Saturday, November 11, 2006

Pearl of the Andaman

Phuket Island is nicknamed "The Pearl of the Andaman." Let me first of all clarify that Phuket is pronounced Poo-ket. And Andaman refers to the Andaman Sea, off the west coast of Thailand. This area was hit hard by the Tsunami but has recovered well. It was our vacation spot for three days with my parents.

We arrived Wednesday morning. By the afternoon we'd mustered up enough energy to go to the beach, then to the Dino Park Mini-golf which was probably the coolest mini-golf place I've ever been. Thursday morning we hopped on some elephants for a quick ride, attempted some market shopping in the afternoon (markets and kids don't mix), and finished our evening at The Green Man. This is a great English style restaurant and pub owned by a British expat and his Thai wife. It was fantastic, and he told us some fascinating stories about what it was like to be on Phuket when the tsunami hit.

Friday morning we intended to go to a waterfall, but we were informed that they were low on water. Instead, we hired a long boat to take us to Freedom Beach, just north of where we were staying (Katon Beach). We spent a beautiful two hours there exploring and looking for crabs. Megan, as you can see, had a great time being carried around by the waves. I'm always amazed at how clear the water can be in the tropics.

Erik and I made another quick run to the market in the afternoon, and then we watched our children grow wild with pent up energy through the rest of the afternoon as we just hung around our hotel until it was time to leave. The Andaman sunset was a perfect way to end our short stay.

2 comments:

Sherri said...

I love the Flicermap with the photo galleries. I so wish that we could travel enough to use it. I was talking to Jeff this morning about taking some time off from life to travel some. I told him he should sell his truck, pay my car off with the money, sell his boat, make x amount of house payments ahead of time, turn everything off, save his extra work money, somehow get away from work, and TRAVEL. Even if we just used the time to take the kids to as many states as possible here in America, it would be a real life lesson on Geography, Social Studies, Science, etc. It would be so fun, if we could build up our nerves to just do it and pull it off with his work!!
Wow, you are the first person that I told that to :)...and all because I love the map!!! Haha! Hey, if you don't take chances and just do things, then you are just living for the sake of living.
Love your Blog!

Sherri said...

Oh Gina...I meant to add something. Thanks for the note on my blog. As for my Science curriculum, I don't really use one. I pull up the school boards comprehensive curriculum for each child's grade level just as basis for what children at those ages should be learning. Then, I just take LOTS of different sources, including the internet, and pull from them. I get some of my ideas from books and some online. As Madison gets older, I will probably have to find a curriculum of some sort, but for now, this has worked wll for us :).
Thanks again for the note.