along just swell nonetheless. They don't really celebrate Christmas here (it's predominantly Buddhist) so their really arent many Christmas decorations, and the ones you do see are usually quite tacky. It's been comical to say the least. 

For the first time of our trip, we have limited Internet/wi-fi access so I'll try to keep this on the shorter side.

Going back a few days to catch up...

I don't think we researched the island of Phuket enough before we got there. We'd heard that there are just tons of tourists but we didn't know much beyond that. We decided to stay in Patong on Phuket because there were tons of cheap places and it just seemed like the place to go. Turns out it has pretty much no character or authenticity to it. All it is is swarms of tourists flocking to the small-ish beach during the day and partying it up at night along with a million locals hassling you to buy things left and right. 

You literally can't walk more than 5 steps before getting questioned by a tailor to make you an "Armani" suit, a taxi driver, t-shirt seller, restaurateur, DVD pirater, you name it. They all want your business now.

Not really our scene... 

We got out of there as soon as we could and opted for Kamala Beach which was about 15 minutes North and it was a Goldilocks place for us... . It was just right! The beach was much more manageable, there weren't swarms of tourists (though there were a number of them) and there seemed to be more "real life" there. We stayed for a few days and enjoyed not doing too much. We have definitely reached the mellow part of our vacation. We've been doing a bunch of nothing - just relaxing.

After Kamala, we took a ferry to the Phi Phi Islands (Phi Phi Don specifically) - thanks to Danielle's recommendation! It has been total heaven. Kamala beach was nice but the sand and water weren't quite dream-esque (I'm certainly not complaining though!), but PP has been all that and more. Beautiful views, white sandy beaches, crisp clear water. 

Yesterday we went on a SCUBA/snorkel trip - SCUBA for David, snorkeling for me :) 

We saw a bunch of colorful fish and David also saw a sea turtle and a couple eels on his dives. 

We've come to realize we were quite spoiled with our snorkeling experience in Belize (for our honeymoon) when we saw what seemed like everything in the ocean. 

We'll be spending a few more days here on Phi Phi before making our trek up to Beijing for a few days. Sadly, the end of our vacation is in sight but there are many more moments to sit and do nothing before it ends!