We all flew in separately to Phuket on the 22nd.  We went to the beach for our first family dinner together.  Then in the morning we took the ferry over to the island of Koh Phi Phi for a restful week of beach, food, drink, diving, and the holidays.

 on the ferry

arrival on Koh Phi Phi

Our resort: PP Princess

A family that dives together…

The diving was truly spectacular: turtles, schools of barracuda and squids, black tip sharks, lobsters, lots of angel fish, puffer fish, box fish, and clown fish in sea anemones, sea stars and urchins, and huge schools of yellow snappers that engulfed us, and so much more.

And of course, the night life:

Christmas the PP Princess style

Nikki enjoying a final sunset on the beach.

And then we took the ferry back to Phuket to bring in the New Year.  We stayed on the 24th floor of a high rise with views of the beach.

New Year’s on the beach was one of the wildest, craziest experiences ever.  Thousands of people were floating up lit paper lanterns into the sky.  Others were setting off firecrackers.  This went on for hours both before and after midnight with, of course, a frenzied peak of craziness at the stroke.  It was like a crowd-sourced fireworks display (bordering on unsafe).  Pictures cannot come close to capturing it, but here’s an attempt.

 

The final day we rested on the beach before departing on the 2nd, the kids to their respective homes, and Eric and I on to Bangkok.