Phuket, our last week

Phuket, Thailand 02-04

After the largest amount of Blondie Mania we've encountered so far at KL airport where a family set upon Ellie, the daughter plaiting her hair, mother stroking her hand and the dad now and again tickling her chin before a photo session we go on our Malaysian Airways flight which apart from the turbulence, went quickly and efficiently. Doors closed and plane moving before the last passenger was sat down. We were fed, given wine and they returned all of our remaining suitcases, best service we've had in a while! We got to Baan Puri in Bang Tao which are the apartments we stayed in for the first two weeks of the trip, a few weeks ago we decided to rebook for our final week, the girls on reception were chuffed and said "oh you came back!" as soon as we walked through the door so that was pretty cool! We walked through the restaurant and saw Jason the owner and his sister in law, it was great to see familiar faces at a place we enjoyed so much. We've looked forward to coming back very much but obviously dreading it as it's our last week! Unfortunately the restaurant was closed (although we did sit down for ten minutes and the chef who was in the kitchen never thought to tell me until I went in to get her to take the order) so it meant we went up the road to the Riverside Restaurant which from the outside looks fairly u appealing but it's a great place to eat, good and cheap, very busy and very tasty. We ordered a couple of Mai Thais to go with the food and I can barely remember going to bed that night!

We've spent the next few days around the pool as planned, the weather has been better than expected which  is great and Ellie has made some friends to play with, a Russian girl who she got on with fantastically, her mum even cooked Ellie some lunch and gave me a packet of tiny dried fish you rip the heads off and chew the bodies (I was very polite and did this, so did the amazing Ellie! But then the packet was thrown) this was until her Russian buddies turned up (poor Ellie). Also, the lovely Maddi and her parents Lola and Matt from Singapore, it turns out her grandad lives in Callow End and will be moving to Malverm Link so hopefully we will be meeting up with them in December when they visit him. To prevent every meal time being a challenge to the kids and after a near miss with a very very hot meal which was prepared for them at a restaurant at our special request to dull it down, turning out to be the hottest dish sent to the table!  Jim cooked sausage beans and chips, they loved it, for us he did some corn on the cob with pork and Joey got his hands on the corn and he went for it! He loved it, wouldn't eat any of his own food after that! We finished the day with a night swim, it was a lovely way toned the day and the pool here is brilliant.

Saturday came along and we woke up to it pouring! It rained heavily at lunch time so we did the best we could, out came the play dough, stacking cups, Steve Irwin on You Tube, anything we could think of! Thanks fully it did stop, Ellie and Jim went for a swim and met up with Maddi, Joey napped and then we all met for a lovely chicken massamun for lunch... Yumyum! We managed to kill a pretty dull afternoon with a walk to the supermarket spotting a monitor lizard and a turtle in a lake on the way and then a bit more swimming. We sent Joey to bed with some ibruprofen as he was very hot and sat and watched qualifying, due to the time difference, race start is 10pm here! Joey woke at 5am burning up bless him, he was ever so upset and flustered,we put the air on on full blast and he started to cool a little. 

Joey made a triumphant effort at the start of the day although he definitely wasn't himself, we went to the pool and saw Lola and Matt with little Maddi and spent some time there. They kindly offered to take us to lunch with them to bliss, a beachfront restaurant with a park and their own pool which I jumped at but through the morning little grumpy Joey just couldn't pull himself together so we took him back and put him to the room for a rest up. After some time in the pool, Ellie and I went back to the room and Joey was really struggling again he could barely keep himself awake and was so so hot, 38degrees so we stayed in and got takeaway from downstairs and put Joey into our room for a sleep bracing ourselves for a crap night! Which it was!

Monday we wake up and again, he really seems to have picked up after a slightly slow start. We headed out for a walk, had some lunch, put Joey down for a nap whilst Ellie and I went to the pool, Jim had a nap. We met a lovely family who are British teachers in Bangkok here for a holiday with their daughters Evie and Eliza, Evie is about six months older than Ellie and they are very similar. We got called back up at five and Joey had turned when he woke up. His temperature had soared to 39 and he was just so sleepy / lathargic. The boy was really poorly, we looked up hospital details ready for a midnight dash. He was terrible all evening but not floppy and his temperature had dropped itself once so whilst we were very concerned, we knew he wasn't in a dangerous situation. We got takeaway pizza and stayed in again, we had a very long night with the poor bugger, he was very tearful. The temperature didn't drop until around 5am.

Tuesday he struggled to settle after the temperature stopped so I sat with him on the sofa and after a couple of hours every one was up and he was becoming a bit happier. we knew we needed to take him to the docs, it was at the Laguna retail area we'd been to first time that we were here, luckily reception got us an appointment which saved us an hour each way trip into phuket town. It is suspected to be a viral infection due to the temperature coming and going so not really any treatments, he just needs to ride it out! Obviously once we were there he was perfect! We had another Ellie fan club session involving photos with each of the staff, they tried to get her to put the peace sign up but she was saying "ok, I'll do three fingers on this hand and four on this" not really getting it! We spend the day taking shift work with Ellie, it's such a pity we can't all hang out at the pool for our last couple of days but we need him better. We stayed at the pool and split shifts between the two kids but did manage one last meal out at the riverside cafe, and downed a couple of their Mai Thais again (really... You'd think we'd learn!) then put the kids to bed and sat on the balcony feeling sad drinking beer.

Luckily, for our last night Joey slept through, although I don't think I would have heard him even though his cot has been moved into our room while he's ill! Our last morning has been a bit ouchy on the old head but although waking up with a mild temperature, Joey is a lot better. We took him for a stroll to the beach and a quick paddle before taking him home where he had a monster four hour sleep! We took various shifts packing and playing by the pool. Me and Ellie had lunch for two by the pool with her own lemonade, it was you but regretted not ordering a fried breaky and Ellie eats so slowly, I just wanted to eat hers up! When he did finally wake up we gave him lunch by the pool and spent a last hour there together. It was great as it had been five days since we'd all been able to hang out together, a great way to end. At 5, all packed up and sweating like idiots as we were all in jeans we got in the taxi and left Baan Puri for the last time (this trip, I'm sure we'll go back) and headed to the airport. We are so sad, but looking forward to seeing everyone very so much. 

The flights were all on time, no delays to add to the drama. Joey was terrible, especially on the second flight were a mildly psychotic looking man across the isle kept shaking his head and looking very angry, it was incredibly stressful and I was exhausted. I managed, maybe an hour at the most sleep for the 7 hour flight, 2 1/2 hour wait at Abu Dhabi and 7 1/2hour flight from Abu Dhabi to Manchester, the trip door to door took 25 hours. Ellie has been wonderful to travel well, she's at the age where she sits in a seat comfortably and is happy to watch movies and sleep, poor Joey, just learned to walk so has no interest in sitting! We landed in a very cold Manchester where John, Jim's dad picked us up in Maxine (our car) and made our way home, down the M6 and back to Worcester... Holiday over... 

Pictures
1 Joey and his corn 

2 our apartment

3 play dough 

4 tomato sauce in ellie's hair to get green chlorine out!

5 Ellie's green hair

6 on the way out to our last meal

7 Joey making cocktails

8 bye bye beach

9 arriving home in Manchester